51 pages • 1 hour read
Gene EdwardsA Tale of Three Kings: A Study of Brokenness
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1980A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 2, Chapters 24-27Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 2, Chapter 24 Summary
The scene of action moves away from David to another conversation, this time between Nathan (a prophet of God) and Zadok (the high priest). Nathan was on his way to see David in the palace, but Zadok stops him to talk about the test of leadership facing David. Nathan replies that David has already passed that test—in fact, had passed it long ago, when he was young—because it was always a test of the heart, not of one’s leadership abilities. Nathan further notes that the inner character of men like Saul and Absalom seems always to find enemies, wherever they might go: “The Sauls of this world can never see a David; they see only Absalom. The Absaloms of this world can never see a David; they see only Saul” (80). Zadok asks what a pure-hearted man—namely, David—might do in such a situation, and they both express anticipation at seeing how the king will deal with the challenge unfolding before him.
Part 2, Chapter 25 Summary
David’s conversations continue when Zadok enters after the latter’s dialogue with the prophet Nathan. David summoned Zadok to talk over a matter relating to Israel’s history. The king wants to hear the story of Korah’s rebellion, an episode during Israel’s ancient wilderness wanderings in which an upstart leader tried to undermine Moses’s authority. As Zadok and David talk, they come to the conclusion that every “kingdom”—that is, every community of God’s people—has its problems, and it will likely always have people rising up and insisting that current leaders are not handling those problems in the right way. In the beginnings of Korah’s rebellion, the people of Israel had no way of knowing which leader was speaking God’s truth about the situation. David brings this line of reflection to a unsatisfying conclusion: “[…] in the midst of a hundred voices making a thousand claims, the simple people of God have no assurance of who is truly anointed to bear God’s authority and who is not” (85).
Zadok agrees but points out that God’s purposes nonetheless prevail: “As surely as the sun rises, people’s hearts will be tested. […] This might not seem important in the eyes of men, but in the eyes of God such things are central” (86). They end their dialogue with the reminder that in the midst of Moses’s leadership crisis against Korah, Moses did nothing, instead leaving it in the hands of God to decide the matter. This matches David’s feelings, as he resolves to do nothing to stop Absalom’s rise. At the end of the scene, Abishai rushes in to announce that Absalom had himself declared king in Hebron, a major southern city in Israel.
Part 2, Chapter 26 Summary
As word of Absalom’s coup trickles through the capital city of Jerusalem in the middle of the night, Abishai goes to find his brother Joab on the ramparts. Both are troubled by the news, but Abishai is particularly angry. Joab asks his brother what he makes of these events: “If Absalom, who is nothing, will divide the very kingdom of God,” Abishai responds, “if Absalom will do these evil things now, what in the name of sanity might that man do if he be king?” (92). The allegorical connection to contemporary churches is again implied, suggesting that a person who machinates to overthrow a leader in a spiritual community shows by that very action that they will be untrustworthy as a leader themselves.
Part 2, Chapter 27 Summary
After Abishai departed from them, David and Zadok were left alone again. Zadok now asks the king what he will do. David explains that his first instinct is to make sure that whatever he does, he is acting out of pure motives: “[…] against all reason, I judge my own heart first and rule against its interests” (93). Since he is still uncertain whether he has God’s continued favor as king, or whether God intends for Absalom to become the next ruler, he says he will put the matter in God’s hands by making no resistance. Instead, he will flee Jerusalem and leave the matter to fall out as it will: “The throne is the Lord’s. So is the kingdom. I will not hinder God” (94). With this decision made, David exits the scene, and the book comes to an end with the narrator again addressing the reader and briefly advising them to “reflect on the hidden motives of [their] own heart” (94).
Part 2, Chapters 23-27 Analysis
Following David’s conversations with his military leaders and “mighty men,” Joab and Abishai, the final chapters of A Tale of Three Kings all continue in the same vein of dialogue and reflection. Each chapter is set on the same night in Jerusalem, as various characters interact with each other about the incoming news of Absalom’s rebellion. Earlier sections of the book shifted between short scenes rapidly, but these chapters preserve a theatrical air in a different way, by having the background scenery remain much the same, while different actors walk in and out of the scene from chapter to chapter. The motif of the theater thus remains central, and the narrator returns directly to that motif in the book’s closing lines, when he addresses the reader in much the same way as in the book’s opening lines, inviting them to consider an upcoming play called The Divine Romance. As David leaves, the reader is given an option to either be active in their role of leadership, to be like Absalom, or to be passive in it, to have Brokenness as a Godly Virtue. The implication is that they will take this decision with them to their own church communities, as David leaves, and they will be able to become active or passive outside of the novel.
Whereas David’s prior conversations were with military figures, this final section highlights the voices of spiritual leaders—Nathan the prophet and Zadok the high priest. While Nathan and Zadok hope that David might act to forestall an overthrow of the government, just as Joab and Abishai do, they also understand—in a deeper way than the others—the reasons why David foregoes action. Their background in ministry and their knowledge of the history of Israel underscore their affirmation of David’s belief in the kingship as a gift that can only be given or taken by God. They understand Leadership and the Call of God and allow it to play out, just as David does.
Of the book’s main themes, the dominant one in this section is The Difficulty of Knowing the Will of God. David wrestles with this issue in his discussion with Zadok: although he knows he was anointed for kingship, he does not know whether it is God’s will that he remain in that position or if perhaps God might be raising up Absalom to fill that role instead. David ultimately decides there is no way he can know God’s will for the situation, but he can put the situation in God’s hands. God’s will can be revealed, but it is revealed by David’s resolution to flee rather than to fight. If David fought and won, he would still be uncertain whether this was God’s will, as he might have acted in defiance of that will. If, however, he makes no effort to resist Absalom, then it will have to be God’s action that preserves the throne for David, if that is indeed what happens in the end. While this appears to require a certain passivity, the theological perspective of the book would portray it as the virtue of trusting in God rather than in oneself. This act allows leadership to play out as God intends it and speaks to the theme of Leadership and the Call of God.
While Part 2 of the book follows the general outline of the biblical story of Absalom’s rebellion, all of the conversations in this section are fictional. As in previous sections, the book’s allegory drives the selection and usage of the underlying biblical material. In these chapters, however, it is not only the selection of biblical stories that is affected but the traditional interpretation of those stories. In the biblical account, David withdrew from Jerusalem because he was already in a losing position, with nearly the entire country having gone over in support to Absalom’s side. In A Tale of Three Kings, however, Edwards modifies the story to allow for the possibility that David might have been able to mount a successful resistance against Absalom in the moment of crisis but that he chose not to as an act of resigning himself to God’s will. He emphasizes Brokenness as a Godly Virtue to speak to contemporary church conflicts.
In the biblical story, David does not choose inaction; he is forced to flee by political necessity and eventually does choose to take active measures by sending his remaining soldiers out against his son’s forces. In the end, David does in fact mount a successful resistance against Absalom, but only after having time to choose an advantageous battle site. As in other sections of the book, then, the novel is not intended to portray an accurate and robust account of David’s life but to apply lessons from David’s life to leadership questions in the contemporary Christian church. The novel brings the story and its implications into the modern day, and it ends by making the reader choose what they will do in their own play of church leadership within their community. David does not conclude the story in this version; rather, the reader simply continues their own, playing their own part in Leadership and the Call of God.
