Journal

Please use one of the prompts below to get your journaling started.

• Explore your fears and what’s behind them.
• Write about a relational conflict you are experiencing.
• List out all that you are grateful for.
• Recall a significant reaction, conversation or event.

Bible Text: 2 Samuel 14:1-24 (ESV)

¹ Now Joab the son of Zeruiah knew that the king’s heart went out to Absalom. ² And Joab sent to Tekoa and brought from there a wise woman and said to her, “Pretend to be a mourner and put on mourning garments. Do not anoint yourself with oil, but behave like a woman who has been mourning many days for the dead. ³ Go to the king and speak thus to him.” So Joab put the words in her mouth.

⁴ When the woman of Tekoa came to the king, she fell on her face to the ground and paid homage and said, “Save me, O king.” ⁵ And the king said to her, “What is your trouble?” She answered, “Alas, I am a widow; my husband is dead. ⁶ And your servant had two sons, and they quarreled with one another in the field. There was no one to separate them, and one struck the other and killed him. ⁷ And now the whole clan has risen against your servant, and they say, ‘Give up the man who struck his brother, that we may put him to death for the life of his brother whom he killed.’ And so they would destroy the heir also. Thus they would quench my coal that is left and leave to my husband neither name nor remnant on the face of the earth.”

⁸ Then the king said to the woman, “Go to your house, and I will give orders concerning you.” ⁹ And the woman of Tekoa said to the king, “On me be the guilt, my lord the king, and on my father’s house; let the king and his throne be guiltless.” ¹⁰ The king said, “If anyone says anything to you, bring him to me, and he shall never touch you again.” ¹¹ Then she said, “Please let the king invoke the Lord your God, that the avenger of blood kill no more, and my son be not destroyed.” He said, “As the Lord lives, not one hair of your son shall fall to the ground.”

¹² Then the woman said, “Please let your servant speak a word to my lord the king.” He said, “Speak.” ¹³ And the woman said, “Why then have you planned such a thing against the people of God? For in giving this decision the king convicts himself, inasmuch as the king does not bring his banished one home again. ¹⁴ We must all die; we are like water spilled on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again. But God will not take away life, and he devises means so that the banished one will not remain an outcast. ¹⁵ Now I have come to say this to my lord the king because the people have made me afraid, and your servant thought, ‘I will speak to the king; it may be that the king will perform the request of his servant. ¹⁶ For the king will hear and deliver his servant from the hand of the man who would destroy me and my son together from the heritage of God.’ ¹⁷ And your servant thought, ‘The word of my lord the king will set me at rest,’ for my lord the king is like the angel of God to discern good and evil. The Lord your God be with you!”

¹⁸ Then the king answered the woman, “Do not hide from me anything I ask you.” And the woman said, “Let my lord the king speak.” ¹⁹ The king said, “Is the hand of Joab with you in all this?” The woman answered and said, “As surely as you live, my lord the king, one cannot turn to the right hand or to the left from anything that my lord the king has said. It was your servant Joab who commanded me; it was he who put all these words in the mouth of your servant. ²⁰ In order to change the course of things your servant Joab did this. But my lord has wisdom like the wisdom of the angel of God to know all things that are on the earth.”

²¹ Then the king said to Joab, “Behold now, I grant this; go, bring back the young man Absalom.” ²² And Joab fell on his face to the ground and paid homage and blessed the king. And Joab said, “Today your servant knows that I have found favor in your sight, my lord the king, in that the king has granted the request of his servant.” ²³ So Joab arose and went to Geshur and brought Absalom to Jerusalem. ²⁴ And the king said, “Let him dwell apart in his own house; he is not to come into my presence.” So Absalom lived apart in his own house and did not come into the king’s presence.

Reflection Questions

2 Samuel 14:1-21

•       David’s failure to take action against Amnon’s sin precipitated Absalom’s revenge.  Again King David is depicted as passive while others around him take action.  Consider the dilemma David is facing as father and king.  How did he come to be in this situation?

•       Note that compared to what he should have done with Amnon, the current situation with Absalom is less clear.  What can we learn from this?

2 Samuel 14:13-14

“The woman of Tekoa means, ‘Find a way to do it, David. God finds a way to bring us back to Himself.’ It is true that God finds a way- but not at the expense of justice. God reconciles us by satisfying justice, not by ignoring justice…God has devised a way to bring the banished back to Him, that they might not be expelled from Him. The way is through the person and work of Jesus, and how He stood in the place of guilty sinners as He hung on the cross and received the punishment that we deserved.” ^[1]

•       Reflect once again on the different demands of love and justice, and the picture of David, whose “heart went out to Absalom” (v.1) but who could not get himself to freely embrace him.  How has God resolved this dilemma in my favor? 

•       Reflect on the fact that God “devises means so that the banished one will not remain an outcast” (v. 14).

[1] David Guzik’s Commentary on 1 Kings at http://www.enduringword.com/commentaries/1014.htm

Prayer