2 Samuel 14:21,22

The king said unto Joab Joab seems to have stood in some part of the room all the while the woman was addressing the king; who, therefore, now turned himself from her to him as the principal agent in the business, and said, Behold, now I have done this thing That is, the thing which thou hast contrived thus to ask. Joab fell to the ground on his face With the politeness of a courier he returned thanks to the king, in the most fervent manner, as for the greatest obligation conferred upon himself; though, in fact, he had contrived it all to oblige the king, and give him pleasure. “A refinement of flattery and address,” says Delaney, “not easily equalled! The Jews,” he adds, “are generally considered as an illiterate, barbarous people: and the charge is so far just, that they despised the learning of other nations; but this by no means infers them either ignorant or barbarous. The single design and address of this device (the above similitude) are sufficient proofs, were there no other, to evince this people to have neither been unpolite nor uninformed.”

In that the king hath fulfilled the request of his servant But was not David faulty in granting this request? Did he not, in so doing, act in direct opposition to the laws of God, which strictly command the supreme magistrate to execute justice upon all wilful murderers, without any reservation or exception? Genesis 9:6; Numbers 35:30. Surely David had no power to dispense with God's laws, or to spare any whom God commanded him to destroy: for the laws of God bound the kings and rulers, as well as the people of Israel, as is most evident from Deuteronomy 17:18; and Joshua 1:8, and many other places. And, indeed, we may see David's sin herein in the glass of those tremendous judgments of God which befell him by means of his indulgence to Absalom. For although God's providential dispensations be in themselves no rule whereby to judge of the good or evil actions of men; yet where they accord with God's word, and accomplish his threatenings, as in this case they did, they are to be considered as tokens of God's displeasure. And how justly did God make this man, whom David had so sinfully spared, to become a scourge to him!