The King Who Walked Out Barefoot

The story begins with a handsome son. Absalom, 2 Samuel 14 tells us, was praised throughout Israel for his looks, and he knew how to use them. Over four years he stationed himself at the city gate each morning, intercepted people coming to the king with disputes, and told each one that their case was good but that the king had no one to hear it. Then he would embrace them. Slowly, chapter 15 says, he stole the hearts of the people of Israel.

When the conspiracy was ready, Absalom went to Hebron under a religious pretext and had himself proclaimed king. A messenger reached David in Jerusalem with the news that the hearts of Israel were with Absalom. David's response is remarkable. He did not barricade the city. He did not call for a purge. He said that they must flee at once, or none of them would escape, and the city would be put to the sword. He chose exile over a bloodbath in the streets of Jerusalem.

So the king left. The text says he walked up the Mount of Olives weeping, his head covered and his feet bare, and all the people with him wept as they went. Along the way came a series of small scenes that reveal the man. A foreigner named Ittai the Gittite, who had only recently joined David, refused to be sent back to safety and swore to stay with him in life or death. The priests Zadok and Abiathar brought the ark of the covenant out of the city to go with the king, and David sent it back. If he found favor with the LORD, he said, God would bring him back to see it again. If not, he was ready for God to do whatever seemed good to him.

That sentence is the hinge of the story. David refused to use the ark as a lucky charm. He would not carry God's throne into exile as a bargaining chip. He put himself in God's hands and let go of the outcome.

Then came Shimei. On the road at Bahurim a relative of Saul walked along the hillside above the king's party, throwing stones and dirt and shouting curses. He called David a man of blood and said the LORD was repaying him for the house of Saul. Abishai offered to go over and take the man's head off. David refused. If the LORD had told Shimei to curse, who could ask why? Perhaps, David said, the LORD would look on his misery and repay him with good for the cursing he was receiving that day.

Read Psalm 3 now and it comes alive. The many enemies. The voices saying God will not deliver him. The shield around him. The head that God lifts. And the astonishing verse 5, where the exiled king lies down and sleeps.

What does this story draw out? First, that trusting God can look like losing. David walked away from his throne, his city, and the ark, and he did it in faith. Second, that a man who knows his own sin can bear insult without retaliation. David had been told by Nathan that calamity would come from his own house, and when it came he did not pretend to be innocent. He absorbed the curse and left the verdict to God. Third, that repentance and hope belong together. David wept, and David slept.

Absalom died in the forest of Ephraim, and David grieved for him more than for his own crown. The kingdom was restored. But the deepest restoration in the story happened on the Mount of Olives, where a barefoot king gave up the right to save himself and found that God was still a shield around him. A thousand years later another Son of David wept on that same hill and walked down into the hands of his enemies. He, too, left the verdict to his Father. He, too, was lifted up.