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!
Ver. 33. And the king was much moved.] A great deal more than was justified. Many heathens have better borne the death of their dear children; as he who, bearing his son's death, said only this, Novi me genuine mortalem. Pulvillus, when he was about to consecrate a temple to Jupiter, and news was brought to him of the death of his son, would not desist from his enterprise, but with much composure of mind gave order for decent burial. Now is it not a shame that nature should outstrip grace? - that David, hearing that Absalom was dead, should thus inconsolabiliter lamentari et victoriam funestare, lament so unreasonably and intempestively now, to the endangering of all his people, who, it might be feared, would hereupon have forsaken him, and set up a new captain over them? But it is like it was the fear lest he died in his sin, and so perished for ever, that so much troubled David, and then, - Lugeatur mortuus; sed ille quem gehenna suscipit, quem Tartarus devorat, in cuius poenam aeternus ignis aestuat, saith Jerome; in that case there is great cause of mourning indeed. Howbeit est modus in rebus, there is reason in all things; and all immoderations are to be avoided, as offensive to God and prejudicial to the soul.
And as he went thus he said, O Absalom, &c.] The poet saith, Res est ingeniosa dolor, Grief is a witty thing; nevertheless the excess of it maketh a man foolish, as it did David here; and as Alexander the Great, who, bewailing the death of his favourite, Hephaestion, not only clipped his horses' and mules' hair, but plucked down also the battlements of the walls of the city, that they might seem to mourn too. a
Would God I had died for thee!] Thus he could now cry out ill natural sorrow. But who ever heard David cry out in godly sorrow, O Uriah, would God I had died for thee! But that is more rational, the other more passionate.
a Plutarch.