Deadbeat Dad
But David, his head covered, walked barefoot up the slope of the Mount of Olives crying. All the people who were with him covered their heads too and cried as they went up. (2 Sam. 15:30)
We can only speculate, but David may have looked a lot older than his roughly 60 years of age. Maybe his shoulders were slumped; head hung. Perhaps shuffling like an old man – struggling to put one foot in front of the other. He pauses frequently. Mostly because it’s a steep hill, but partly because he’s crying. This is likely the longest path he’s ever walked. Longer than the one from a creek’s side to meet Goliath. Longer than the winding road from fugitive to king. Even longer than the guilty road that began with his adulterous affair and ended with a confession almost a year later. Those earlier trails had some steep turns to be sure, but none of them compared with his ascent up the Mount of Olives.
David’s not wearing his crown because his son, Absalom, had taken it by force. He’s also without a home – those walls you see rising behind him belong to the city of Jerusalem. He’s running away from the capital that he’d earlier established. Who wouldn’t be crying at a time like this? He has no throne, no home and nothing but wilderness and an uncertain future lay ahead. What happened? Did he lose a war? Was Israel ravaged by COVID? Did inflation starve his loved ones and drain his strength? How does a king end up old and lonely, walking on a difficult uphill path away from his home? Just ask his wives and kids.
If you were to ask David about his kids, the truth is that he’d probably cringe. Fourteen years have passed since David seduced Bathsheba, and thirteen years have vanished since Nathan told David, “The sword will never depart from your house.” (2 Sam. 12:10) Nathan’s God-given prophecy has proven painfully true.
One of David’s sons, Amnon, fell in lust with his half-sister Tamar, one of David’s daughters from another marriage. Amnon craved, connived and then raped Tamar. And then after raping her, he kicked her to the curb. Understandably, Tamar fell apart. She threw ashes on her head and tore the robe of many colors worn by virgin daughters of the king. She “remained desolate in her brother Absalom’s house.” (2 Sam. 13:20) And the next verse gives us David’s response to his son’s brutality: “When King David heard of all these things, he was very angry.” That’s it? That’s all? We want a much longer description. We want some verbs. Confront will do. Punish would be nice. Banish would be even better. We would expect to read, “David was very angry and . . . confronted Amnon, or punished Amnon, or banished Amnon.” But what did David do to Amnon? Nothing. No lecture. No penalty. No imprisonment. No chewing out. No nothing. Even worse, he did absolutely nothing for Tamar. She needed her Dad’s protection, his affirmation and validation. In other words, she needed a Dad but got silence instead.
So, Absalom, Tamar’s brother, filled the void created by David’s passivity. He sheltered his sister and plotted against Amnon. And then one night, Absalom got Amnon drunk and had him killed. So now, in just one family, we have incest, deceit, a daughter raped, a son murdered and another with blood on his hands. David’s is a palace in turmoil. And again, it was time for David to step up – to display his Goliath-killing courage, or Saul-pardoning mercy, or even the leadership he demonstrated at Brook-Besor. David’s family needed to see the best of David, but they saw none of David. He didn’t intervene; didn’t even respond. He wept in solitude, instead.
Absalom interpreted his Dad’s silence and inaction as anger. So, he fled Jerusalem to hide at his grandfather’s house. Despite knowing Absalom’s whereabouts, David never, ever attempted to see his son. For three years they lived in two separate cities. Absalom eventually returned to Jerusalem, but David continued to refuse to see him. Absalom even married and had four children, but “Absalom dwelt two full years in Jerusalem, and did not see the king’s face.” (2. Sam. 14:28) That kind of shunning couldn’t have been easy because Jerusalem, at that time, wasn’t that big a city. Avoiding Absalom probably required daily planning with the help of spies. But David succeeded in neglecting his son. More accurately, David succeeded in neglecting all of his kids.
A passage from later in David’s life reveals his patented parenting philosophy. One of his other sons, Adonijah, had staged a military coup against his Dad. He assembled chariots and horsemen and personal bodyguards to take the throne away from his father. And did David ever object? Are you kidding? David “never crossed him at any time by asking, ‘Why have you done so?’” (1 Kings 1:6) David – the Homer Simpson of Biblical Dads. The poster child for passivity. So, if you asked David about his kids, he’d probably have groaned. But if you asked him about his wives, his face would likely have turned chalky white.
We began to suspect trouble way back in 2 Samuel, starting in chapter 3. What initially appears to be just another dull genealogy is actually a Rose Parade of red flags. Sons were born to David at Hebron. The first was Amnon, whose mother was Ahinoam from Jezreel. The second son was Kileab, whose mother was Abigail, the widow of Nabal from Carmel. The third son was Absalom, whose mother was Maacah daughter of Talmai, the king of Geshur. The fourth son was Adonijah, whose mother was Haggith. The fifth son was Shephatiah, whose mother was Abital. The sixth son was Ithream, whose mother was Eglah, David’s wife. These sons were born to David at Hebron. (2 Sam: 3:2–5) Count them. Six wives.
Add to this list Michal, his first wife, and Bathsheba, his most famous wife, and David had eight spouses — too many to give each one even a day a week. But the situation worsens as we uncover a passage buried deep in David’s family Bible. After listing the names of his sons, the genealogist adds in 1 Chron. 3:9, “These were all the sons of David, besides the sons of the concubines.” The concubines? Yes, the mistresses. His harem side-hustle. So, David fathered other sons through other mothers, and we don’t even know how many. And what about the girls? Did he have all boys? Well, we know about Tamar, but were there others? Probably, at least statistically speaking. And the cynical side of us wonders if David even knew how many kids he actually fathered. Kind of like a modern-day Nick Cannon who’s had twelve kids from six different women – at last report.
David did so much so well. He unified the twelve tribes into one nation. He masterminded military conquests. He founded the capital city, elevated God as the Lord of the people, brought the ark of the covenant to Jerusalem and paved the way for the temple. He wrote poetry that we still read, and psalms that we still sing. But when it came to his family, David was missing in action. Going AWOL on his family was David’s greatest failure. Sure, seducing Bathsheba was inexcusable, but later self-justified as an act of passion. And murdering Uriah was ruthless, but a predictable cover up of the pregnant wife of a soldier on deployment. But passive parenting and widespread philandering? These weren’t the sins of a night of passion, or the panicked response of an unfaithful husband. David’s family foul-ups were a lifelong stupor that cost him dearly.
Remember Absalom? David finally reunited with him, but by then it was too late. The seeds of bitterness of a once-abandoned child had grown very deep roots, and Absalom resolved to exact revenge by overthrowing his Dad and taking his kingdom. So, he recruited from within David’s army and staged a coup d’état. His takeover set the stage for that sad walk of David out of Jerusalem, up the Mount of Olives and out into the wilderness. No crown. No city. Just a heavy-hearted, lonely old man. Loyalists eventually chased Absalom down. And when Absalom tried to escape on horseback, his long hair got tangled in a tree and soldiers speared him to death. When David hears the news of his son’s death he falls apart: “O my son Absalom — my son, my son Absalom — if only I had died in your place! O Absalom my son, my son!” (2 Sam. 18:33) A little late for that, don’t you think?
David succeeded everywhere except at home. And Dads, if you don’t succeed at home, do you really succeed at all? How do we explain David’s disastrous household? How do we explain David’s silence when it came to his family? No psalms were ever written about his kids. And surely, out of all those wives, you’d think at least one of them would have been worthy of a sonnet or two. But he never talked about them. Aside from the prayer he offered for the baby he had with Bathsheba, which eventually died, Scripture gives no indication that he ever prayed for his family. He prayed for his enemies – the Philistines. He interceded for his employees – his soldiers. He offered prayers for a close friend, Jonathan, and he even prayed for his former archrival, Saul. But as far as his family was concerned, it’s as if they didn’t exist. Prayers for his family were either unimportant or unrecorded.
Was David just too busy to notice them? Maybe. He had a city to settle, and a kingdom to build, right? Was he too important to care for them? “Let the wives raise the kids; I’ll lead the nation,” maybe he rationalized. Too guilty to actually parent them? After all, how could David, who had seduced Bathsheba and then murdered her husband to cover up the affair, correct his sons when they raped and murdered themselves? Too busy. Too important. Too guilty. Reminds me of a song by the Eagles, “Too Busy Being Fabulous,” where the final chorus says, You were too busy being fabulous; too busy to think about us; to drink the wine from your winner’s cup to notice the children were growin’ up. And you were just too busy being fabulous. Uh-huh. And David? Too busy. Too fabulous. Too guilty. Too late. A dozen exits too late. But Dads, it’s not too late for me and you.
Your home is your giant-sized privilege and should be your towering priority. Don’t make David’s tragic mistake. He collected wives like trophies. He saw spouses as a means to his pleasure, not as a part of God’s plan. So don’t make David’s mistake. Be fiercely loyal to your spouse. You’ve made a promise to her, so keep it. And, as you do, nourish, encourage and parent the children that God has given you both.
The real news is that quiet heroes dot the landscape of our society. They don’t wear ribbons, or kiss winner’s cups; they wear spit-up and kiss owie’s, instead. They don’t make the headlines, but they check their kids’ outlines, and stand and cheer on the sidelines. You won’t find their names on the Nobel Peace Prize short list, but you’ll find their names on the PTA and carpool lists. News programs don’t call them, but that’s okay because their kids do – they call him Dad. Be numbered among those heroes. Your children are not your hobby; they are your calling. Your spouse is not your trophy; she’s your treasure. Don’t pay the price David paid, because if you flip ahead a few chapters to his final hours, you’ll see the ultimate cost that David paid for being a deadbeat dad.
David is now just hours from death. A chill has set in that blankets just can’t warm. So, servants decide that David needs a person to snuggle with him, someone to hold him tight as he draws his final breath. But do they turn to one of his wives? He had at least eight of them, right? But no, they don’t. All right, then how about calling on one of his kids? He probably had hundreds of them, too. But no, they don’t call on the kids either. The servants, instead, “looked in every corner of Israel until they found Abishag from Shunem. They brought her to the king. She was incredibly beautiful. She cared for the king and served him, but the king didn’t have sex with her.” (1 Kings 1:3-4) Oh, that’s nice. So, she was just a pretty heatilator, I suppose. Sadly, I suspect that David would have traded all his conquered crowns for the tender arms of a wife, maybe even a child. But it was too late. Now hundreds of exits too late. David died in the care of a complete stranger, because he’d made complete strangers out of his family.
But it’s not too late for us, Dads. Make your wife the object of your highest devotion; make her the recipient of your deepest passion. Love the one who wears your ring and cherish the children who share your name. Succeed at home first – for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. (Luke 12:34) Otherwise, you’ll end up being too fabulous for anyone to really care.
You know, Dads, it only takes a moment to make a child, but it takes a lifetime to love and nurture one. So, today, love your kids like God loves you. God would do anything for you, and he proved it by sending his son to die for your sins. And although you can’t be a sacrifice for your child’s sins, much less your own, you can model that sacrifice by being present in your child’s life today since it started with you. And, like Christ, he died to have a relationship with you, not for a religion called by his name in which he’s no longer involved. So, decide, with prayer, to be one – to really be a Dad, and announce your God-inspired intentions. Then, defend that choice – your family. It’s called “Father’s Day” for a reason, Dads. So, man up and be one.
Happy Father’s Day,
Randy
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