The end result of having many wives is many children and that is what happened to David. They all had the same father and were always jockeying for position and that is where the trouble began. It started with the love sick Amnon who wanted Tamar, his half sister and the sister of Absalom another of David's sons. When Amnon forced himself on Tamar it disgraced her and disgusted Absalom. Absalom took Tamar and her shame into his house and plotted his revenge. He succeeded in killing Amnon and causing all of David's other sons to flee back to their father while Absalom fled from the king's reach. And the spirit of the king longed to go to Absalom, for he was consoled concerning Amnon's death. - 2 Sam 13:39 NIV
David mourned for his son Ammon and for the lost relationship with Absalom, but there was no repairing that breach until Joab sent a woman in disguise to trick David into changing his mind about Absalom. She told him: "When the king says this, does he not convict himself, for the king has not brought back his banished son? Like water spilled on the ground, which cannot be recovered, so we must die. But God does not take away life; instead, he devises ways so that a banished person may not remain estranged from him." - 2 Sam. 14:13-14 NIV
That was enough to convince David to let Absalom return to Jerusalem where he lived there two years without seeing David. Joab finally convinced David to see his son, but the divide could not be breached. The handsome Absalom, admired by all of Israel for his looks, his chariot and horses with fifty men running ahead of him to lead the way, began to secretly woo the people away from loyalty to David until finally David fled with all of his family and officials. By now David is older, and all the people who cheered him on in his victorious youth wept as they saw him marching out with his family in a procession that included those who remained loyal to him and the Levites who brought the Ark of the Covenant along. "Take the Ark of God back into the city", David said. "If I find favor in the LORD's eyes, he will bring me back and let me see it and his dwelling place again. But if he says, 'I am not pleased with you,' then I am ready; let him do to me whatever seems good to him." - 2 Sam 15:25 NIV
On that long, sad, journey was David thinking that God had banished him as he had banished Absalom? When he sent the Ark back, did he think he was saying goodbye to God's presence forever?
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