Vers. 23-39.-'l'he facts are: 1. Absalom, holding a sheep-shearing festival at Ba:i.1- he.zor, invites the king and his sons. 2. The king, declining to go on account of being unnecessarily burdensome, gets rid of Absalom's entreaty, and bestows on!him a parting blessing. 3. After some persuasion, Absalom obtains permission for all the king's sons to accompany him. 4. During the festivities the servants of Absalom, in obedience to their master, smite Amnon, whereupon all the other of the king's sons flee. 5. A false report having reached the king that all his sons were slain, he gives vent to his grief in most distressing form, until Jonadab, who was in the secret of the affair, informs him of the actual facts of the case. 6. Absalom flees, and the rest of the sons return home, and join their father in lamentation over the event. 7. During Absaldm's exile for three year~, David, while recovering from his grief over Amnon, was in a mind to go out after him, were it possible.
Home troubles. The words of the prophet were being swiftly and terribly fulfilled in the experience of the king. His own crimes of adultery and mil.rder by stealth were now bearing retributive fruit in hie own family in the form of adultery arid mutder', with the increment of incest. That these young men acted as-free agen~s' and 'Were responsible for their deeds makes no difference to the. fact that, in relation'·to the previow; conduct of their f3:ther, it was a terrible retribution_ in the _order of providence. God does chastise his people with the human rod. Tbe blessed covenant made·with the chosen one was not broken-bis soul was delivered from the mouth of destruction (Ps. l.x..u.ix. 33-36); but a harvest of evil had to be reaped in the place where the dreadful seed bad been sown-in the family. Never, perhaps, has this family trouble been paralleled in the experience of good men; but though its precise features are mercifully exceptional, we may see mirrored in this family trouble elements of evil found in some form or other in other domestic circles. I. JEALOUSIES AND HATREDS CONSEQUENT ON DEEDS OF WRONG. There were signs of ill feeling in this home sprung from an Oriental harem, before the vile deed of Amnon was perpetrated; but this act developed and intensified whatever feeling of that character was in existence. Jn the most imperfect and unhappy homes a positive deed of wrong to a mt:mber of the family is sure to be resented by some other member whose tempera- ment or sympathies flow in a certain direction. 'fhe world does not see the acts of harshness and even cruelty sometimes done within the sphere of home; these acts are the parents of a brood of ill feelings, which rankle and burn, waiting for occasion to vent their force on some marked object of hatred. And as the love of home is tbe tenderest and sweetest of all loves, so, when it is lost, there rises in its place the bitterest and moist irreconcilable of hates. The best wine makes the sourest vinegar. II. P .A.RENTS CRITICIZED. Reading between the lines of this piece of domestic history, we can Bee that the past conduct of David was not only known, so far at least as Bathsheba. was concerned, but that it had not escaped the critical observation of his &OIIB. How could it? A father's dome~tic conduct is in open light to his ohildren, 0ll, Xrll. 1-89.] THE SECOND BOOK OF SAMUEL. 331