In order to persuade the king to forgive, the crafty woman reminded him (2Sa 14:14) of the brevity of human life and of the mercy of God: “For we must die, and (are)as water spilt upon the ground, which is not (cannot be)gathered up, and God does not take a soul away, but thinks thoughts, that He may not thrust from Him one expelled.” Although these thoughts are intentionally expressed quite generally, their special allusion to the case in hand can easily be detected. We must all die, and when dead our life is irrevocably gone. Thou mightest soon experience this in the case of Absalom, if thou shouldst suffer him to continue in exile. God does not act thus; He does not deprive the sinner of life, but is merciful, and does not cast off for ever.
Verse 15
After these allusions to David's treatment of Absalom, the woman returned again to her own affairs, to make the king believe that nothing but her own distress had led her to speak thus: “And now that I have come to speak this word to the king my lord, was (took place)because the people have put me in fear (sc., by their demand that I should give up my son to the avenger of blood); thy handmaid said (i.e., thought), I will indeed go to the king, perhaps the king will do his handmaid's word,” i.e., grant her request.
Verse 16
2Sa 14:16“Yea, the king will hear, to save his handmaid out of the hand of the man that would destroy me and my son from the inheritance of God.” אשׁר must be supplied before להשׁמיד: who is to destroy, i.e., who is seeking to destroy (vid., Gesenius, §132, 3). “The inheritance of God” was the nation of Israel (as in 1Sa 26:19; cf. Deu 32:9).
Verse 17
2Sa 14:17“Then thine handmaid thought, may the word of my lord the king be for rest (i.e., tend to give me rest);for as the angel of God (the angel of the covenant, the mediator of the blessings of divine grace to the covenant-nation), so is my lord the king to hear good and evil (i.e., listening to every just complaint on the part of his subjects, and granting help to the oppressed),and Jehovah thy God be with thee!”
Verses 18-19
These words of the woman were so well considered and so crafty, that the king could not fail to see both what she really meant, and also that she had not come with her petition of her own accord. He therefore told her to answer the question without disguise: whether the hand of Joab was with her in all this. She replied,“Truly there is not (אם) anything to the right hand or to the left of all that my lord
