2 Samuel 19:10
And Absalom, whom we anointed over us, is dead in battle. Now therefore why speak ye not a word of bringing the king back? And Absalom, whom we anointed over us, is dead in battle. Now therefore why speak ye not a word of bringing the king back?
The verse preserves Israel's own reckoning that Absalom, whom they had anointed over themselves, was dead in battle, and their complaint that no word was being spoken about bringing the king back. That question exposes the people's divided loyalty and marks the opening for David's restoration to kingship. Its setting is the history of David's reign when Absalom, the petted idol of the kingdom, rebelled and died in battle, David lamented, and David gained victory over Absalom and returned to Jerusalem after fleeing from Jerusalem in war against him.
It stands in the story of troubles in David's family told in 2 Samuel 13 to 20. Within that story it belongs to the part revolving around Absalom the beautiful, including Absalom's base conduct, the treachery of Ahithophel, the cursing of Shimei, the fear and flight of the king, his pathetic journey touching the hearts of his old friends, the defeat of Absalom, and David's sorrow over his wicked son's fate. At this point in the story David's kindness to the house of Saul is still in evidence.
The difficulties and heavy disgrace and sorrow David encountered through his sons Amnon and Absalom came as the sad consequence of his many wives, the awful evil of a multiplicity of wives, leaving him with sons he was unable to control. That multiplying of wives produced a large family of children by different wives in which idleness, luxury, and jealousy developed unenviable characters, and Absalom's ambitions were roused in great part by fulsome flattery poured out upon a shrewd and handsome prince. The verse belongs to the subsequent history in which the judgments pronounced by Nathan against David for his wicked conduct toward Uriah were carried out as lifelong retribution and sorrowful consequences, especially troubles within his own family and Absalom's rebellion.
That family calamity through all the rest of David's life, including the sad history of Amnon and Tamar and the rebellion and unnatural crimes of Absalom, was receiving back in kind for the wrong he had done, proving that with what measure a man metes it is measured to him again and that what a man sows he reaps, and that doing wrong never pays. Its detailed, faithful telling stamps the account as inspired, showing that God does not hide the sins of even the greatest kings. The verse teaches the great lesson that no one can walk contrary to God's laws and not suffer, for in every transgression of divine law lies the inherent curse even when God does not openly reprove and seems to wink at blindness.