Most of the Time

David was a man after God’s own heart … most of the time. His desire to obey and glorify God was the motivating force for his actions throughout the vast majority of his tumultuous life. The obvious exceptions to this are unambiguously called out by the writer of Samuel in words like “But the thing that David had done displeased the Lord” or “God was displeased with this thing, and he struck Israel.”

If you miss those sorts of editorial comments, you are not reading with great care.

How Far to Follow a Mere Human

I wish the editors of Samuel and Chronicles had been equally verbose in every instance where David appears as if he may have deviated from the will of God, just like I wish the Lord had interpreted all the parables he told, not just a few of them. I don’t always get my wishes, which means, like everyone else reading these passages, I am required to compare scripture with scripture and use my own judgment about them.

Complicating matters further, the Lord himself used David as a model for the Pharisees when they criticized his disciples for plucking heads of grain to eat on the Sabbath. His reply to them was “Have you not read what David did when he was hungry?” I suspect he was simply using the example of a man the religious leadership would be reluctant to criticize in order to shut their mouths and force them to reflect. The real authority for his hungry disciples lay not in a historical example, but in the “Lord of the Sabbath”, as he points out at the last. Nevertheless, a casual reading of that passage may leave us with the impression Jesus intended the actions of David to be taken as an authoritative Old Testament example.

So how far can we follow David when God or the Spirit-led writers of scripture neither critique nor commend his actions? As with all human examples, there is an element of risk in so doing.

Loving Those Who Hated Him

2 Samuel 19 is one of those chapters in which I find myself disagreeing with David’s behavior at almost every turn. It starts with a father weeping and mourning for a rebel son summarily executed by Joab in full view of the hard-working, loyal army that had just given him the victory over Absalom and returned his kingdom to him.

My sympathies here in every respect are with Joab, who rightly observes to David, “You love those who hate you and hate those who love you.” This was certainly how it appeared. Absalom was a scheming, evil man who tried to steal the kingdom from his own father, corrupting Israelites and getting them killed in large numbers in the process, and fornicating with his father’s concubines in front of the nation just to ice the cake. I can find nothing in the stories involving Absalom to make me think there was even a scrap of conscience or good character in the man, or that any number of reprieves or pardons from his father would have ever transformed his character. Unlike David, Joab understood the need of the moment and the political and practical complications and dangers to David’s kingdom that would have resulted from a royal pardon or a faked reconciliation with his father. So Joab thrust three javelins through Absalom’s rotten heart, a quicker and less painful death than he surely deserved.

The Guilty Mind

Now, of course we understand some of what was going on in David’s mind. He was probably full of guilt, knowing that in part Absalom’s insurrection had come about as God’s judgment on his house for his sins against Uriah the Hittite. Absalom’s taking of David’s concubines confirmed the fulfillment of God’s word through the prophet Nathan: “I will take your wives before your eyes and give them to your neighbor, and he shall lie with your wives in the sight of this sun.” Nobody could miss that. God was judging David throughout this entire scenario.

Nevertheless, David’s shame, guilt and reluctance to deal out judgment against his son did not in any measure lessen Absalom’s evil, nor could it possibly excuse his rebellion against not just his father but against God. There is also a problem with endlessly forgiving someone who has no interest in being forgiven, especially when he is in a position to do so much damage and it is your responsibility to keep him in check. Forgiveness for the repentant, absolutely; the Lord Jesus certainly taught that. But forgiveness for the rebel in mid-rebellion? It’s hard to see how this particular act makes for any kind of positive example, let alone serves as an illustration of how a man after God’s own heart ought to operate. Compare the proposed treatment of Absalom with the treatment of another rebel, Sheba, perfunctorily beheaded. The Lord Jesus may have loved those who hated him too, but he never hated those who loved him. That, and his love for his enemies never spilled over into rewarding wickedness, from which David was only saved by Joab’s intervention.

Snap Judgments and Lazy Justice

The chapter continues with an incident that reveals David had rendered a snap judgment with respect to Mephibosheth, the son of his friend Jonathan. Told by Mephibosheth’s servant Ziba three chapters earlier that Mephibosheth had designs on the kingdom, David thought the worst of his friend and gave everything that had belonged to him to Ziba. Perhaps it was this incident that prompted David’s son Solomon to later write, “The one who states his case first seems right, until the other comes and examines him.” Or, as the old Russian proverb goes, “Trust, but verify.” David never gave Mephibosheth a chance to explain himself.

In chapter 19, Mephibosheth finally appears and we get what is probably the true story, which is that Ziba had taken the opportunity to slander his master to David, figuring Mephibosheth would never be allowed to respond. The evidence for this is strong: Mephibosheth appears in the disheveled state of a man in mourning, and the writer of 2 Samuel observes, “He had neither taken care of his feet nor trimmed his beard nor washed his clothes, from the day the king departed until the day he came back in safety.” Dirty clothes can be faked. An untrimmed beard cannot.

Punting on First Down

One might expect a measure of justice for the loyal Mephibosheth. Instead, David punts on first down: “Why speak any more of your affairs? I have decided: you and Ziba shall divide the land.” Unlike Solomon, whose wisdom revealed which witness was telling the truth, David appears uninterested in getting to the bottom of the story and simply splits the difference. Thus Ziba benefits from slandering his master, and Mephibosheth is never publicly vindicated.

At this point, it seems to me that David is weary of making decisions and incapable of acting wisely or even in his own interests. Again, I find it very difficult to sympathize with him or find his behavior commendable.

In this respect, David was also quite unlike his greater son and future heir to the throne of Israel. When the Lord Jesus refused to judge, it was not because he was mentally exhausted, lazy or indifferent. It was because it was not yet the Father’s time for him to fill the role of judge, and the Lord Jesus refused to operate independently of the will of God. Be assured that day will come.

A Fallen Man in a Fallen World

While we may legitimately refer to David being a man after God’s own heart because the scripture does, he remained a fallen man in a fallen world, subject to greater than average temptations because of the role to which God called him, and giving in, at least temporarily, to more than a few of them. He was what he was most of the time, but that was all.

In the absence of perfect judgment of our own, there remains only one role model in all of scripture we can follow with limitless confidence and no second-guessing.