Four-Calendar Café

In 2 Samuel 14:27, we’re given this insight about Absalom. 

Three sons and a daughter were born to Absalom. His daughter’s name was Tamar, and she became a beautiful woman.

2 Samuel 14:27 (NIV)

However, in 2 Samuel 18:18, we’re given this information.

During his lifetime Absalom had taken a pillar and erected it in the King’s Valley as a monument to himself, for he thought, “I have no son to carry on the memory of my name.” He named the pillar after himself, and it is called Absalom’s Monument to this day.

2 Samuel 18:18 (NIV)

These verses appear to contradict one another. Did Absalom have three sons or not? If there is no contradiction, why do we read two different things? 

In Matthew 22, we see an exchange between Jesus and some Pharisees. 

While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them, “What do you think about the Messiah? Whose son is he?”

“The son of David,” they replied.

He said to them, “How is it then that David, speaking by the Spirit, calls him ‘Lord’? For he says,

“‘ The Lord said to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet.”‘

If then David calls him ‘Lord,’ how can he be his son?” No one could say a word in reply, and from that day on no one dared to ask him any more questions. (emphasis added).

Matthew 22:41-46 (NIV)

In 1 Chronicles 20, we’re given this insight into what happened between David, Bathsheba, and Uriah the Hittite. 

In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war, Joab led out the armed forces. He laid waste the land of the Ammonites and went to Rabbah and besieged it, but David remained in Jerusalem. Joab attacked Rabbah and left it in ruins. David took the crown from the head of their king a —its weight was found to be a talent of gold, and it was set with precious stones—and it was placed on David’s head. He took a great quantity of plunder from the city and brought out the people who were there, consigning them to labor with saws and with iron picks and axes. David did this to all the Ammonite towns. Then David and his entire army returned to Jerusalem.

1 Chronicles 20:1-3 (NIV)

David, Bathsheba, and Uriah are not mentioned in these verses. Indeed, 1 Chronicles 20:1-3 says nothing about the incident between David and Bathsheba. If you think about it, this is strange given that a good deal of Chronicles recounts events from Samuel and Kings. 

To each his suff’rings: all are men,

         Condemn’d alike to groan,

The tender for another’s pain;

         Th’ unfeeling for his own.

Yet ah! why should they know their fate?

Since sorrow never comes too late,

         And happiness too swiftly flies.

Thought would destroy their paradise.

No more; where ignorance is bliss,

       ‘Tis folly to be wise (emphasis added).

Thomas Gray (Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College, Stanza 10)

In 1742, Thomas Gray coined the phrase “Ignorance is bliss,” referring to the notion that we can’t worry about what we don’t know. While this notion may be appealing on some levels, the truth is that ignorance, like curiosity, can get us killed and is most definitely a troublesome root. Consider this passage from 1 Chronicles 19.