2 Samuel 18. Forces of father and son meet on the battlefield. Yet the father stays behind in ways that recall earlier scenes. Does this bode well or bode ill? A devouring forest, a sacred? terebinth, a son of David suspended between heaven and earth, a pierced side, a cursed burial. So many echoes of a different son of David, yet sideways, upside down, or twisted. What do we make of a man torn between his duty of office and his fatherly love, of a sonless usurper hung on a tree, of a violent yet loyal general with a keen sense of Realpolitik? Can we find our way through the text and see Jesus in this passage?
