I may have found a new favorite Old Testament verse! "We must all die; we are like water spilled on the ground, which cannot be gathered up. But God will not take away a life; he will devise plans so as not to keep an outcast banished forever from his presence" (vs. 14). Doesn't that just have GOSPEL written all over it?
That verse comes in the larger context of a ploy by Joab to help bring Absalom home. In the previous chapter, Absalom ran away to Geshur to live as an exile at this grandfather's because he killed Amnon, his half-brother and heir to the throne, in revenge for Amnon's rape of his sister, Tamar. Ever since, David's heart has been grieving the loss of Absalom, and Joab wants to provoke the king to bring him back to Jerusalem.
Possibly borrowing a page from Nathan's playbook of duping the king by sharing a story where he is unknowingly the main character (II Samuel 12), Joab recruits an old woman to tell the king a tale of woe. The woman describes to David how one of her sons killed the other, and now people want her sole remaining son to be killed too. Persuaded, David assures her that her son should be free from threats and that the king will protect him. The woman then reveals that she's actually been talking about David's family!
David surmises that Joab is behind this set-up, which the woman readily admits. Having seen the wisdom in restoring Absalom to the nation, David agrees and dispatches Joab to bring his son home. Absalom returns to his house in Jerusalem (vs. 24).
Absalom was a very handsome man, the Bible says "without a blemish" (vs. 25). He had three sons and a daughter named Tamar. Yet even though the king had him brought back from Geshur, for a number of years David refused to see him. Frustrated, Absalom eventually strong-arms Joab into getting him an audience with the king. David finally agrees to see Absalom, and their reconciliation is complete. But Absalom's ugly ambitions are not finished quite yet...
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