Synopsis of the Chapter
David arranges three battle lines and three commanders for them, with which he engages the forces of Absalom and overthrows them. Absalom flees, verse 9, but caught by his hair he clings to a dense oak, and there while hanging is pierced by Joab with three lances. Then, verse 17, his corpse is thrown into a pit and covered with stones. Next, verse 21, Joab sends a messenger of victory to David; he, hearing that Absalom was killed, laments inconsolably and turns the victory into mourning.
Verse 5: Preserve for Me the Boy Absalom ¶
Here the paternal devotion of David contends with the hostile impiety of Absalom, in the midst of his flagrant parricidal crime and battle. Hear St. John Chrysostom, Homily On Absalom, tome I: "From one side madness against the father arises, from the other clemency demands that the parricide be spared. From one side rage, from the other piety works. From one side insanity, from the other mercy intervenes. From one side cruelty, from the other goodness is displayed. The parricide, uninjured, rages; David is injured and grows gentle. Piety is conquered by impiety, yet the father's piety is not moved, is not overcome by the sword, is not changed by terror. The parricide is not broken by reason, nor deterred by impending death."
Verse 6: The Battle in the Forest of Ephraim ¶
AND THE BATTLE TOOK PLACE IN THE FOREST OF EPHRAIM. — This forest was not in the tribe of Ephraim, for that tribe dwelt on the western side of the Jordan; but both armies had crossed the Jordan into Gilead, as was said in the preceding chapter, verses 2 and 4. This forest was therefore across the Jordan, in the tribe of Gad near the city of Mahanaim, to which David had retreated, not far from the Sea of Galilee: see Adrichomius's geographical tables. It was called "Ephraim" from some event, either because it was opposite the tribe of Ephraim, or because that tribe sent its flocks there to pasture, or because some battle had been fought there. So Abulensis, Vatablus, and others.
Verse 8: The Forest Consumed More Than the Sword ¶
AND FAR MORE WERE THOSE WHOM THE FOREST CONSUMED. — "The forest," that is, the wild beasts of the forest: namely lions, wolves, and tigers lurking in the forest, which proves that this was a divine vengeance, says St. Jerome, Cajetan, and Angelomus. Again "the forest," that is, the hidden precipices and ditches of the forest, into which the fleeing men fell. So Abulensis, Vatablus, and others.
Verse 9: Absalom Caught in the Oak ¶
HIS HEAD CAUGHT IN THE OAK. — The Septuagint has: his head was entangled in the tree; the Chaldean: his head was seized in the oak; Vatablus: his head was held back by the oak; the Hebrew: his hair clung to the tangled branches of the oak. The thick and long hair of Absalom therefore became entangled and stuck in the dense and intertwined branches of the oak. Through his hair, therefore, in which Absalom had gloried, he is punished and hanged. So Abulensis and Josephus. Cajetan adds that his head was held between two branches, namely he is punished in the head, because he had wished to proudly raise it against his father. Hear St. John Chrysostom, Homily On Absalom, tome I: "He is entwined in branches, bound by wood, fastened with his throat pierced. Hanging, already dead, he is found by men — he whom neither heaven could behold alive, nor earth any longer sustain. O abominable desert of the parricide! The father's injury is not defended by the sword of a fighter, not by the hand of an enemy, not by the blow of a spearman, but the wood vindicates, the tree avenges, the branches defend."
AND WHILE HE HUNG BETWEEN HEAVEN AND EARTH, THE MULE ON WHICH HE SAT PASSED ON. — Note here the punishment, by God's just vengeance, perfectly proportioned to Absalom's crime: he coveted his father's throne; his throne becomes the gallows. He sought to be crowned with a diadem; behold, his crown was his hair entangled in the tree. He desired the scepter; behold, three lances in place of a triple scepter with which he is pierced. He coveted a royal bodyguard; the armor-bearers of Joab provide him the same. His punishment therefore was turned into a tomb and an epitaph of his crime. Hear Chrysostom, Homily on the Psalm: "Absalom attacked David, was killed by Joab, and was hung on a high tree — he who rose up against his father; and he was defined by the tree, who fought against the root; and the branch was bound by a branch, who had been cut off from paternal affection, and was held by the head, who strove to take away his father's head; and he hung from the tree like a fruit, who wished to cut down the farmer of nature; and he was pierced in the heart by a javelin, killed there where he was preparing slaughter." Then he adds the reason why Absalom was hung: "Absalom therefore could be seen hanging between heaven and earth. Heaven did not receive him. For if it cast out the first rebel, the devil, how would it have admitted a second rebel? Earth opposed him, not enduring to be polluted by the footsteps of a parricide. For if it devoured Dathan, who had spoken against Moses, and opened its mouth against him who had wickedly opened his mouth — how could it have borne feet running against a father?"
Verse 11: Why Did You Not Strike Him? ¶
WHY DID YOU NOT STRIKE HIM TO THE GROUND — so that he would fall to the ground and there, pierced through, breathe his last; this is clear from the Hebrew.
Verse 14: Joab's Three Lances ¶
14. SO HE TOOK THREE LANCES (shorter ones, whence the Septuagint translates: three javelins; the Chaldean: three darts; Vatablus: three spears; for this is what the Hebrew word scebatim signifies), AND THRUST THEM INTO THE HEART OF ABSALOM — so that the false and double, indeed triple, heart, with which he had outwardly feigned obedience before his father while inwardly nurturing ambition for the kingdom and rebellion — that treacherous heart, I say, might be pierced by a triple weapon. St. Chrysostom gives this reason, in the passage already cited, saying: "He thrust three arrows into the heart of the heartless one, striking him there where was the receptacle of iniquity, and while he hung aloft in the tree, David sang for him a fitting epitaph: I saw the wicked exalted and lifted up like the cedars of Lebanon; and I passed by, and behold, he was no more."
Mystically the Gloss says: "The tree of Absalom signifies the gallows of hell; the three lances signify the triple punishment of the damned, namely fire, the worm, and the privation of the beatific vision." Furthermore, Joab sinned in killing Absalom, because he killed him against the king's command ordering him to be preserved; therefore he did not have the authority and right to kill him, says Abulensis, who thinks that for this reason David took away from him the command and governance of the army, chapter XIX, verse 43. Yet Cajetan excuses Joab, because he had received David's statement about preserving Absalom not as a command but as an admonition and desire, or an indication of paternal piety.
Verse 16: Joab Spares the Multitude ¶
16. HE HELD BACK THE PEOPLE FROM PURSUING THE FLEEING ISRAELITES. — For it is a political precept that in a universal rebellion the ringleaders should be punished, but the multitude should be spared, lest the prince be deprived of his subjects and the king be without a kingdom. Thus Moses hanged the leaders who had been guides for the people to the worship of Baal-peor, but spared the people, Numbers 25:4. Joab did the same in the sedition of Sheba, as we shall hear in chapter 20. So too Elijah killed the priests of Baal who were encouraging the people in idolatry, 1 Kings 18:40.
Verse 17: Absalom's Body in the Pit ¶
17. THEY THREW HIM INTO A GREAT PIT AND HEAPED UPON HIM A PILE OF STONES — so that with this heap they might bury both his crime, name, and memory, and entomb them in eternal oblivion as well as a mark of infamy: for, as St. Jerome says, he was most wicked and deserving of a double death; namely because he had greatly dishonored his father against the precept of the law, and had revealed his shame by publicly violating his concubines.
Verse 18: Absalom's Monument ¶
18. FOR HE HAD SAID: I HAVE NO SON, AND THIS WILL BE A MEMORIAL OF MY NAME. — We heard in chapter XIV, verse 27, that Absalom had three sons and one daughter. Therefore these sons had already died, or else Absalom erected this monument before he had begotten them. So Abulensis, Cajetan, and Dionysius. Hence the Chaldean translates: he had no surviving son.
AND THIS WILL BE A MEMORIAL OF MY NAME. — There still exists today this monument or memorial of Absalom, "in the King's Valley," verse 18, that is, in the Valley of Jehoshaphat, with the name of the same tomb, which is adorned with flowers carved at the top, as the eyewitness Zuallardus writes, in book III, on the second day of his pilgrimage.
AND IT IS CALLED ABSALOM'S MONUMENT. — "Hand," that is, a monument raised by the hand and work of Absalom. It is a metonymy. Tropologically, the ambitious, as Absalom was, erect for themselves monuments and pyramids, to immortalize their name, and they call them their "hands," saying: "Our exalted hand has done this." So Dionysius.
Verse 25: The Messenger's Report ¶
25. IF HE IS ALONE, HE IS A GOOD MESSENGER. — For it is a sign that my men are the victors and are pursuing the defeated enemy; for if my men had been slain and conquered, surely this man would not come alone, but many would come fleeing with him to take refuge in the city and save their lives.
Verse 33: David's Lament for Absalom ¶
33. MY SON ABSALOM. — David wept for the death not so much the present as the eternal death of Absalom, because he had been killed in the very act of parricide; whence he feared, indeed believed, that he was damned.
Furthermore, St. John Chrysostom, in his Homily On Absalom, responds to David and restrains his lamentations, saying: "Why do you weep, glorious father? Why do you lament, as if you approved what Absalom dared? Why do you weep for the wicked one, as if you wished him to commit parricide? You mourn the glory of the victorious army; if the death of the enemy is mourned, there can be no joy in victory, if the punishment of the parricide is lamented. He was not your son who so violated paternal bonds. He did not deserve to be called yours who violated the rights of a most holy father. It was not the army, not the generals whom you commanded to spare the criminal, that scorned you, but that tree — that tree first avenged you; it defended, it vindicated the injury of the wounded father — it that had not heard you." And shortly after, he adds the reason, saying: "For he had to perish by a new punishment, who wished to inflict upon the world a new crime through his father's destruction."
Finally, the paternal affection for his son, however criminal, pressed upon David. For, as Quintilian says, Declamation 322: "He was a father; these affections are never so overcome that they do not at last return to their nature."
Was Absalom Damned?
One may ask whether Absalom was damned. Some deny it; for having been pierced by lances he did not immediately expire; therefore he had time for repentance. But pierced in the act of his flagrant crime, he seems to have had neither the will, nor the counsel, nor the capacity to think about God and his salvation; but overwhelmed by his wounds, with his mind stupefied and buried, he seems to have breathed out his wretched soul and been damned. So judge St. Augustine, book III of On Christian Doctrine, chapter XXI, and book XXII Against Faustus, chapter LXVI; Salvian, book II of On Providence; St. John Chrysostom, homilies 69 and 70 To the People; St. Bernard, sermon 26 on the Song of Songs; Theodoret, Procopius, and others here. For, as St. Augustine says: "This is the just judgment of God, that the sinner who in life forgot God, in death forgets even himself."