Commentaria in II Regum (II Samuelis)
Furthermore, she wisely uses this parable, by which the king would pronounce a sentence against himself, so that, after he had decided that the son of the woman who had killed his brother should be spared, he might perceive from this sentence passed by himself that Absalom also should be spared by him, part of the field on fire. 31. And Joab arose, and came to Absalom to his house, and said: Why have thy servants set my corn on fire? 32. And Absalom answered Joab: I sent to thee, that thou mightest come to me; it had been better for me to be there still; I beseech thee therefore that I may see the king’s face; and if he is mindful of my iniquity, let him kill me. 33. So Joab going in to the king told him all; and Absalom was called for and came in to the king, and adored upon his face to the ground before him; and the king kissed Absalom, who had killed his brother Amnon. Nathan used a like parable, chapter 12, by which he persuaded David to repentance for his adultery. Learn here, when you desire to rebuke magnates, rich, powerful and proud men, and those confident in themselves, for some vice, not to speak to them in the second person, but in the third; as though you would not accuse them, but some third person guilty of this vice. For so they will bear it calmly, and will shrewdly guess that it is said of themselves, but that the one rebuking, out of modesty and shame, does not dare to name them; as the common saying goes: “Let the dog be beaten, that the lion may fear and be wise.”
7. AND THEY SEEK TO QUENCH MY SPARK WHICH IS LEFT,—that is, my only son, who is left to me, that he may be the spark by which I may rekindle, restore and propagate my family and my husband’s, almost extinguished. For as when a fire is consumed sparks and embers are left under the ashes, from which the fire can be rekindled and revived by sulphur matches, so when the other sons are extinguished the last is left like a spark, from which the offspring of the family may be raised up, and the name and memory preserved. So Cicero calls “the sparks of war” the remnants of war. Note the apt metaphor. For the soul and life are compared to fire: first, because they consist in heat, which is proper to fire; secondly, because as fire propagates fire by kindling, so man propagates man by begetting; thirdly, because as fire gives light and shines, so also does life; fourthly, as one lamp failing kindles another, in which, as surviving, it shines and gleams, so also man dying remains and lives in his son as surviving: for in the son the parent is seen, as in an image the exemplar is seen; whence that of Psalm 131:17: “There will I bring forth a horn to David, I have prepared a lamp for my anointed.” The Gentiles used the same metaphor, signifying by the lamp or torch which one runner handed to the next in the race the continuation of generation and life. Hence Lucretius:
And like runners they hand on the torch of life.
So Plato, book 6 On the Laws, says, “citizens ought to take pains to beget offspring, so that the life which they themselves have received from their ancestors they may hand on to posterity, like a burning torch, in which they themselves may shine.”
8. GO TO THY HOUSE, AND I WILL GIVE ORDERS CONCERNING THEE,—as if to say: I will see that thy son is preserved and restored to thee unharmed. You ask whether this judgment of David is just, since the law of God commanded the murderer to be put to death, much more a fratricide, such as this one was? I answer:
The law commanded that a public murderer be put to death, whose murder could be publicly proved in judgment by witnesses. For the law, Deuteronomy 17:6, commands that no one be put to death unless convicted by two witnesses. But this was a secret fratricide, at which no witness had been present, as was said in verse 6. Wherefore this man could not be legally condemned and put to death. So Vatablus. Again, the law commanded that the wilful murderer be put to death, not the sudden and accidental one, who without any preceding hatred had killed someone by chance (as this one did); hence to save him, Numbers 35:11, God had appointed cities of refuge, that by fleeing to them he might remain unharmed and free from punishment. So Cajetan and others.
THE HOUSE OF MY FATHER: BUT LET THE KING AND HIS THRONE BE GUILTLESS.—The woman of Thecua says this to flatter David kindly, to remove from him every scruple of pardoning the homicide, and to confirm and reconcile him fully in it with Absalom the fratricide; as if to say: If there is any sin in this pardon, I wish that the punishment of this sin fall wholly not on thee, O king, but on me and my house. For I would not have any evil fall on thee on my account; but I pray God to turn it all back upon my head. So Rebecca answered her son Jacob, fearing his father’s curse, if he should substitute himself for his brother Esau: “Upon me be this curse, my son,” Genesis 27:13. And when Pilate trembled at the condemnation of Christ, the Jews, to encourage him to it, cried out: “His blood be upon us, and upon our children,” Matthew 27.
13. AND THE KING HATH SPOKEN THIS WORD, TO SIN,—namely “against the people of God,” as went before. After the parable the woman of Thecua descends to its aim, namely that the king may apply it to Absalom the fratricide, and pardon him the murder: wherefore she brings forward and multiplies here new reasons by which to move David to spare him. The first is this, as if to say: Absalom, after Amnon, is next to succeed thee in the kingdom, and the people love him and wish him to succeed: consult therefore for thy posterity, consult for thy kingdom, consult for thy people, that thou mayest preserve to them a fit heir and successor of thine, such as Absalom is: because thou deprivest it of so great a prince as Absalom is. Others explain “to sin” thus, as if to say: Unless thou recall Absalom at once, thou wilt be to him an occasion of idolatry and other sins. For he lives in exile with his maternal grandfather, the king of Gessur, who is an idolater, as are his courtiers, who strive to draw Absalom to their idolatry and other vices.
14. WE ALL DIE, AND LIKE WATERS WE FALL DOWN INTO THE EARTH, THAT RETURN NO MORE.—This is the second reason of the woman of Thecua, that David should pardon Absalom, as if to say: The life of men is fleeting and vanishing: Amnon, even if he had not been killed, would equally have had to die soon, as we all die; Absalom also will die soon: therefore thou shouldst not seek vengeance for the slaughter, and the death of Absalom, which nature itself will inflict on him shortly; as if to say: What vengeance dost thou seek, O king, on Absalom? Death? But he is already dying. “For we all die, and like waters we fall down.” The Hebrew has: We all die, and like water poured upon the earth, which cannot again be gathered and collected, supply, we fall down and flow away into death, and into the earth from which we were formed; as if to say: We are all, like rivers, rolled in headlong course into the sea of death and of the sepulchre, which is the “house of our eternity,” Ecclesiastes 12:5. Again, our soul will soon go out of the body in death, and will not return to it before the general resurrection, says Vatablus; or rather understand here the waters not of a river, but of rain; for these, fallen into the earth, cannot be gathered, as if to say: As the earth absorbs the rain, so that nothing remains of it that can again be gathered and collected, so also our life and body return into death and the earth from which it was formed, so that it cannot return and be gathered again and united vitally to the soul, save above nature by the omnipotence of God, which he will show in the common resurrection of all. She compares our life, therefore, to water not of a passing river, but of rain falling upon the earth, and there absorbed and vanishing; as if to say: Amnon is now dead, and cannot be recalled to life, as poured-out water cannot be gathered again, says Procopius: why then dost thou persecute Absalom, unless to add death to death, and grief to thy grief? For soon Absalom also will die, and like water fall down into the earth, nor will he be able to be recalled to life.
NEITHER WILL GOD HAVE A SOUL TO PERISH.—This is the third reason, taken from the imitation of the divine clemency, which often at the prayers either of sinners, or of saints praying for sinners, mitigates or revokes the sentence of death passed against them.
17. THAT THE WORD OF MY LORD THE KING MAY BE MADE AS A SACRIFICE,—which is offered to God for a sweet odour, as if to say: As a sacrifice offered for sin is most acceptable to God, so if this my petition for the pardoning of Absalom’s sin is offered to thee, O king, may it, I pray, be likewise most acceptable. For thou art as our earthly God, and as a kind of deity of Israel. Our text reads with the Septuagint lemincha, that is, for a sacrifice; others with the Chaldee, with other points, read limnucha, that is, for rest; whence they translate, as if to say: Let the king command that Absalom be at rest and safe.