The Life of David: Absalom, My Son, My Son
27 September 2025 · 2 min read · Comfort & Grief
Absalom was the handsome son who stole the kingdom with flattery at the gate — and the wound that ran deepest in David's life. The rebellion drove the old king from Jerusalem, weeping barefoot up the Mount of Olives, while his son took the throne.
And David went up by the ascent of mount Olivet, and wept as he went up, and had his head covered, and he went barefoot: and all the people that was with him covered every man his head, and they went up, weeping as they went up.
The psalm of the fleeing king
Psalm 3 carries the superscription 'when he fled from Absalom his son': LORD, how are they increased that trouble me... But thou, O LORD, art a shield for me. Even betrayed by his own child, David laid him down and slept, for the LORD sustained him.
The battle ended in the wood of Ephraim, where Absalom's famous hair caught in the oak and Joab's darts finished the rebellion David had ordered spared. Deal gently for my sake with the young man, the king had begged. They did not.
And the king was much moved, and went up to the chamber over the gate, and wept: and as he went, thus he said, O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son!
The gate of grief
David's cry from the chamber over the gate is the rawest sentence in Scripture: O my son Absalom... would God I had died for thee. Every parent of a prodigal has stood in that chamber. And in David's impossible wish — I had died for thee — believers have long heard a whisper of David's greater Son, who did exactly that for rebels.
The Absalom chapters offer no tidy moral, only company for the grieving and a God who sustains sleep on the worst nights. Some stories are in the Bible so that broken hearts know they are not the first.
