The Pious Cover for Treason Text: 2 Samuel 15:7-12
Introduction: The Long Game of Rebellion
We are often tempted to think of rebellion as a sudden, spontaneous combustion. But the Bible teaches us that high treason is almost never a spur-of-the-moment decision. It is a slow rot. It is a patient, calculated, long game. Sin, particularly the sin of ambition that seeks to usurp God-ordained authority, does not burst onto the scene unannounced. It cultivates a plausible story. It wraps itself in the garments of piety. It learns to speak the language of righteousness as a cover for its wicked intentions. And it is a master of public relations.
This is what we find in the story of Absalom. For four years, as the previous verses tell us, he stood at the gate, stealing the hearts of the men of Israel. He played the part of the compassionate prince, the man of the people, the one who truly cared for justice. He was running a long-term political campaign against his own father, and he was winning. But a successful rebellion needs more than popular support; it needs a catalyst. It needs a decisive moment, a pretext for action. And because this is a rebellion against God's anointed, the pretext must be suitably religious.
The events in our text this morning are not simply ancient political maneuvering. They are a paradigm, a pattern for how rebellion against God and His established order always works. It is never honest about its intentions. It cloaks its lust for power in the language of solemn vows and religious duty. It uses the vocabulary of service to Yahweh as a smokescreen for the service of self. We must pay close attention, because the spirit of Absalom is not dead. It is alive and well in our politics, in our institutions, and sometimes, tragically, even in our churches. It is the spirit that says, "I must fulfill my duty to God," when what it really means is, "I must fulfill my desire for the throne."
This passage is a clinical dissection of a conspiracy. We see the pious lie, the naive permission, the secret network, the innocent dupes, and the crucial defection of a key advisor. This is how kingdoms are toppled. And it all begins with a man who knows how to sound spiritual while his heart is filled with treason.
The Text
Now it happened at the end of forty years that Absalom said to the king, “Please let me go and pay my vow which I have vowed to Yahweh, in Hebron. For your servant vowed a vow while I was living at Geshur in Aram, saying, ‘If Yahweh shall indeed bring me back to Jerusalem, then I will serve Yahweh.’ ” And the king said to him, “Go in peace.” So he arose and went to Hebron. Then Absalom sent spies throughout all the tribes of Israel, saying, “As soon as you hear the sound of the trumpet, then you shall say, ‘Absalom is king in Hebron.’ ” Now two hundred men went with Absalom from Jerusalem, who were invited and went innocently, and they did not know anything. And Absalom sent for Ahithophel the Gilonite, David’s counselor, from his city Giloh, while he was offering the sacrifices. And the conspiracy was strong, for the people increased continually with Absalom.
(2 Samuel 15:7-12 LSB)
The Pious Pretext (vv. 7-9)
The conspiracy moves from the shadows into the light, but it does so under a religious cloak.
"Now it happened at the end of forty years that Absalom said to the king, “Please let me go and pay my vow which I have vowed to Yahweh, in Hebron. For your servant vowed a vow while I was living at Geshur in Aram, saying, ‘If Yahweh shall indeed bring me back to Jerusalem, then I will serve Yahweh.’ ” And the king said to him, “Go in peace.” So he arose and went to Hebron." (2 Samuel 15:7-9)
First, a note on the text. Most ancient manuscripts say "forty years" here, but a few, along with Josephus and the Syriac, say "four years." Most commentators favor "four years," counting from Absalom's return to Jerusalem. The forty years is likely a scribal error, as it would make David and Absalom implausibly old. The principle, however, remains the same: this was not a rash decision. This was a long-brewing plot.
Absalom's request is a masterpiece of sanctimonious deceit. He approaches his father, the king, with a request that is, on the surface, entirely praiseworthy. He wants to pay a vow to Yahweh. A vow is a solemn promise made to God, and the law required that they be paid (Deut. 23:21). To neglect a vow was a serious offense. So Absalom is presenting himself as a man of deep piety, concerned with his obligations to God.
He even provides a compelling backstory. While in exile in Geshur, a pagan land, he supposedly longed for the God of Israel. He made a deal with God: "Get me back to the center of power in Jerusalem, and I will serve you." Now, he says, God has fulfilled His side of the bargain, and Absalom must fulfill his. Who could argue with that? He is framing his trip to Hebron not as a personal desire, but as a divine obligation. This is how cunning men operate. They make their ambitions look like duties.
The choice of Hebron is strategically brilliant and deeply cynical. Hebron was David's first capital. It was where the men of Judah first anointed him king. By going to Hebron, Absalom is making a powerful symbolic statement. He is returning to the roots of the kingdom, implicitly suggesting that David, in Jerusalem, has lost his way. He is the true heir to the original spirit of the monarchy. It was also a place of political strength for him in the south.
David's response is tragic in its simplicity: "Go in peace." David, the man after God's own heart, is completely deceived. Why? Perhaps because of a father's lingering guilt over his own failures and a desperate desire to believe the best of his son. A guilty conscience is a poor defense attorney. David's sin with Bathsheba had sown the wind, and now the whirlwind of God's judgment, prophesied by Nathan, was beginning to spin. He sees piety in his son, where there is only poison.
The Secret Signal and the Innocent Dupes (vv. 10-11)
With the king's blessing secured, Absalom immediately puts his treacherous plan into action.
"Then Absalom sent spies throughout all the tribes of Israel, saying, 'As soon as you hear the sound of the trumpet, then you shall say, ‘Absalom is king in Hebron.’' Now two hundred men went with Absalom from Jerusalem, who were invited and went innocently, and they did not know anything." (2 Samuel 15:10-11)
This was a well-coordinated conspiracy. "Spies," or more accurately, secret messengers, had already been dispatched throughout the nation. The network was in place. The signal was simple and powerful: the sound of the trumpet, the instrument used to call assemblies, announce festivals, and signal for war. At that sound, the message was to be proclaimed: "Absalom is king in Hebron." The coup would be announced as a fait accompli, an established fact.
But to make the initial move look legitimate, Absalom needs cover. He needs the appearance of support from the establishment in Jerusalem. So he invites two hundred prominent men from the city to accompany him to his "sacrificial feast" in Hebron. The text is explicit about their state of mind: they "went innocently, and they did not know anything."
These men are human shields for his reputation. Their presence gives his gathering an air of legitimacy. When the news breaks, it will be reported that two hundred leaders from Jerusalem were with Absalom from the start. It creates the impression of a broad consensus, even though these men were unwitting pawns. This is a classic tactic of conspirators. They surround themselves with naive but respectable people to give their wicked project a veneer of credibility. The innocent are often the first victims of the treacherous, used as tools and then discarded.
The Masterstroke and the Growing Threat (v. 12)
The final piece of the puzzle falls into place, and it is the most devastating blow to David.
"And Absalom sent for Ahithophel the Gilonite, David’s counselor, from his city Giloh, while he was offering the sacrifices. And the conspiracy was strong, for the people increased continually with Absalom." (2 Samuel 15:12)
While Absalom is making a great show of his piety, "offering the sacrifices," he makes his most important political move. He summons Ahithophel. The defection of Ahithophel is a catastrophic loss for David. We are told later that "the counsel of Ahithophel, which he counseled in those days, was as if a man had inquired at the oracle of God" (2 Samuel 16:23). He was the wisest, most respected political strategist in the kingdom. His siding with Absalom was the equivalent of the entire Supreme Court and the Joint Chiefs of Staff defecting to a rival. It gave the rebellion immense credibility and strategic genius.
Why did Ahithophel do it? The Bible doesn't say directly, but a compelling clue is found when we connect the genealogies. Ahithophel was from Giloh, and 2 Samuel 23:34 tells us that Eliam, one of David's mighty men, was the son of Ahithophel the Gilonite. And who was Eliam's daughter? Bathsheba (2 Samuel 11:3). Ahithophel was Bathsheba's grandfather. He had watched David commit adultery with his granddaughter and then murder her husband, Uriah. For years, a bitter root of vengeance had likely been growing in his heart. He was waiting for his moment, and Absalom provided it. This is a stark reminder that sin has long, tangled consequences that snake through families and generations.
With Ahithophel on board, the conspiracy becomes "strong." The momentum shifts. The people, seeing the handsome prince, hearing his populist rhetoric, and now witnessing the defection of the kingdom's wisest counselor, begin to flock to him. Rebellion is a contagion, and it was spreading like a wildfire.
The Anatomy of Godly Rule and Ungodly Rebellion
This narrative is not just about David and Absalom. It is a case study in the nature of authority and rebellion, played out under the sovereign hand of God. God had established David as king. David's rule, for all his terrible sins, was the God-ordained authority in Israel. Absalom's rebellion, for all its pious justifications and popular support, was a rebellion against God Himself.
We learn here that rebellion rarely presents itself as raw, naked ambition. It almost always dresses itself up in the borrowed robes of righteousness. Absalom's vow was a lie, a sacrilegious abuse of a holy ordinance, turning an act of worship into an act of war. This is the essence of hypocrisy: using the outward forms of religion to advance an inward agenda of self-aggrandizement. The most dangerous lies are the ones that are ninety percent truth, and the most dangerous rebellions are the ones that claim to be for God.
We also see the frightening power of deception. David was deceived. The two hundred men from Jerusalem were deceived. The crowds were deceived. Absalom was a master of manipulation, a political artist who painted a false picture and got the nation to believe it. He knew that if you can steal the hearts of the people, you can take the crown from the king. This is why we are commanded to test the spirits, to not believe every smooth-talking leader who comes with a plausible story. We must measure all claims, especially pious ones, against the unwavering standard of God's Word.
And yet, through all of this, God is sovereign. This is not a story about God wringing His hands in heaven, surprised by Absalom's treachery. This is the fulfillment of God's own prophetic judgment on David. God told David the sword would not depart from his house (2 Sam. 12:10). God is not the author of Absalom's sin, but He is the author of the play in which Absalom's sin serves His ultimate purposes. He ordains the free choices of wicked men to accomplish His righteous judgments. He draws straight with these crooked lines. Ahithophel's brilliant counsel would later be defeated by God's direct intervention, because God's purpose was to judge Absalom and preserve the line of David, through which the Messiah would come.
Our security, then, is not in the stability of human kingdoms or the wisdom of counselors. Our security is in the unshakable throne of the greater David, the Lord Jesus Christ. His kingdom is one that cannot be shaken. He was betrayed by a close friend, for pieces of silver. He was rejected by His people, who chose a rebel instead. But unlike David, He was utterly without sin. And unlike Absalom, His claim to the throne was entirely righteous. He is the king who cannot be overthrown, and those who belong to Him, though they may be naive and duped by the Absaloms of this world for a time, are eternally secure in His hand.