Can this scene be any more comic? Absalom, part of whose pride is his hair,
catches himself by that hair in a tree while riding on a mule and the mule
keeps walking on while Absalom dangles in the tree. This is certainly a ridiculous situation for
the man who would be king to be caught in and yet there he is hanging by his
hair in an oak tree. When Joab hears of
Absalom, his cousin’s plight, he asks the man who tells him why he didn’t kill
him while he had such a perfect opportunity.
The man is only providing information because David gave a command to
deal gently with Absalom. Joab has no
compunctions about the matter and he and his armor bearers kill the young man,
toss his body into a pit and cover it with stones. Joab has gotten away with such disobedience
to David in the past, doing what needed to be done in his eyes in spite of the
king’s edicts.
The chief priests, scribes and elders question Jesus as to
the source of His authority for his actions, having in mind particularly the
driving out of the money changers and dealers in pigeons the day before. Jesus refuses to answer them directly, asking
them a question concerning John’s ministry, was it from man or God. The leaders cannot answer either with their
own beliefs or with an answer to appease the crowd. They can’t publicly deny John’s ministry as a
human invention because the crowd will turn on them and they can’t affirm it
either because they are guilty of not hearing a word of the Lord in that
case. Instead of answering directly,
Jesus tells the parable of the wicked tenants which clearly refers to these
same leaders as in line with those who have rejected the prophets of old and
therefore the God of those prophets as well.
The son of the owner of the vineyard clearly is self-referential and
prophetic as to what will soon happen to that son and then to the tenants, and
they all know Jesus has answered their question. His authority is that of the
Son.
I wonder what the forty guys who bound themselves with an
oath not to eat or drink until they had killed Paul did about that oath. They had a problem like Jephthah (see Judges
11), if they remained true to their vow they surely died of hunger and thirst
long before Paul himself died. Unfortunately
for these idiots, Paul’s nephew hears the plot because they are so determined
that they make a public declaration of it and he then tells Paul who calls the
tribune under whose authority he remains to tell him of the plot. In the end, what the tribune learns is that
he can’t trust the Jews because they were planning not only to kill Paul but to
make a fool of him in the process. These
men, like Absalom, like the chief priests, scribes and elders, are caught in
their own pride and arrogance. We should
never trust too much in the devices and desires of our own hearts, but in the
sovereignty of God.
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