Scripture Daily

Context No. 539 of 4322 · 2 Samuel

Context · Reflection

2 Samuel 19:1-7: in context

1Joab was told, “Behold, the king weeps and mourns for Absalom.” 2The victory that day was turned into mourning among all the people, for the people heard it said that day, “The king grieves for his son.” 3The people sneaked into the city that day, as people who are ashamed steal away when they flee in battle. 4The king covered his face, and the king cried with a loud voice, “My son Absalom, Absalom, my son, my son!” 5Joab came into the house to the king, and said, “Today you have shamed the faces of all your servants who today have saved your life, and the lives of your sons and of your daughters, and the lives of your wives, and the lives of your concubines; 6in that you love those who hate you and hate those who love you. For you have declared today that princes and servants are nothing to you. For today I perceive that if Absalom had lived and we had all died today, then it would have pleased you well. 7Now therefore arise, go out and speak to comfort your servants; for I swear by the LORD, if you don’t go out, not a man will stay with you this night. That would be worse to you than all the evil that has happened to you from your youth until now.”

David's rebellious son Absalom has been killed, and David is undone by grief, weeping and crying out, my son Absalom, my son, my son, covering his face and refusing to be consoled. It is genuine and understandable sorrow; Absalom was his child. But that day David's army had just fought a battle to save the king's life and his whole household, and as word spreads that the king is mourning the son who tried to destroy him, their victory curdles into shame. The soldiers who risked everything for David slink back into the city like men ashamed of having run from a fight. And Joab, blunt as ever, comes in and says something hard that David needed to hear.

You have shamed today the faces of all your servants who saved your life, Joab tells him, by loving those who hate you and hating those who love you. You have made it clear that your officers and men mean nothing to you, that if Absalom were alive and all of us dead, you would be pleased. Get up, go out, and speak to the hearts of your servants, or by morning not a man will stay with you. It is a jarring thing to say to a grieving father, and Joab is not exactly gentle. But underneath the harshness is a real truth: David's grief, however justified, had become so total that it was neglecting and wounding the very people who loved and served him, the living who were still there and still needed him.

That is a delicate but searching point, because grief and preoccupation are not sins, and I would not want to say otherwise. Yet there are times when a private sorrow or an obsession with one difficult person can so consume me that I fail the faithful people right in front of me, the ones quietly loving and depending on me while I am turned entirely inward. Joab's word to David is sometimes the word I need: get up, and go out to those who love you. Is there a grief or a preoccupation I have let become so all-consuming that I am neglecting the faithful people who need me to show up for them?

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