Thursday 21st November
Read 2 Samuel 18:16-18
“Then Joab sounded the trumpet, and the troops stopped pursuing Israel, for Joab halted them. 17 They took Absalom, threw him into a big pit in the forest and piled up a large heap of rocks over him. Meanwhile, all the Israelites fled to their homes.
18 During his life-time Absalom had taken a pillar and erected it in the King’s Valley as a monument to himself, for he thought, ‘I have no son to carry on the memory of my name.’ He named the pillar after himself, and it is called Absalom’s Monument to this day.” (NIVUK)
Showing that Joab had both David and Israel’s interests at heart, he immediately called off the pursuit of what, only a year earlier, were troops in his own army. Absalom’s body is disposed of in the place where he fell and marked with a pile of rocks. This observation reminds the narrator of another pile of rocks, erected by Absalom himself.
There is poignancy in the description of ‘Absalom’s Monument’, for why would Absalom have erected it. How could he know there would be no son after him? How could he know that unless he created a monument to his own name, no one would remember him at all? His three sons must have died young (cf 2 Samuel 14:27), and, knowing the story of David’s first son with Bathsheba, I wonder if he saw a future where his name was not remembered? Absalom grasps for something out of his reach.
Spend time in prayer thanking God that He has remembered you, that even if you lose your grip for a while, He will hold you fast.
“I am coming soon. Hold on to what you have, so that no one will take your crown. 12 The one who is victorious I will make a pillar in the temple of my God. Never again will they leave it. I will write on them the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which is coming down out of heaven from my God; and I will also write on them my new name. 13 Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches.” (Revelation 3:11-13) (NIVUK)
