Would God I Had Died for Thee
Absalom, the barefoot king on Olivet, and the stairs over the gate
The most beautiful man in Israel raised an army against his father, drove him out of Jerusalem barefoot and weeping, and was killed hanging by his hair from an oak while the father's last order to his generals was still in their ears: deal gently with the young man. What David said when the news came is the rawest sentence of grief in the Bible, and it was said by the king who had just won. This is the story of a father who would have died for a son who wanted him dead.
Two full years
It began with a crime David did not punish. His eldest son Amnon raped his half-sister Tamar, and "when king David heard of all these things, he was very wroth" (2 Samuel 13:21), and did nothing. So Tamar's full brother Absalom waited two years, and had Amnon killed at a feast, and fled. And David, who had lost one son to murder and one to exile, "mourned for his son every day" (13:37). Three years later Joab manoeuvres the king into bringing Absalom home, and David does it halfway: "Let him turn to his own house, and let him not see my face" (14:24). "So Absalom dwelt two full years in Jerusalem, and saw not the king's face" (14:28). Two full years in the same city as his father, forbidden the room. When they finally meet, "the king kissed Absalom" (14:33), and it was too late; the son had already decided what to do with a father who would not look at him.
Absalom stole the hearts
"Absalom rose up early, and stood beside the way of the gate" (15:2), and met every man coming to the king with a case, and told him his cause was just and nobody would hear it, and "Oh that I were made judge in the land" (15:4), and kissed him. Four years of it. "so Absalom stole the hearts of the men of Israel" (15:6). Then the trumpet in Hebron, and a messenger to David: "The hearts of the men of Israel are after Absalom" (15:13). And the man who had killed Goliath does not fight. "Arise, and let us flee… lest he overtake us suddenly, and bring evil upon us, and smite the city with the edge of the sword" (15:14). He leaves Jerusalem to spare Jerusalem. He will not have the city burned to keep his throne from his son.
"And David went up by the ascent of mount Olivet, and wept as he went up, and had his head covered, and he went barefoot" (15:30). The king of Israel, barefoot on the Mount of Olives, weeping, with his head covered, and everyone with him weeping too. He sends the ark back into the city with the priests, and says the thing that is the real hinge of his life: "if I shall find favour in the eyes of the LORD, he will bring me again… But if he thus say, I have no delight in thee; behold, here am I, let him do to me as seemeth good unto him" (15:25-26). Here am I. Let Him do what He will. This is the man Nathan found; he has known since then that the sword would not depart from his house, and he does not argue with it now. On the road a man named Shimei comes out throwing stones and cursing him, "thou bloody man," and David's men want him dead, and David says, "let him curse; for the LORD hath bidden him… my son, which came forth of my bowels, seeketh my life: how much more now may this Benjamite do it?" (16:11). My son seeks my life. What is a stranger's curse next to that.
He wrote a psalm on that road. "Lord, how are they increased that trouble me! many are they that rise up against me… But thou, O LORD, art a shield for me; my glory, and the lifter up of mine head… I laid me down and slept; I awaked; for the LORD sustained me" (Psalm 3:1-5). He slept. Barefoot, in the wilderness, with his son's army behind him, he slept.
Deal gently with the young man
The battle comes, and David's last word to his generals, in front of the whole army, is not about winning. "Deal gently for my sake with the young man, even with Absalom. And all the people heard when the king gave all the captains charge concerning Absalom" (18:5). The young man. Not the traitor. And in the forest, Absalom's mule runs under an oak, "and his head caught hold of the oak, and he was taken up between the heaven and the earth" (18:9). Hanging by the hair that Israel had admired, between heaven and earth, alive. And Joab, who heard the order, takes three darts and "thrust them through the heart of Absalom, while he was yet alive in the midst of the oak" (18:14).
Then the runners. David sitting between the gates, and the first messenger, who has good news and cannot bear to give the rest, and the king asks the only question he has: "Is the young man Absalom safe?" (18:29). The second runner arrives with the victory. And David asks again: "Is the young man Absalom safe?" (18:32). And he is told.
"And the king was much moved, and went up to the chamber over the gate, and wept: and as he went, thus he said, O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son!" (2 Samuel 18:33).
My son, five times in one sentence. Would God I had died for thee. He has just been given back his kingdom, and he climbs the stairs over the gate and weeps for the son who tried to take it and his life with it, and says he would have traded places. Joab is disgusted: "thou lovest thine enemies, and hatest thy friends… if Absalom had lived, and all we had died this day, then it had pleased thee well" (19:6). Joab is right about the facts. He has completely missed what he is looking at. Ambrose, preaching at his own brother's funeral, saw it:
“that same David, I say, who had not wept for the innocent infant, wept for the parricide when dead. For at the last, when he was wailing and mourning, he said, ‘O my son Absalom, my son Absalom! Who will grant me to die for thee!’”
St. Ambrose, On the Decease of His Brother Satyrus · 378Where this lands
Earlier in the story a wise woman from Tekoa had said something to David about God that he was about to prove with his own life: "neither doth God respect any person: yet doth he devise means, that his banished be not expelled from him" (2 Samuel 14:14). He devises means. David devised none for Absalom; he kissed him too late and let him go, and it cost him everything. But the thing David said on the stairs, would God I had died for thee, is the thing God did. "while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8). While we were Absalom. While we were at the gate stealing hearts, while we had raised the army, while we were hanging between heaven and earth by our own vanity. The Son of David went up a hill outside the same city, barefoot and weeping like His father before Him, and did not say "would God I had died for thee." He died.
And He wept over the same city Absalom stole: "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem… how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!" (Matthew 23:37). My son, my son. Ye would not. That is the grief of God over every rebel, and it is not the grief of a king who lost a war. He won the war. He went up the stairs anyway. Deal gently with the young man: the order still stands, and this time the Father did not delegate it. He came Himself.
Related: Thou Art the Man, The Word He Used Only Once, Suffering, and Adoption. Scripture from the King James Version, linked to BibleHub; the words of God are marked in gold, the words of Christ in purple.