2 Samuel 17:15-18:15

Would one of you gentlemen like to open us up with a word of prayer? Takers Thank you for allowing us to see another day

Holy Spirit intervention Lord, we would understand the message or that we would all

Empower needs to you in the interpretation that you know correctly, you know exactly what took place

You know exactly the motive and the intentions Lord in your purpose and mission So may we learn it from you?

All right I'm reading a very long passage. I'm gonna read where we left off last week at verse 15 of 17, and then

I'm reading all of chapter 18, and I'm trying to get through that today, so I'm gonna move a little quickly

Then who shy said to Zadok and Abiathar the priest this is what Ahithophel Counseled Absalom the elders of Israel, and this is what

I have counseled now therefore sin quickly and tell David saying do not spend the night in the fords of the wilderness, but By all means cross over or else the king and all the people who are with him will be destroyed now

Jonathan and Ahiames Were staying in in Rogel and the maidservant would go and tell them and they would go and tell

King David for they could Not be seen entering the city, but a lad did see them and told

Absalom So the two of them departed quickly came to the house of a man in Baharun or Baharim Who had well and who had a well in his courtyard and they went down into it and the woman took a covering and spread

Over the well's mouth and scattered grain on it so that nothing was known then Absalom servants came to the woman at the house and said where are

Ahimas and Jonathan Okey -doke I was like thought it was gonna start reading it for me.

I'm like man. This is awesome I don't know why it just popped up And he said and he said where is

Ahimas and Jonathan and the woman said to them They have crossed over the brook of water

And they stretched and they searched and could not find them and returned to Jerusalem and it came about They had departed that when they had departed that they came up out of the well and went and told

King David and they said to David arise cross over The water quickly for thus

Ahithophel has counseled against you and David and all the people who were With him arose and crossed over the

Jordan by the dawn not even one remained who had not crossed the Jordan Now when

Ahithophel saw that his counsel was not followed he saddled his donkey he arose He went to his home to his city.

He set his house in order and It's mine says it strangled himself. He's hung himself

Thus he died and was buried in the grave of his father and David came to my

Mahanim and Absalom crossed the Jordan he and all of his men and all the men of Israel with him and Absalom set a

Mesa over the army in the place of Joab now Mesa was a son of a man whose

Name was Ithra the Israelite who went into Abigail the daughter of Nahash the sister of Zeriah Joab's mother and Israel and Absalom Camped in the land of Gilead now when

David had come to Mahanim Shovee the son of Nahash from Rabah the son of Ammon and Mekar the son of Abiel From Lodabar and Barzilla the

Gileadite from Rogolin brought beds Basins, pottery, wheat, barley, flour, parched grain, beans, lentils, parched seeds, honey, curds sheep and cheese of the herd for David and for the people who were with him to eat for they said the people will grow weary and Hungry and thirsty while they're in the wilderness

And then David numbered the people who were with him and set over them commanders of thousands and commanders of hundreds

David sent the people out One -third under the command of Joab one -third under the command of Abishai the sons of Zeriah and Joab's brother and One -third under the command of Ittai the

Gittite and the king said to the people I myself will surely go out with you but the people said you shall not go out with us for if we indeed flee they would not care about us even if Half of us were to die they would not care about us, but you are worth ten thousand of us

Therefore now it is better for you to stay in the city and the king said to them whatever seems best to you

I will do So the king stood beside the gate and all the people went out hundreds and thousands and the

King charged Joab and Abishai saying to Ittai you deal gently for my sake for my young man son

Absalom and all the people heard when the king charged all the Commanders concerning Absalom and the people went out into the field

Against Israel and the battle took place in the forest of Ephraim and the people of Israel were defeated

There before the servants of David and the slaughter that was there was great It was twenty thousand men for the battle

There was spread out over the whole country and the forest devoured more people that day than the sword did

Now Absalom came it came about that Absalom Happened to meet the servants of David To Absalom was riding on his mule and the mule went up under a thick branch of A thick place of branches and a great oak and his head

Was caught fast in the oak So he went and left hanging there between the heaven and earth and while the mule

Went on riding about from under him and when a certain man saw it he told

Joab He said behold I saw Absalom. He was hanging in the oak and Joab said to him

Now behold you saw him why then did you not strike him to the ground and I would have given you ten pieces of silver and a belt and the man said to Joab even if If I should receive a thousand pieces of silver in my hand

I would not put out my hand against the king's son For in our hearing the king charged you and Abishai and Ittai saying protect for my

Protect for me the young man Absalom And otherwise

If I would have helped treacherously with my own life and there is nothing hidden from the king then you yourself would have stood aloof

Then Joab said I will not waste my time here with you. So he took three spears in his hand

He thrust them through the heart of Absalom while he was yet alive in the midst of the oak hanging from the oak and ten young men

Who were carried with Joab's? Ten young men who carried Joab's armor gathered around and they struck

Absalom and killed him Then Joab blew the trumpet and the people returned from pursuing Israel for Joab restrained the people

They took Absalom cast him into a deep pit in the forest and erected over him a great heap of stones and all

Israel fled Each to his tent now Absalom in his lifetime Had taken and set up for himself a pillar which was in the king's valley for he said

I have no son to preserve my name So he named the pillar after his own name and it is called

Absalom's monument to this day Then Ahimaaz the son of Zadok said please let me run and bring

The king the news that the Lord has freed him from the hand of his enemy, but Joab said you are not

The man to carry this news this day, but you shall carry this news another day However, you shall carry no news today because the king's son is dead

Then Joab said to the Cushite Go tell the king what you have seen so the

Cushite bowed to Joab and he ran now Ahimaaz the son of Zadok Said once more to Joab, but whatever happens, please let me also run after the

Cushite and Joab said Why would you run my son since you will have no reward for going but whatever happens

He said I will run so he said to him run then Ahimaaz ran By way of the plain and passed up the

Cushite now David was sitting between the two gates and the watchman Went up to the roof by the gate of the wall and he raised his eyes and he looked and behold a man was running

By himself the watchman called the and told the king the king said if he is by himself

There is good news in his mouth and he came near and near then a watchman saw another man running and a watchman called to the gate

Keeper and said behold another man is running by himself as well. And the king said this one also is bringing good news the watchman said

I Think the the running of the first one is the running like Ahimaaz the son of Zadok and the king said this is this

Is a good man and he comes with good news and Ahimaaz called and he said to the king all is well

And he prostrated himself before the king And his face to the ground and he said blessed is the

Lord your God who has delivered of the men Who lifted up their hands against my lord?

And then the king said it is well with the young man Absalom and Is it well with the young man

Absalom and Ahimaaz answered and when Joab sent to the king's servant your servant

Your servant came and I saw a great tumult, but I did not know what it was

Then the king said turn aside and stand here So he turned aside and he stood still and behold the

Cushite Arrived and the Cushite said let my lord the king receive good news for the

Lord has freed you this day We're in the hand of all those who rose up against you and then the king said to the

Cushite Is it well with the young man Absalom and the Cushite answered? Let the enemies of my lord the king and all who rise up against you for evil

Be as this young man, and then the king deeply moved and went Thank you for his faithfulness to bring your word even in the midst of him

Be a personal sorry And pray that you give him strength even to judge him Let him rest in you

I love you father I'm so sorry I'm so sorry

I love you There's nothing to be sorry about Not at all I've prayed that prayer twice

I'm so sorry You're good man So back at 15 and 17 where the

Cushite had said to Zadok and to Abiathar the priest Remember Zadok and Abiathar the priest were actually

David had sent them back into the city To basically hear what was to be said and to bring him word

So he sends them back If you remember Ahithophel's counsel was against David that David would be killed in the plains

And Ahithophel's counsel against David If you remember what Hushai Remember what the

Archite Hushai the Archite came And he basically was doing what David's prayer was

Was that he would thwart the plans So that is exactly what's happening

David and his men In verse 16 it says Do not spend the night in the fords of the wilderness

But by all means cross over Or else the king and the people will be destroyed

And Jonathan and Ahimez were staying in Rogel In a maidservant

So here it is They tell them what's taking place David's going to cross Remember we mentioned

I think it was last week Once David crosses the Jordan Remember when they crossed the

Jordan That was considered the promised land So David is actually now Exiled Is how

I understand that And um Now that he is basically exiled

And he's going to go To Mahanim And if you remember what Mahanim was

That's the place where Ishbosheth Had set up his home base Well let me back that up Where Adner had propped up Ishbosheth To go against David So that's where David goes

Now as he goes there They um It says that they could not enter a city

So there was a lad That would come and go Or a woman that would give them

Intel basically A lad saw them And he told Absalom So this is how this whole scenario

Of them crossing the Jordan And fighting and all that Is because of this person seeing what goes on Pretty self -explanatory

What takes place there Is that um The guy basically goes and snitches And he's this smart lady

Says hey hop in this well I will hide you Um she throws a cover on it

And she throws grain over it To make it look like it was the threshing Of it Come on in Um it was the threshing floor

Or where they had already threshed The grain I was just thinking

Yeah I thought about that How you would set a trap And you would set something over there

For somebody to fall in So that is what has taken place And the man said

And this will be the end of verse 20 Where are Ahimaz And Jonathan And the woman said to them

They have crossed over the brook water And they searched for them and could not find them They actually hadn't crossed yet So It came about that after that they departed

When they came up out of the well And they told King David So here it is They told David what was going to take place

David arose He realized that Ahithophel's Had betrayed him

And I don't know if you remember When we were in the other room And I was teaching through 1

Samuel I was making comparisons at times With Christ And David And just making connections

And if you look at Ahithophel He is King David's betrayer He was going to give

David over to be killed Much like Judas Gave Christ over What's that?

Yeah He actually called to I will strike him down myself Yeah And I'm not

Defending Ahithophel But there was some vengeance in that In the sense of David was a home wrecker to him

So As he hears that Oh wow

The counsel that I have given Has been turned to bad

Basically Ahithophel In many ways

How I understand it Is because his counsel Was understood by those two men

As being the counsel of God So did Ahithophel In an act of Hey I've been found out of my betrayal

Or Hey God is against me And I don't have that answer But we do know this

Whatever Ahithophel did It grieved him deeply enough In a time of despair That he went home

Remember he's going to get on his donkey He's going to ride home He's going to put his stuff in order

So there's It's not like hey A split thought A guy takes a gun

We're not talking about that We're talking about someone who goes home Gets his house in order He's riding his donkey from wherever it was

There is some thought to this So he gets to where he is Mine says strangled himself

Does everybody else say hung? I mean it's kind of hard to strangle yourself So we understand

It to be as he hung himself And it says he was buried In the grave of his father

Yes Ahithophel Was Bathsheba's grandad

Yeah He hung himself Because his counsel had been turned

Had looked out to be wrong His counsel was Hey I will go You give me 12 ,000

I'll chase him down in the wilderness I'll strike him down Won't strike anybody else down I'll strike

David down And then I'll bring his people back with you Basically he was telling Absalom You let me go

I'll consolidate the kingdom for you So we understand That there was some malicious intent

Based on Ahithophel Because that was his granddaughter He had killed Uriah her husband

Eliam was Was one of the valiant men Which was Ahithophel's son

Which we'll get into all that When we get I think it's in 22 Or 20 So in a sense it was

Some form of conviction Like a worldly sorrow Which he ended up killing himself

I can't pinpoint that I would say in Judas's Case it was worldly sorrow

Which leads to death In this case I don't know Did he feel like His words were no longer good

When he spoke It was like speaking the oracles of God So if he says hey if what I spoke was wrong He could be saying and correct me if I'm wrong

You men have been studying the bible much longer than me If he saw himself as a false prophet And what happened to false prophets?

They're killed So was he saying Hey I'm going to go out In a way that is more

Just to let you know suicide back then was considered More of an

Honorable way to go Yeah I mean why do you have men

Falling on their swords Yeah falling on their swords And even when we get to Daniel we'll talk about how

The prophecy Well I can't get too much Anyway they would take The zealots would take

They would roll dice Basically and instead of Being captured by the

Romans Or captured by Seleucid empire or whatever Some of them would say hey we're going to cast

Lots and as they go you kill my Family when he gets down to the last two They cast which one's going to Kill who and then that last

Person kills himself That's actually how Josephus Masada Those were the zealots

Josephus' writings That's what happened and actually I've been to the Place where they cast a lot

It's pretty weird Happened there and it happened in Yotapeta That's how Josephus was spared but anyway

That's all in Daniel When we get to it Interesting historical stuff that takes place

Ok Ahithophel hangs himself David crosses

The Jordan he gets to Mahanim Absalom now this is in verse 25

And The kind of The narrative I mean the Genealogy of this guy is somewhat

Weird to me And once I explain it you'll see What I'm talking about Now Emesa was pointed

In place of Joab Over the Israeli army basically Did anybody

As I read the narrative Y 'all read it as I was reading He was an

Israelite Who had His father had gone into Abigail The daughter of Nahash Does anybody else say anything other than Nahash?

Ok Who's been Nahash The whole time through the book The last book and this book

It's been the Ammonite Remember the one that went to Jabesh Gilead So we have either

Nahash This is what some commentators Exegetical people say I don't read just commentary

I want to know what does it say So the exegetical commentary says Hey this may have been another name for Jesse That doesn't sit well with me

It would make sense In the narrative Because Yes And the reason being is because It's sister

Of Zariah Joab's mother Ok So I understand but in Every time the word

Nahash is used In 1st and 2nd Samuel it is referring To the king of the Ammonite So To give you a

Any clear Understanding of what this is I have no idea

It does not change the Meaning of the text but it is very Confusing Obviously the original writers

I mean the original readers from this author Understood who it may have been

Um Bert What was your understanding of Because you obviously had studied this in the past What is your understanding of who this person is

Nahash It does not change the meaning of the text Ok And some say

Sure and some say It could have been An adulterous affair That's all conjecture

We just don't know Stuff like that drives me insane Just to let you know You have to leave it going

Hey we don't really know He obviously Amasa Was related to Joab We would agree with that right

Based on this Keep that in mind Because of what takes place in the next coming chapters

Um What takes place with him and Amasa Now when David had come to Mahanim Here it is

Shobi the son of who Nahash So you understand why it is hard to understand

And this Nahash here Is speaking of who The king of the Ammonites You remember what brought about The The David staying at home being on the roof

You remember what city they were besieging Rabbah Why were they doing that Because when

David heard that Nahash had died Hunan His son

Took the messengers That David sent to console him Remember cut off gave them buttless chaps

And cut their beard off So That is

It's just weird It's hard for me Maybe it's just me Hard to grasp what's going on Other than the fact that this person

Once David had taken that 75 pound crown Off of Hunan's head

And put it on his own That his brother Who this person is

Started paying tribute to David Then Rabbah The son of The sons of Ammon And Emekar the sons of Hamil And from Lodabar And Barzillah the

Gileadite From Rogalim So remember all these people up in this area David Had obviously had built some alliance

With them And they were taking care of David They saw David as the anointed king I do believe that David Had built alliances with those people

When he was on the run Just to let you know Because if you go back It says that David had a relationship

He showed loving kindness And the word is the covenantal word For Chesed with Nahash So did he make

On his run from Saul Did he make some type of covenantal Relationship with Nahash To be kind to him

Not try to strike him down Well those people take care of him They send all these things

Interesting that it says that They They send beds

I'm thinking They just need food But he sends them pottery and basins

In other words it looks like they're going to be here a while So let me set Them up for some provisions

To hold them over for a little bit House warming gifts Yeah in the wilderness So now it says

And they did that for the purpose of How we would understand it Plain and clear they're going to be hungry

They're going to be weary and they're going to be thirsty But we didn't see any wine there did we

Does anybody see any wine I just noticed that They didn't send any wine so I guess they're going to be drinking from the Jordan That's a pretty dirty river isn't it

I drank from that Jordan river I don't know why But by the grace of God nothing happened

Man that's dirty Yeah it's dirty When people said

Hey we want to get baptized I mean you talked about it the other day About people wanting to get baptized in the Jordan River Like man that's some dirty water over there

Alright so now we get to 18 David numbered the people Who were with him and they sent them over Commanders of thousands hundreds and some of hundreds

Remember when this Started early on It only said there were 600 with him

Correct Now with those 600 Would have been Probably the mighty men

That were with him In this case now we're noticing That there is at least 3 ,000 because if you set

Them up in thousands There's at least 3 ,000 because you don't send one with Thousands and hundreds

So there's at least 2 ,000 Yeah there's at least 3 ,000 one for Ittiy One for Abishai and one for Joab Because you're going to split them up in threes

And then however they do that in hundreds Maybe they then broke them down into hundreds Under Abishai Could be wrong

You set them down in three divisions right Correct and sent them on their way That way if one got slaughtered

That's how they do that That way if one got slaughtered They would still have another part of the army to take place

And if you remember David did that early on With Saul Very smart militarily

Don't put all your men in one spot Yes don't put all your men in one spot So they

They split up But he gave specific Instructions and what were those

Instructions I noticed he didn't say Don't worry about killing anybody else

Don't worry about Getting in a fight with your countrymen You just be gentle And kind to my son

That's what he told him Actually he told all three And David was going to go

Out to battle with him And what did they tell David Stay back I believe at this point

Their understanding too Is that David's getting weary I believe that David At this point in his life

He's probably Sixty He's getting Sorry I missed that The men, the leaders

Joab The officers Joab, Abishai and Eti His three generals

Them, what's that I don't I don't think so because he says

Why they want him to go back They want him to go back because he says Hey the king's heads

Worth more than ten thousand and that's true If the king falls what happens to the kingdom The kingdom falls too

Hey if they can go out there They can slaughter ten thousand people They slaughter ten thousand people but the king's still on the throne

Have they accomplished anything No, when the king falls Hey all through scripture

Every kingdom Is connected to How the king is Ruling and reigning

That's connected to us We're ruling and reigning As joint heirs with Christ So our identity is connected

With who? The Lord Jesus Christ Their identity is connected To David The Defecting and rebellion

Of Israel Is connected to who? Absalom Absalom And understand this as we went through this

We're Anybody that opposes God's anointed king And we can make a spiritual application to this

Anybody that opposes In this case we'll use Just a physical of what the text

Is looking at. Anybody that has opposed David as being God's anointed King meets their demise

Well we'd agree with that Correct? On the spiritual application of that, we look at that Anybody who opposes

God's anointed King, the Lord Jesus Christ They will meet their demise There's no doubt.

Either you bow your knee to him In this life As king of kings and lord of lords

To your To your salvation And to being clothed in his righteousness

In this life Knowing that we're going to be in eternal bliss with him Or you will bow the knee

To your condemnation In the life to come And that's clear here

Anybody that put their hand against David Wind up being struck down So They say hey

Stay in the city And David basically says You're right. I'll do it.

I'll stay This happens again too When they tell him hey You need to go back to the city

He gets weary And he says hey You're better for you to stay You're getting too old for this

It says So the king stood by the gate And all the people went out by the hundreds and the thousands And the king charged

Joab and Abishai Deal gently with my son Absalom And all the people heard

When the king charged all the commanders Concerning Absalom That's at the end of verse 5 So hey it says all the people heard

There is a gathering of the people Here's the commanders You be gentle With one person

My son David loved his son Regardless of his rebellion

Regardless of his desire To kill David I do think that David believed that he could

Reconcile those differences If they could come together If I can get him arrested per se I can bring him to me

We can work through these details I believe that David's going to have to In David's mind

I know we're trying to understand But David goes I've got a lot of Answering for things

I had messed up in the past As an adult Dealing with Amnon And Tamar And all of that There's at least one guy sitting there

Joab Oh yeah I think Joab sees

Absalom as a full brat That's how I understand When I read that My question with that would be

How come he didn't do that For those two years that happened How come he didn't try to reconcile

During those two years that Absalom was in his kingdom Well my understanding of that If I didn't say this a few weeks ago

Is my understanding is that David brought him back to reconcile David realized that Justice has to be dispensed

Oh at that point So David's bringing his son back To be the heir to the throne

He's murdered someone Now David could still As the

Sovereign monarch Could He could But that's not what

David did David instead said I just don't want to see him in my presence So at some point My understanding could be wrong

I'm not willing to die on that hill My understanding is as he got him back Because he longed to see

Absalom As they were bringing him back David said you know what I just don't want him in my face I'm going to have to deal with this justice issue

Because what did David continually do He dispensed justice People murdered people

What did David do He killed them He didn't kill Joab smart move politically

Early on Because he needed Joab But what did he say He made a condemnation to Joab Joab said

I'm going to let God take care of that He deserves to die Him and his brother are wicked I'm going to let God take care of it

And God does take care of that Through Solomon When he gives him the godfather speech

And we must remember too That Joab brought Absalom back Absalom wasn't coming back necessarily on his own

So I think he had a problem Not wanting to deal with David And talk about this situation Yeah and I do think

I think Absalom coming back Saw the opportunity Because he was calculated for two years

To kill his brother I do think he was calculated And if I come back

I can start making my way to the throne Remember he's the next heir to the throne He's the next guy

Either I kill my dad To get to the throne Or I can do this coup because my dad's getting weak and old

That's how I understand it And the coup seems like the easiest way What does that mean? Taking the military and overthrowing the other government

A coup Ok So Where are we at?

So Absalom Oh I'm sorry In verse 7 it says there was a great slaughter

There that day And I do like how it tells us That there was a great slaughter

But what killed more people than the sword? The trees The trees So David Knowing this area

From his days of running the streets Per say, running from Saul He knew, man

I can get up in here This becomes to a place Where they're not used to fighting And where they're not used to going and chasing people

Same thing happened too When the Philistines backed with Jonathan What did Jonathan and his armor bearer do?

They took them up into the woods Because they were used to fighting out in the plain Excuse me They were used to fighting out in the plain

Jonathan and his armor bearer takes them up into the woods And gets them where they can slice them and dice them It wasn't like roadside

No And they're not out in the middle of like The valley of Megiddo Where they would

And just so you know that was a major place Where armies would gather to fight Because it was a huge plain Even Napoleon got stood up there on the mountain

Says hey on Mount Jezreel And he says all the armies of the world Could gather into this bowl and fight

So What's interesting is

The choice The choice of what he's using Wasn't a horse

It was a donkey And all Well the donkey is

When a donkey comes in or the riding on a donkey That's peaceful and we'll get to Zechariah When we read in main service

Horses for war Donkey unless Donkeys were easier

To hop the rocks That would be the only reason For knowing that It says it's a mule

So it's probably hybrid I thought that Where was his sword

Where was his sword I thought that too Because a lot of times their sword was not on them

It was in a sheath On whatever Vehicle of war that they were on And we're not going to finish

Silly Mike Silly Mike So They're devoured in More were devoured in the country

On that day than by the sword Absalom Happened to meet the servants of David For Absalom was riding on his mule

The mule went under and thick branches Grabbed his hair Remember early on we learned hey man this dude's got a fro

He's got a fro It grows out every year He cut it and it was like Seven pounds or something

So we understand that when we read that Early on we make a mental note This is

Yeah just like when you're watching A TV show and there's a gun left on there Murder mystery or something

What was that doing there Yeah A little bit of seemingly Useless information

Yeah let me get to Let me get to Where He struck down by the man

So then Joab said to the man who saw it Why didn't you strike him down This is in verse 11

He said I would have given you ten pieces of silver and a belt He said hey I would have made you rich And I would have given you

Cool clothes And giving someone a belt Means you're going to be more like a commander And he knows the character

And the Nature of Joab He said if I would have done that The king would have said a word to me

You'd have struck me down So he knows you'd have double crossed me And then hearing that Absalom says you know what

Shut your mouth I'll take care of it myself He grabs three spears or javelins And he goes and while he's suspended there

Can't defend himself Joab he strikes Absalom down Now He was faithful to his command

He was faithful to his command He said I'm not going to do this He said you heard what the king said in front of everybody

Now you're going to do what he said not do We read the verse that said he told everybody Everybody was around And now back to Joab Joab's not looking out

For David he's looking out for what The kingdom as a whole He thinks that what he's doing

Is in the best bet but he's defying The king once again He does what the king tells him

Not to do kill his son But once again we get to the end Of the book

When he has I'm sorry in 1 Kings Chapter 2 when he gives the godfather

Speech the parting He does not tell Solomon you kill

Joab for what he did to your brother And my understanding Is the reason they were at war

He did disobey him But they were at war When he kills Amasa And he killed

Abner they were at peace And he says you go kill Joab because he killed men at peacetime

Alright we got to stop You pray for us Heavenly father

We thank you for your word And we thank you that it's true And that it lasts forever We pray lord that As we read that we would

Not only have our minds Expanded with knowledge but we would have Our hearts conformed to the image of Christ We pray that you would bless our brother

For bringing your word And we pray lord that you would be with our brother Keith As he brings the message today

Pray that you would be with the worship service Pray that everything that's said and done Would be pleasing to you