Day 108: 2 Samuel 14-15

Even after the well-taken rebuke from God through Nathan and Joab, does David still lack objectivity? What is making him so passive that for the second time, it takes a story to get him to make a decision? The woman of Tekoa brings up the Avenger of Blood. That's essentially the role Absalom played, though it was against his own half-brother. David seems to be seeing it from the other side, that Absalom was guilty of manslaughter against Amnon, and he was likely to lose two of his sons. To avoid that point at which she was driving, he's forced again into the better of two difficult decisions. Then Joab himself was forced into a difficult decision when Absalom burns his barley field. It was too late to recover Absalomby that time. Still, as he goes into exile, David asks God to use the counsel of Hushai to defeat the counsel of Ahithophel, who was Bath-Sheba's grandfather.

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