2 Samuel 18:5 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Deal gently for my sake, &c. If you conquer, (which he expected they would, from God's gracious answer to his prayer, in turning Ahithophel's counsel into foolishness,) take him prisoner, but do not kill him. Which desire proceeded from his great indulgence toward his children; from his consciousness that he himself was the meritorious cause of this rebellion, Absalom being given up to it for the punishment of David's sins; from the consideration of Absalom's youth, which commonly makes men foolish, and subject to ill counsels; and from David's own piety, being loath that his son should be cut off in the act of his sin without any space for repentance. But “what means,” says Bishop Hall, “this ill-placed mercy? Deal gently with a traitor? Of all traitors, with a son? And all this for my sake, whose crown, whose blood he hunts after? Even in the holiest parents, nature may be guilty of an injurious tenderness. But was not this done in type of that unmeasurable mercy of the true King of Israel, who prayed for his murderers, Father, forgive them! Deal gently with them for my sake!” Yea, when God sends an affliction to correct his children, it is with this charge, Deal gently with them for my sake: for he knows our frame.