Day 94 | 2 Samuel 16–18 — Would I Had Died Instead of You — Absalom’s Defeat and a Father’s Grief | Bible in a Year

A king in exile lets a man curse him to his face and doesn't retaliate, choosing to believe God might yet repay him with good. One counselor's brilliant strategy gets overturned by another's, buying just enough time, and pride marches an entitled son straight into the branches of an oak tree and into an early death. When the news reaches David, he cries out the most devastating line in his whole story: would I had died instead of you.Here we consider grief, pride, providence, substitution, and a father's wish that only one greater Son could ever actually fulfill.