A Monument of Stones

2.Samuel 18:1-18

And they took Absalom, and cast him into a great pit in the wood, and laid a very great heap of stones upon him. [2.Samuel 18:17]

David and all his company – warriors and statesmen, old men and youth, the women and the little children – in the darkness of night crossed the deep and swift-flowing river… Hushai’s counsel had achieved its object, gaining for David opportunity for escape; but the rash and impetuous prince could not be long restrained, and he soon set out in pursuit of his father…

The place of battle was a wood near the Jordan, in which the great numbers of Absalom’s army were only a disadvantage to him. Among the thickets and marshes of the forest these undisciplined troops became confused and unmanageable… Absalom, seeing that the day was lost, had turned to flee, when his head was caught between the branches of a wide-spreading tree, and his mule going out from under him, he was left helplessly suspended, a prey to his enemies. In this condition he was found by a soldier, who, for fear of displeasing the king, spared Absalom, but reported to Joab what he had seen. Joab was restrained by no scruples. He had befriended Absalom, having twice secured his reconciliation with David, and the trust had been shamelessly betrayed. But for the advantages gained by Absalom through Joab’s intercession, this rebellion, with all its horrors, could never have occurred. Now it was in Joab’s power at one blow to destroy the instigator of all this evil. “And he took three darts in his hand, and thrust them through the heart of Absalom…”

Thus perished the instigators of rebellion in Israel. Ahithophel had died by his own hand. The princely Absalom, whose glorious beauty had been the pride of Israel, had been cut down in the vigor of his youth, his dead body thrust into a pit, and covered with a heap of stones, in token of everlasting reproach. During his lifetime Absalom had reared for himself a costly monument in the king’s dale, but the only memorial which marked his grave was that heap of stones in the wilderness.