2 Samuel 18:18 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Now Absalom had reared up for himself a pillar To preserve his name; where as it had been more for his honour if his name had been buried in perpetual oblivion. But this was the effect of that pride and vain glory, which were the chief causes of his ruin. Which is in the king's dale A place so called, near Jerusalem. For he said, I have no son He had had three sons, (2 Samuel 14:27,) but it appears by this they were all now dead, or if any one of them was alive, he thought him unfit and unworthy to keep up his name and honour; and it was a remarkable dispensation of divine providence, that he, who struck at his father's life, should be punished with the death of all his sons. It is called unto this day, &c. That is, unto the time when this book was compiled. Indeed, to this day there is a monument, shown to travellers, called Absalom's Pillar; but it is evidently of modern structure. In the time of Josephus, it was nothing more than a single marble pillar. Absalom's Place Hebrew, Absalom's hand, that is, his work; made, though not by his hand, yet for him and his glory, and by his appointment. But this work of vanity soon became a memorial of reproach. “Strange power of guilt,” says Delaney, “which can, in one moment, turn all the devices of vanity, all the memorials of excellence, all the securities of fame, into monuments of infamy.”