2 Samuel 15:1-37

The soap opera of David’s family continues.  If there were ever a picture of a dysfunctional family, David’s family would be the perfect illustration.  However, it is important to remember that all of this is happening as a part of David’s discipline over his sin with Bathsheba.  It is also a great demonstration of the price of passivity as a parent.  Both Absalom and David are brilliant men and had mastered the art of winning and influencing people.  It is interesting to get a look into their methods and see their strategies play out in this chapter.  It is also interesting to see the different levels of loyalty that there were within David’s followers.  There were some people who just followed wherever they thought the power was at the moment but they had no loyalty.  Then there were those who simply said that they would follow David no matter if he were king or not.  It is important to realize that every group has both of these types of followers.  Those who follow where ever the power is are usually hungry for power of simply addicted to the pleasures and perks of power.  Those who are loyal simply believe in their leader and are committed to the direction in which he is leading them.  One is motivated by comfort while the other is motivated by character.

ABSALOM UNDERMINES THEN USURPS THE THRONE: Absalom’s plan to usurp the throne is brilliant.  He does not simply go out and declare that he is king because he did not have a following.  Instead, he starts out by undermining David’s leadership.  He makes himself available to the people and starts to alienate the people who are seeking David out for help.  Before he tried to take the throne he set out to win the hearts of the people.  He knew his father was too passive to notice what was going on and that if he did notice; he would not do much about it.  There is an important leadership principle that is modeled by Absalom in this passage.  People will follow us when they believe that we care about them.  When leaders become isolated from their followers they begin to lose their influence over them and in a short period of time, those people will begin looking for another leader to follow.

DAVID INSTIGATES THEN INFILTRATES THE REBELLION  David’s reaction to Absalom declaring himself as the new king is very surprising.  One would expect David to gather his army and then go out a chase down Absalom or at the very least stand his ground and prepare to defend his ground.  Instead David decides to run.  David is a very experienced “runner” and know that when someone is chasing someone else; they often leave themselves vulnerable as Saul had done.  It is always harder to hit a moving target.  I also believe that there was another issue at hand.  David really does not want to fight Absalom so he simply decides to leave and allow him to “take over.”  David is looking to see if Absalom will simply be happy to take over the kingdom or if he will come out and try to chase him down.  As David leaves he sets up a network of spies who will feed him valuable information.  David loves Absalom and seems willing to release the kingdom into his son’s hands seems to have been fine until it became evident that Absalom was going to try to kill his own father in the process.