But the king covered his face, and the king cried with a loud voice, O my son Absalom, O Absalom, my son, my son!
The cry is David's lament over the death of his son Absalom after Absalom's rebellion against him, uttered after the victory in the war against Absalom and before and in connection with David's return to Jerusalem. To cover the face is to cover it for shame and grief. Absalom had been the petted idol of the kingdom, and his death was the fate of a wicked son.
The grief belongs to the history of David's reign and its difficulties in chapters 13-20, with heavy disgrace, suffering and sorrow coming upon David through his sons, including Amnon and Absalom, whom he was unable to control, all traced largely to the evil of taking many wives. It is included without further explanation as part of David's later history, which records the consequences of his sin concerning Uriah and the fulfillment of Nathan's denunciation. The loud mourning is one of the family sorrows that followed David's wrongs against Uriah, and it proves that sin brings consequences of its own kind, so that the very kind of evil caused to others returns upon the wrongdoer.
The grief belongs to calamity and sorrow that came back upon David through all the rest of his life, principally in his own family, including the sad history of Amnon and Tamar and the rebellion and unnatural crimes of Absalom, with even Adonijah's rebellion and death as part of it. David mourned Absalom intensely because he believed in the resurrection and the coming judgment; Absalom had died while sinning, sin's wages being the second death, and his death had closed the door to repentance and pardon. The detailed faithfulness with which the account is told stamps it as inspired and shows that God does not hide the sins of even the greatest kings.
This mourning shows what happens when the earth is given into the hand of the wicked, that Satan and his servants so rule that the faces of righteous judges are covered for shame and grief.
The cry is David's lament over the death of his son Absalom after Absalom's rebellion against him, uttered after the victory in the war against Absalom and before and in connection with David's return to Jerusalem. To cover the face is to cover it for shame and grief. Absalom had been the petted idol of the kingdom, and his death was the fate of a wicked son.
The grief belongs to the history of David's reign and its difficulties in chapters 13-20, with heavy disgrace, suffering and sorrow coming upon David through his sons, including Amnon and Absalom, whom he was unable to control, all traced largely to the evil of taking many wives. It is included without further explanation as part of David's later history, which records the consequences of his sin concerning Uriah and the fulfillment of Nathan's denunciation. The loud mourning is one of the family sorrows that followed David's wrongs against Uriah, and it proves that sin brings consequences of its own kind, so that the very kind of evil caused to others returns upon the wrongdoer.
The grief belongs to calamity and sorrow that came back upon David through all the rest of his life, principally in his own family, including the sad history of Amnon and Tamar and the rebellion and unnatural crimes of Absalom, with even Adonijah's rebellion and death as part of it. David mourned Absalom intensely because he believed in the resurrection and the coming judgment; Absalom had died while sinning, sin's wages being the second death, and his death had closed the door to repentance and pardon. The detailed faithfulness with which the account is told stamps it as inspired and shows that God does not hide the sins of even the greatest kings.
This mourning shows what happens when the earth is given into the hand of the wicked, that Satan and his servants so rule that the faces of righteous judges are covered for shame and grief.