Bible Commentaries

THE STEALER OF HEARTS

‘Absalom stole the hearts of the men of Israel.’

2 Samuel 15:6

I. Absalom shows us the wickedness of selfish ambition.—Ambition is right when one seeks honestly to excel in the way of duty. An artist may strive to be the best artist in the world. A merchant may seek to be the best merchant in his town. A farmer may be ambitious to have the richest and best farm in the county. Absalom had a right to be the most noble and manly prince in any royal family. This would have included the truest filial devotion, loyalty to his father and to the government, and the cultivation of whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are lovely in character. But ambition becomes wicked the moment one begins to plan wrong to any other, when it seeks to rise by thrusting others aside or treading them down. Absalom plotted to set his father aside and to seize his throne. His ambition was wicked.

II.—It is easy to encourage an unkindly feeling toward others.—When the people came with their cases, Absalom met them and professed to sympathise with them, assuring them that they had just grounds for their complaint, then expressed his deep regret that the king was not in his place to hear their matters. Thus he made them feel that his father was not doing what he should do for them. He would then further manifest his interest and sympathy by wishing that he were judge, that every man who had a case might have justice. It is easy to see how this course would injure David, make the people dissatisfied with his manner of administering justice, and foster discontent. There is a lesson here, too, for all of us. It is always easy to hurt others by listening sympathetically to complaints about them. When one speaks to us of a friend’s shortcomings or failures, it is easy to add to the discontent. There is a great deal of this mischievous work done. There is no more subtle treachery to others than in this insidious way to destroy confidence and weaken the ties of affection.

III. We get another lesson in meanness as we read of Absalom’s insincere professions and see his false show of affection.—They are the arts of the politician which are pictured in him. If he had been judge he would have given himself very little trouble over the people’s causes. It is right to want people’s confidence, but we must seek it only by true interest and by worthy deeds.

IV. Absalom used the name of religion to cover up his wicked conspiracy.—He professed to his father to be very devout. He had a vow to pay. He lied to his father in saying that he had made a promise to the Lord which he wished now to go to fulfil, his only purpose being to get away to declare his rebellion. Nothing is baser than this use of religion to cover up wickedness. Yet even in our own days people are continually trying to trade on professions of piety.

V. Treachery against any one is wrong, but basest of treasons is treason against a father.—The bitterness of David’s grief when he learned of Absalom’s rebellion no words can describe. It is the fashion to speak of this sorrow of David’s as one of the fruits of his own sin. No doubt David’s home was not what it ought to have been, or Absalom would not have proved so false to his father. Yet there is in this no palliation of Absalom’s terrible crime. The law of God bids us honour our father and mother. The lesson from Absalom for every child, older or younger, should be renewed loyalty to parents.

Illustrations

(1) ‘Such advancement as Absalom’s is a brilliant palace built on sand; and there are a great many such always in process of construction. Before any young man follows Absalom’s example he would better ask what came of Absalom’s splendid palace in the end. On this matter of stealing people’s hearts we ought to linger a moment. To steal is to take something which is another’s, to which we have no right. We have a right to make friends of all people about us, and yet any of us may steal hearts. We steal a heart when we get a person to be our friend by influencing him against another person, and making him think we will be a better friend than the other.’

(2) ‘Absalom sent for Ahithopel to be present when he offered sacrifice; the intention being that all who partook of the sacrifice should be bound together to prosecute the enterprise. Absalom, too, would take advantage of the excitement of the great feast to inflame the ardour of the guests, and pledge them irrevocably to his cause. A similar incident is related by Tacitus of Civilis, the leader of the Batavian rebellion in the time of Vitellius: “He called together the chief men of the nation, and the boldest of the common people, under the pretence of a great feast to be held in the sacred grove; and when their spirits were elated with wine, as the night advanced, he addressed them, etc. They heard him with the utmost enthusiasm, and Civilis bound them all in a solemn league under curses, and with the sanction of their barbarous rites.”’

(3) ‘The heart of a man hangs in a balance, like a young virgin that has many suitors; some she fancieth for their parentage, some for friends, some for wealth, some for wit, some for virtue, and, after all, chooseth the worst of all; so the heart has many suitors besides God, that sometimes she marrieth with one, sometimes with another, the world keeps her, the flesh keeps her, the devil keeps her; all of whom have no more interest in her than Herod to his sister, but seek her spoil, like them that marry for riches are glad when one dies that another may come. These suitors are like Absalom, who did not seek the hearts of the people like David, but stole them with flattery.’

(4) ‘Absalom rose early to do harm, to ply his arts of treachery, to poison the people’s minds toward his own father. Sympathy also is a good thing. One can do no sweeter, Christlier work than to go among those who are burdened and over-wrought and those who are suffering, and speak cheering, strengthening words. To take by the hand one who is down, who has fallen in some misfortune, and be a brother to him, helping him to rise, is a blessed thing to do. But such sympathising as we see in Absalom is not blessed, is not Christly. He only pretended to be the people’s friend that he might get the confidence, and then use them in his wicked plot to seize his father’s throne. It was the flatterer’s art that he used.’

A SPECIMEN OF NOBLENESS

‘Then said the king to Ittai the Gittite, Wherefore goest thou also with us? return to thy place, and abide with the king; for thou art a stranger, and also an exile,’ etc.

2 Samuel 15:19-21

I. We have in this passage a remarkable instance of the spirit of true patriotism, all the more remarkable because, in one sense, patriotism is not quite the word to apply to Ittai, for he was a stranger and an alien, though a naturalised Israelite. In him we have a singular instance of that devotion to a person which will always be the leading characteristic of the Christian life. The legalist may be devoted to a system; the moralist may be devoted to an idea; the real Christian will be devoted to a Person, to the person of a living Christ.

II. Ittai was the kind of man that David wanted, and he is the kind of man that Christ wants now. There are many people ready enough to make the Lord Jesus Christ a kind of stepping-stone to help them into heaven. If they can make a convenience of Him, and He can serve their purpose in a dying hour, it is all very well. It is not such as these the Lord wants. The ‘citizens of heaven’ are men who are partakers of their Master’s nobility.

III. It was the fact that David had received him as an exile that first bound Ittai’s heart to him. We also are strangers and exiles. Christ gives us a home. Our adoption into His family should be a motive power which will bear us through all the shocks of the battle of life, and make us ‘more than conquerors through Him that loved us.’

—Canon Hay Aitken.

Illustrations

(1) ‘Ittai’s devotion is such as I should show towards Jesus Christ. Think of His purity, His sympathy, His sacrifice, and you will discover how worthy He is of limitless devotion. This devotion will involve, like Ittai’s, decision, confession, enlistment, and lifelong service. Christ will accept such devotion as David did that of Ittai. And the object of devotion is the discriminating and deciding test for life. The ignoble life is that which has something other and less than the highest object of devotion.’

(2) ‘For what were we saved, for what have we been redeemed by the precious blood of Christ? for what has the heavenly vision, of which we have heard, been given? Is it that a man is simply to be glad, as Saul of Tarsus was glad, to hear that Christ Jesus had paid his debt? “I will show unto him how much he must suffer for My sake,” said the Lord. And the man who dares to take the gift of eternal life, and then play the coward, play the worldling for self-seeking, play the determined rejecter of Christ’s claims for self-sacrifice, altogether misunderstands the magnificence of the Gospel wherewith Christ Jesus the Lord has endowed the soul.’

(3) ‘The heroism of the world should put to shame the cowardice and selfishness of the Church. Contrast the depth of affection for your household with the tepidity of your love for your Saviour.… Remember that your power of loving is the measure of your obligation to love your Lord, and that if you are all frost to Him and all fervour to them, then in a very solemn sense “a man’s foes shall be they of his own household.”’