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David's relationship with Absalom was one of the most painful parent-child estrangements in Scripture. Absalom fled after killing his brother Amnon. David longed for him but did not bring him back for years. When David finally allowed Absalom's return to Jerusalem, Absalom lived two years in the city without seeing his father's face. And then Absalom led a rebellion against David. The estrangement between them was never fully resolved — David's grief at Absalom's death was "O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! would God I had died for thee." The love did not end because the relationship was broken.
Get These Verses Daily — Free“Yet doth God devise means, that his banished be not expelled from him.”
God actively devises means — the Hebrew chashab means to plan, to invent, to scheme — for the restoration of the banished. Estrangement is not a situation God observes passively. He is working toward means of restoration, even when they are not yet visible.
“Wait on the LORD: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the LORD.”
The Hebrew qavah — 'wait' — means to be stretched toward, to remain oriented toward. Waiting for an estranged child to return is active, not passive. It is maintained orientation toward God and toward the possibility of restoration, held in courage rather than despair.
“And there is hope in thine end, saith the LORD; and thy children shall come again to their own border.”
The promise is return — the Hebrew shuv — spoken over children who have gone to a far place. 'Their own border' is home, the place they belong. God names return as the destination even when the direction of travel is away.
“A soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger.”
The parent of an estranged child lives for the moments when contact breaks through. The first words spoken in those moments have power to soften or harden. Proverbs names the disposition that gives restoration the best chance: soft answers, not the backlog of grievance.
“But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
God pursued relationship while the distance was maximal — while we were yet sinners, still far away. This is the theological pattern for a parent's love toward an estranged child: active love that is not conditioned on the child first closing the distance. Love moves toward the estranged.
Psalm 27:14 — "Wait on the LORD: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the LORD" — is advice for a specific kind of waiting: the waiting that cannot be resolved by human action. Estrangement from an adult child is exactly this kind of waiting. The Hebrew qavah — 'wait' — means to bind together, to be stretched toward something. Waiting for a child to return is not passive resignation — it is an active, directed orientation toward God and toward the possibility of restoration.
Proverbs 15:1 — "A soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger" — applies specifically to the moments when contact breaks through the silence. The words spoken in those moments have power to soften or to harden. The parent who has been holding pain in silence often has a backlog of grievance that the first conversation can release destructively. Proverbs names what the first words should be.
Commentary is from a charismatic Protestant perspective, drawing on KJV text and public-domain sources including Spurgeon, Andrew Murray, and Matthew Henry.
2 Samuel 14:14 contains one of the most theologically rich statements about reconciliation in the Old Testament, spoken by the wise woman of Tekoa to David about his estrangement from Absalom: "For we must needs die, and are as water spilt on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again; neither doth God respect any person: yet doth God devise means, that his banished be not expelled from him." God devises means for the restoration of the banished. He is not passive in estrangement. He is working toward restoration, even when the human situation looks permanent.
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