Joab was told, “Behold, the king weeps and mourns for Absalom.” The victory that day was turned into mourning among all the people; for the people heard it said that day, “The king grieves for his son.”
The people sneaked into the city that day, as people who are ashamed steal away when they flee in battle. The king covered his face, and the king cried with a loud voice, “My son Absalom, Absalom, my son, my son!”
Joab came into the house to the king, and said, “Today you have shamed the faces of all your servants, who today have saved your life, and the lives of your sons and of your daughters, and the lives of your wives, and the lives of your concubines; in that you love those who hate you, and hate those who love you. For you have declared today that princes and servants are nothing to you. For today I perceive that if Absalom had lived, and all we had died today, then it would have pleased you well.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv2–6 Hebrew, salvation, or deliverance.
Hebrew, salvation, or deliverance.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv1–6 2Sa 19:1 And it was told Joab, Behold, the…
2Sa 19:1 And it was told Joab, Behold, the king weepeth and mourneth for Absalom.
Ver. 1. And it was told Joab.] By Ahimaaz and Cushi, likely.
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And mourneth.] Showeth his sorrow by habit and gesture, as Exo 33:4.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 4, 5, 6 It was told Joab, by his messengers, upon their…
It was told Joab, by his messengers, upon their return.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On v1 Soon after the messengers had brought the news of…
Soon after the messengers had brought the news of the defeat and death of Absalom to the court of Mahanaim, Joab and his victorious army followed, to grace the king's triumphs and receive his further orders. Now here we are told,
I. What a damp and disappointment it was to them to find the king in tears for Absalom's death, which they construed as a token of displeasure against them for what they had done, whereas they expected him to have met them with joy and thanks for their good services: It was told Joab, v. 1 The report of it ran through the army (Sa2 19:2), how the king was grieved for his son. The people will take particular notice what their princes say and do. The more eyes we have upon us, and the greater our influence is, the more need we have to speak and act wisely and to govern our passions strictly. When they came to the city they found the king in close mourning, Sa2 19:4. He covered his face, and would not so much as look up, nor take any notice of the generals when they attended him. It could not but surprise them to find, 1. How the king proclaimed his passion, of which he ought to have been ashamed, and which he would have striven to smother and conceal if he had consulted either his reputation for courage, which was lessened by his mean submission to the tyranny of so absurd a passion, or his interest in the people, which would be prejudiced by his discountenancing what was done in zeal for his honour and the public safety. Yet see how he avows his grief: He cries with a loud voice, O my son Absalom! "My servants have all come home safe, but where is my son? He is dead; and, dying in sin, I fear he is lost for ever. I cannot now say, I shall go to him, for my soul shall not be gathered with such sinners; what shall be done for thee, O Absalom! my son, my son!" 2. How he prolonged his passion, even till the army had come up to him, which must be some time after he received the first intelligence. If he had contented himself with giving vent to his passion for an hour or two when he first heard the news, it would have been excusable, but to continue it thus for so bad a son as Absalom, like Jacob for so good a son as Joseph, with a resolution to go to the grave mourning and to stain his triumphs with his tears, was very unwise and very unworthy. Now see how ill this was taken by the people. They were loth to blame the king, for whatever he did used to please them (Sa2 3:36), but they took it as a great mortification to them. Their victory was turned into mourning, Sa2 19:2. They stole into the city as men ashamed, Sa2 19:3. In compliment to their sovereign, they would not rejoice in that which they perceived so afflictive to him, and yet they could not but be uneasy that they were thus obliged to conceal their joy. Superiors ought not to put such hardships as these on their inferiors.
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II. How plainly and vehemently Joab reproved David for this indiscreet management of himself in this critical juncture. David never more needed the hearts of his subjects than now, nor was ever more concerned to secure his interest in their affections; and therefore whatever tended to disoblige them now was the most impolitic thing he could do, and the greatest wrong imaginable to his friends that adhered to him. Joab therefore censures him, Sa2 19:5-7. He speaks a great deal of reason, but not with the respect and deference which he owed to his prince. Is is fit to say to a king, Thou art wicked? A plain case may be fairly pleaded with those that are above us, and they may be reproved for what they do amiss, but it must not be done with rudeness and insolence. David did indeed need to be roused and alarmed; and Joab thought it no time to dally with him. If superiors do that which is foolish, they must neither think it strange nor take it ill if their inferiors tell them of it, perhaps too bluntly. 1. Joab magnifies the services of David's soldiers: "This day they have saved thy life, and therefore deserve to be taken notice of, and have reason to resent it if they be not." It is implied that Absalom, whom he honoured with his tears, sought his ruin and the ruin of his family, while those whom by his tears he puts a slight upon were such as preserved from ruin him and all that was dear to him. Great mischiefs have arisen to princes from the contempt of great merits. 2. He aggravates the discouragement David had given them: "Thou hast shamed their faces; for, while they have shown such a value for thy life, thou hast shown no value for theirs, but preferrest a spoiled wicked youth, a false traitor to his king and country, whom we are happily rid of, before all thy wise counsellors, brave commanders, and loyal subjects. What can be more absurd than to love thy enemies and hate thy friends?" 3. He advises him to present himself immediately at the head of his troops, to smile upon them, welcome them home, congratulate their success, and return them thanks for their services. Even those that may be commanded yet expect to be thanked when they do well, and ought to be. 4. He threatens him with another rebellion if he would not do this, intimating that rather than serve so ungrateful a prince he himself would head a revolt from him, and then (so confident is Joab of his own interest in the people) "there will not tarry with thee one man. If I go, they will go. Thou hast now nothing to mourn for: but, if thou persist, I will give thee something to mourn for (as Josephus expresses it) with a true and more bitter mourning."
III. How prudently and mildly David took the reproof and counsel given him, Sa2 19:8. He shook off his grief, anointed his head, and washed his face, that he might not appear unto men to mourn, and then made his appearance in public in the gate, which was as the guild-hall of the city. Hither the people flocked to him to congratulate his and their safety, and all was well. Note, When we are convinced of a fault, we must amend, though we are told of it by our inferiors, and indecently, or in heat and passion.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv1–6 And it was told Joab,.... When returned to Mahanaim,…
And it was told Joab,.... When returned to Mahanaim, or on his way to it; perhaps by the messengers he sent; and this report he had before he saw the king:
behold, the king weepeth and mourneth for Absalom; for the death of him, instead of rejoicing at the victory obtained, and the deliverance from his enemies.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 5, 6 Joab prevails on David to refrain, ver. 1-8. He…
Joab prevails on David to refrain, ver. 1-8. He is brought back to his kingdom by the men of Judah, ver. 9-15. Pardons Shimei, ver. 16-23. Restores to Mephibosheth his estate, ver. 24- 30. Barzillai is dismissed, and his son taken into David's service, ver. 31-40. The Israelites expostulate with the men of Judah, ver. 41-43.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 4, 5 David continues his lamentation for his son, and the…
CHAPTER XIX
David continues his lamentation for his son, and the people are
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greatly discouraged, 1-4.
Joab reproves and threatens him with the general defection of
the people, 5-7.
David lays aside his mourning, and shows himself to the people,
who are thereby encouraged, 8.
The tribes take counsel to bring the king back to Jerusalem,
9-12.
He makes Amasa captain of the host in place of Joab, 13.
The king, returning, is met by Judah at Gilgal, 14, 15.
Shimei comes to meet David, and entreats for his life, which
David grants, 16-23.
Mephibosheth also meets him, and shows how he had been
slandered by Ziba, 24-30.
David is met by Barzillai, and between them there is an
affecting interview, 31-40.
Contention between the men of Judah and the men of Israel,
about bringing back the king, 41-43.
NOTES ON CHAP. XIX
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv2–5 2Sa 19:2. The victory was turned into mourning to…
2Sa 19:2. The victory was turned into mourning to all the people — They had so great a regard to their prince, that, when they heard of his distress, they were afflicted with him; and instead of triumphing, they also made lamentations.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On v5 Had Absalom gained the victory, it is likely that,…
Had Absalom gained the victory, it is likely that, according to the manner of Oriental despots, he would have sought to secure his throne by killing all possible competitors Jdg 9:5; 1Ki 15:29.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv2–6 Mourning, as is commonly the case in civil wars.…
Mourning, as is commonly the case in civil wars. The king being oppressed with grief, a triumph was out of season. (Menochius)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On v1 The Restoration of David’s Royal Authority, which was now…
THIRD SECTION
The Restoration of David’s Royal Authority, which was now Endangered by Dissension between Judah and Israel and by the Insurrection of Sheba
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2 Samuel 19-20
I. The Way opened for the Restoration of David’s Kingdom by Joab’s Reproof of his Immoderate Grief for Absalom. 2Sa_19:1-8 [Hebrews 2-9]
1And it was told Joab, Behold, the king weepeth and mourneth for Absalom. 2And the victory [deliverance]1 that day was turned into mourning unto all the people; for the people heard say that day how [om. how, ins.:] The king was [is] grieved for his Song of Solomon 3 And the people gat them by stealth that day into the city, as 4people being ashamed steal away when they flee in battle. But [And] the king covered2 his face, and the king cried with a loud voice, O my son Absalom, O Absalom, my son, my son! 5And Joab came into the house to the king, and said, Thou hast shamed this day the faces of all thy servants, which [who] this day have saved thy life, and the lives of thy sons and of thy daughters, and the lives of thy wives, and the lives of thy concubines, in that thou lovest thine enemies, and hatest 6thy friends. For thou hast declared this day that thou regardest neither [not] princes nor [and] servants; for this day I perceive that, if3 Absalom had lived 7and all we had died this day, then it had pleased thee well. Now, therefore [And now], arise, go forth, and speak comfortably unto thy servants; for I swear by the Lord [Jehovah], if4 thou go not forth, there will not tarry one with thee this night; and5 that will be worse unto thee than all the evil that befel [hath befallen] 8thee from thy youth until now. Then [And] the king arose, and sat in the gate. And they told unto all the people, saying, Behold, the king doth sit in the gate; and all the people came before the king. [Transfer the rest of this verse to the next verse.6]
II. David prepares for his Return by Negotiations with the Men of Judah. 2Sa_19:9-14 [Heb. 10–15]
For [And] Israel had fled, every man to his tent. 9And all the people were at strife throughout all the tribes of Israel, saying, The king saved us out of the hand of our enemies, and he delivered us out of the hand of the Philistines; and now he is fled out of the land for [from7] Absalom. 10And Absalom, whom we anointed over us, is dead in battle. Now, therefore [And now], why speak ye not a word of bringing the king back8?
11And king David sent to Zadok and to Abiathar the priests, saying, Speak unto the elders of Judah, saying, Why are ye [will ye be] the last to bring the king back to his house? seeing the speech of all Israel is come to the king even [om. even] to his house.8 12Ye are my brethren, ye are my bones [bone] and my flesh; wherefore, then are ye [and why will ye be] the last to bring back the king? 13And say ye to Amasa, Art thou not of [om. of] my bone and of [om. of] my flesh? God do so to me and more also, if thou be not captain of the host before me continually in the room [instead] of Joab. 14And he bowed [inclined] the heart of all the men of Judah even [om. even] as the the heart of one man; so that [and] they sent this word unto the king, Return thou, and all thy servants.
III. David’s Passage over the Jordan under the Escort of the Men of Judah, with Three Incidents. 2Sa_19:15-40 a [Heb. 16–41 a]
1. Pardoning of Shimei. 2Sa_19:15-23 [Heb. 16–24]
15So [And] the king returned, and came to [ins. the] Jordan. And Judah came to Gilgal, to go9 to meet the king, to conduct the king over [ins. the] Jordan. 16And10 Shimei, the son of Gera, a [the] Benjamite [Benjaminite], which was of 17Bahurim, hasted and came down with the men of Judah to meet king David, And there were [om. there were] a thousand men of Benjamin with him, and Ziba the servant of the house of Saul, and his fifteen sons and his twenty servants with him; and they went over [ins. the] Jordan before the king. 18And there went over a ferry-boat [And the ferry-boat went over] to carry over the king’s household, and to do what he thought good. And Shimei the son of Gera fell down before the king as he was come over [ins. the] Jordan; 19And said unto the king, Let not my lord impute iniquity unto me, neither do thou remember [and remember not] that which thy servant did perversely the day that my lord the king went out of Jerusalem, that the king should take it to his heart. 20For thy servant doth know that I have sinned; therefore [and] behold, I am come the first this day of all the 21house of Joseph to go [come] down to meet my lord the king. But [And] Abishai the son of Zeruiah answered, and said, Shall not Shimei be put to death for this, because he cursed the Lord’s [Jehovah’s] anointed? 22And David said. What have I to do with you, ye sons of Zeruiah [ins.?] that ye should [for ye will] this day be adversaries unto me? [om.?] shall there any man be put to death this day 23in Israel? for do I not know that I am this day king over Israel? Therefore [And] the king said unto Shimei, Thou shalt not die. And the king sware unto him.
2. Mephibosheth’s Apology. 2Sa_19:24-30 [Heb. 25–31]
24And Mephibosheth the son of Saul came down to meet the king, and had neither dressed his feet,11 nor trimmed his beard, nor washed his clothes, from the day king departed until the day he came again in peace. 25And it came to pass, when he was come to [better from] Jerusalem to meet the king, that the king said unto him, Wherefore wentest thou not with me, Mephibosheth? 26And he answered [said], My lord, O king, my servant deceived me; for thy servant said, I will saddle me an [the] ass, that I may [and] ride thereon, and go to12 the king, because thy servant is lame. And he hath slandered thy servant unto my lord the king. 27But my lord the king is as an angel of God; do, therefore, what is good in thine 28eyes. For, all of my father’s house were but dead men before my lord the king; yet didst thou [and thou didst] set thy servant among them that did eat at thine own table; what right, therefore, [and what right] have I yet to cry any more unto the king? 29And the king said unto him, Why speakest thou any more of thy matter? I have said [I say], Thou and Ziba divide the land. 30And Mephibosheth said unto the king, Yea, let him take all [Let him also take all] forasmuch as [after] my lord the king is come again [om. again] in peace unto his own house.
3. Barzillai’s Greeting and Blessing. 2Sa_19:31-40 a [Heb. 32–41 a]
31And Barzillai the Gileadite came down from Rogelim, and went over [ins. the] 32Jordan with the king, to conduct him over [ins. the] Jordan.13 Now [And] Barzillai was a very aged man, even [om. even] fourscore years old; and he had provided the king of sustenance while he lay14 at Mahanaim; for he was a very great man. 33And the king said unto Barzillai, Come thou over with me, and I will feed thee with me in Jerusalem. 34And Barzillai said unto the king, How long have I to live [How many are the days of the years of my life] that I should go up with the king to Jerusalem? 35I am this day fourscore years old; and [om. and] can I discern between good and evil? can thy servant taste what I eat or [and] what I drink? can I hear any more the voice of singing men and singing women? wherefore then [and why] should thy servant be yet a burden unto my lord the king? 36Thy servant will go a little way over [ins. the] Jordan15 with the king; and why should the king recompense it me with such a reward [do me this favor16]? Let thy servant, I pray thee, turn back again [return], that I may die in mine own city and be buried [om. and be buried] by the grave of my father and of my mother.17 But behold thy servant Chimham, let him go over [37let thy servant Chimham go over] with my lord the king; and do to him what shall seem good unto thee. 38And the king answered [said], Chimham shall go over with me, and I will do to him that which shall seem good unto thee; and whatsoever thou shalt require of me, that will I do for thee. And all the people went over [ins. the] Jordan. 39And when the king was come over, the king kissed Barzillai, and blessed him; 40and he returned unto his own place. Then [And] the king went on to Gilgal, and Chimham went on with him.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
I. 2Sa_19:1-8. David’s immoderate grief for Absalom stopped by Joab’s earnest representations.
2Sa_19:1. And it was told Joab, comp. 2Sa_18:33. The purpose of the informant, it seems, was to explain to Joab and the army why the king did not come forth to greet his returning victorious warriors. [Joab had apparently just returned from the field of battle.—Tr.].
2Sa_19:2-3. Touching description of the impression made on the people by David’s violent grief, and their quiet and repressed behaviour. The deliverance that was achieved by the victory changed into mourning for the whole people.—The news spread everywhere (“the people heard that it was said”): “The king mourns for his son.” But these men’s hearty participation in the sorrow of the beloved king, for whom they had perilled their lives, soon changed to gloomy dissatisfaction at the fact that the king, absorbed in his private grief, did not deign to bestow a look on them. The description of the manner in which the troops, thus dissatisfied, returned to the city, is psychologically very fine. They stole away to enter the city, i.e., not: avoided entering the city (Vulgate, Luther, Mich., Niemeyer), but, instead of entering in military order as a victorious host, scattered and entered individually or in small groups, unobserved, as people steal in that have disgraced themselves by fleeing in battle, as disgraced fugitives. Mourning, therefore, instead of joy of victory, seeming shame instead of honor.
2Sa_19:4. Continued violent grief of David, who, overmastered by his feelings, forgets what he owes not only to the army, but also to his people and his royal position. “Certainly the army, which had perilled goods and life to win the fugitive king back his kingdom, is very much concerned at his immoderate affliction, and Joab, who was doubtless conscious of having acted with a proper apprehension of the public situation, takes the liberty by an earnest word to remind the king of his governmental duty” (Baumgarten). [The king covered his face, a sign of extreme grief or shame; comp. Isa_53:3 : “he was as one hiding his face from us.” He cried, with a loud voice, according to the open and violent mode of expressing grief common in the East (and so also the heroes of the Iliad); there are striking illustrations of this in the Arabian Nights.—Tr.].
2Sa_19:5-7. Joab’s representations to David, and first, accusatory reproof (2Sa_19:5-6), which is only partially just (2Sa_19:5). David had certainly, contrary to his duty as king and commander-in-chief of the army, done what Joab reproaches him with in the words: Thou hast to-day shamed the faces of all thy servants,= “Thou hast destroyed the hopes (thy army’s of praise, thy nearest friends’ of joy”) (Thenius). It behooved the king to give the victorious army a reception in keeping with the victory. Who have saved thy life and the life of all thine, for this they put their lives at stake. [If Absalom had conquered, David and his whole household would probably have been slain, such being the Oriental custom.—Tr.].—But Joab’s reproof goes on to what is partially untrue, 2Sa_19:6 : in that thou lovest them that hate thee, etc. This was true, certainly, for Absalom, who was his father’s enemy, was now the object of his father’s love; but it was a bitter untruth when Joab added: and hatest them that love thee; David had not deserved such a misapprehension of his heart and disposition, though his conduct had given occasion to it. That leaders and servants are not for thee, that is, not: that they are nothing (worth nothing) to thee (De Wette, Keil), but: are for thee as if they do not exist; Vulg.: “because thou carest not for thy leaders.” I perceive to day that, if18 Absalom lived, and we were all dead today, then.—As Absalom, if he had conquered, would certainly have slain with his father all his household also (2Sa_19:5), so, says Joab, if Absalom had lived (as David in his lamentation desired) and he himself (Joab) had been slain in his place, David’s whole army would have shared in his destruction. Joab dissects David’s words of lamentation with inexorable cruelty, and draws thence with his intellectual acuteness and the grim bitterness of his rude nature consequences that are seemingly logical, yet lay far from David’s nature, though his conduct looked like what he was reproached with.—Happily, Joab’s speech—which bears the stamp of military rudeness, disappointed ambition, cruel hard-heartedness and bitter resentment, and finds its justification only in the fact that it set aside David’s weak grief—softens in the following words (2Sa_19:7), wherein he earnestly presses good counsel on David, and thus deserves well of him and the people. Arise, go forth, tear thyself from the grief in which thou art lost. Speak to the heart of thy servants (Homer’s καταθύμια [comp. Eng. encourage]), in friendly fashion, satisfy and refresh their minds; so the Vulg. (comp. Gen_34:3; Gen_1:21 and many other passages). The meaning is not: “speak of their heart,” i.e., their courage = praise them for their bravery (Jos.), which is against the usual signification of the words. I swear, if thou go not forth … Joab does not threaten that he will lead the army away [Josephus], but he describes the indubitable result of the dissatisfaction in the army: it will not stay. Thus he points out what consequences David’s behaviour will have for his throne. Worse than all the evil, Joab rightly says, that would be; for by abandonment to grief he would give up the kingdom that God had a second time bestowed on him. Clericus: “He intimates that the troops would abandon David, who, from silly weakness and foolish love of Absalom, acted as if he were angry with the victorious army, and elect another king.”
2Sa_19:8. The effect of Joab’s sharp words was that David shook off his grief, and seated himself in the gate.19 The news goes quickly through the people. All the people came before the king, who, in accordance with Joab’s counsel, expressed to them his thanks and his kind feeling. Thus was the danger to David’s throne from the spirit of disintegration (which, as the succeeding history shows, continued after the victory) set aside by Joab’s sharp and bitter word, which David took patiently, because he was obliged to acknowledge its justness.
II. 2Sa_19:9-14. Negotiations for David’s return. The last part of 2Sa_19:8 must be combined with 2Sa_19:9 into one sentence: And when Israel had fled, every man to his tent (comp. 2Sa_19:19) all the people strove together in all the tribes of Israel.—It is the other tribes, excepting Judah, that are meant. Among them, after their terrible defeat, the revolutionary excitement had soon passed away, and by this victory, whereby the land was saved from grievous misfortune, men’s minds were turned to David, as they recalled his heroic deeds at home and abroad. All the people strove together, reproaching one another with delay in bringing back the king. Why do ye keep quiet about bringing back the king?—The people are reassembled after their dispersion; their representatives consult together zealously about the restoration to the throne, to which they had raised the insurgent Absalom by the act of anointing. They reproach one another for doing nothing to restore the king. In their hearts, therefore, they feel the grievous wrong they have done an anointed of the Lord, as is shown indirectly by their words, in which David’s great deeds and the misfortunes of the terrible time just past are mentioned; and now they prepare for the deed of solemnly going to meet David, whereby they will declare that their hearts have returned to him in the old love and fidelity.—In 2Sa_19:9 after the word “land,” the Sept. adds: “and from his kingdom and,” meant doubtless as an explanatory statement.—At the end of 2Sa_19:10 [Hebrews 11] the Sept., Vulg. (some MSS.) and Syriac have: “and the word of all Israel came to the king,” which occurs in the Heb. at the end of 2Sa_19:11 [Hebrews 12], and is there repeated by the versions [except Syr.—Tr.] only the “to his house” is not added in 2Sa_19:10. If these words belonged at the end of 2Sa_19:10, they would assign the motive of David’s message in 2Sa_19:11 (Then., Böttch., Ew.); but we must hold (with Keil) that the difficulty that was found in them in 2Sa_19:11 (as an explanatory sentence) occasioned their insertion in 2Sa_19:10 as the ground of David’s message in 2Sa_19:11.20
2Sa_19:11. David sent, not “the two high-priests Zadok and Abiathar to the elders” (Ewald), but a message to these two priests, who had remained in Jerusalem (2Sa_15:27), to say to the elders: Why will ye be the last to bring the king back to his house? The rest of the verse declares that David’s message was occasioned by information of the procedures in the other tribes.*
Ver 12. My brethren are ye, my bone and my flesh are ye, that is, my nearest kindred, and the sharers of my name. The backwardness of Judah in the movement to restore David is explained by the fact that the insurrection started in Judah, and Absalom was first recognized as king in Jerusalem. Cornelius a Lapide: “Conscious that they had offended David, and fearing Absalom’s garrison in Zion, they did not dare to recall him.”
2Sa_19:13. David sends to Amasa, Absalom’s general (2Sa_17:25), referring to their relationship (1Ch_2:16-17), and promises him with solemn oath the chief command of the army in place of Joab. Ewald well says that this “was not only a wise and politic act, but strictly considered no injustice to Joab, who, long notorious by his military roughness, had now shown such disobedience to the royal command in the case of Absalom, as could not be pardoned without offence to the king’s dignity.”
2Sa_19:14. And he inclined, that is, David (who is the subject in the preceding verse), not Amasa or one of the priests. It is conjectured by Thenius, and regarded as certain by Böttcher, that a passage has fallen out before 2Sa_19:14, because otherwise there is no mention of the carrying out of David’s instructions and the effect of the promise to Amasa, whereby the change in Judah was produced; but such an insertion is not indicated in any of the ancient versions, and is not required by the connection.—After telling what David did in order to rouse his own tribe in consequence of the information received from the other tribes, the narrative states briefly that his wise procedure was crowned with complete success. He turned to him the heart of all the men of Judah as that of one man. With one accord they answered that they awaited his return, and made arrangements to bring him solemnly back. [“David was sagacious enough to see that to go back to his own people by force had its dangers, and that to wait long for a universal invitation had equal dangers. His own tribe ought to be foremost in welcoming him home, but they had rebelled with Absalom. He resolved at once to reassure them of his favor, and … even to make some concession to them ……This master-stroke of policy and of magnanimity was successful. The hearts of the people melted as one heart. It was the old David of Engedi and Ziklag. They sent a prompt invitation to him” (Knox, David, the King, pp. 377, 378).—Throughout this narrative the tribal feeling, which never wholly disappeared, is apparent; see 2Sa_19:12; 2Sa_20:4; 2Sa_16:8.—Tr.]
III. 2Sa_19:15-40. David’s return over the Jordan under the escort of the men of Judah. 2Sa_19:15. The king returned, namely, from Mahanaim with his army and all his retinue, and came to the Jordan, comp. 2Sa_16:22; what a contrast to his situation when he went over the Jordan as a fugitive! On the other side Judah came to Gilgal, which (lying west of the Jordan-valley, below Jericho) was the rendezvous for the men that were solemnly to conduct David across the river from his position on the eastern bank. Thus is clearly given the scene of the following three incidents of the transit.
1. 2Sa_19:16-24. Shimei’s meeting with David, and his pardon.
2Sa_19:16. Shimei—of Bahurim, comp. 2Sa_16:5 sq., 1Ki_2:8 sq.—“came down” from the mountainous table-land into the Jordan-valley, having joined the men of Judah as they advanced to Gilgal to meet the king.
2Sa_19:17. The thousand Benjaminites with him (who had, therefore, joined the procession of the Judahites) show the consideration he enjoyed in the tribe of Benjamin, and testified that a change had taken place in the former hostile feeling in this tribe towards David (comp. 2Sa_19:21). He brought this large band in order to do greater honor to the king (S. Schmid). Among the Benjaminites, Ziba (who, at David’s flight, had acted a part so injurious to Mephibosheth) is specially mentioned, because he, with Shimei, represented the former adherents of Saul’s house. He came with his fifteen sons and twenty servants probably with a bad conscience, in order to ward off betimes the effect of Mephibosheth’s counter-statements. For Shimei and Ziba, with their attendants, show themselves very quick and eager to come to the king, who was still on the eastern bank of the river; not: “they went over” (Then. [Eng. A. V.]), nor: “came prosperously to” (S. Schmid), but: “they went quickly (pressed)21 over the Jordan,” just as they had hastened down into the valley; and they did this in the presence of the king,22 who, they meant, should learn their zeal from their haste.
2Sa_19:18. Meantime, the ferry-boat, appointed to carry over the king’s household, was in motion. While this was going on, Shimei fell down before the king, as he (Shimei) was come over the Jordan; the prostration was synchronous23 with the completion of the transit. David cannot be the subject [of the verb “was come over”], as Keil and Bunsen suppose, for then, either it must read: “as he was purposing to go over,” which is grammatically inadmissible, or: “when he had gone over,” which would not be according to the fact, since the king was still on the left [eastern] bank, and did not cross till after these incidents, comp. 2Sa_19:40-41.
2Sa_19:19. The iniquity for which Shimei asks pardon is his curse (2Sa_16:5 sq.); he begs the king not to remember it, to forgive and forget, not to take it into his heart and keep it there (the translation of Keil and De Wette: “that the king should take note of it” is too weak); not to make it the object of memory and thought.
2Sa_19:20. The ground of his request, namely, the confession: I acknowledge my sin, and the substantial proof of his penitence: I am come the first of the house of Joseph. Böttcher and Thenius, from the reading of the Sept.: “of all Israel and of the house of Joseph,” adopt “of all the house of Israel” as the true text, regarding the “Joseph” as the insertion of a later hand, in the time of the divided kingdom, when Israel and Judah were distinguished from one another. But not only do we find (Keil) in Solomon’s time the “house of Joseph” used as equivalent to the “ten tribes” (1Ki_11:28), but in Psa_78:67-68 (which belongs to David’s time) we have the contrast between the tent of Joseph and the tribe of Ephraim on the one side (as rejected by God), and the tribe of Judah on the other (as chosen by God). “The designation of the tribes opposed to Judah by the name of the principal tribe Joseph (Jos_16:1) is as old as the jealousy of these tribes towards Judah, which did not begin with the division of the kingdom, but was only thereby permanently confirmed” (Keil). [As Shimei was a Benjaminite, it would seem that the “house of Joseph” here is equivalent to “Israel” (the ten tribes). It is commonly supposed that this designation points to the time of the divided kingdom, and thus so far fixes the date of authorship of this passage (unless Böttcher’s emendation of text, above-stated, be adopted). Erdmann’s examples do not show that the designation was in use earlier than the division of the kingdom; for the Book of Kings belongs to the time of the Exile, and Psalms 78 was probably written after Solomon’s time (comp. the tone of 2Sa_19:1). Still it is quite possible that, with the old tribal feeling coming down from the time of the Judges (when there was probably a double hegemony of Judah and Ephraim), Shimei may have used this phrase, which, therefore, cannot be held to be perfectly decisive of the date of authorship. Bible-Commentary suggests that he employed it in order to exculpate his own tribe by intimating that it was drawn away by the preponderating influence of the great house of Joseph. Tr.] Whether Shimei’s request for forgiveness was a sign of sincere repentance, must be left undetermined; it may be doubted, when one reflects on his precipitation in seeking to be the first to do homage to David, and on the fact that his somewhat passionate cry for mercy coincided exactly with the happy turn in David’s fortunes. Certainly he desired, now that David had regained power, to secure his forfeited life and avoid punishment.
2Sa_19:21. Abishai storms out against Shimei (as in 2Sa_16:9), doubting the genuineness of his penitence, and demands his death.
2Sa_19:22. David refuses, as in 2Sa_16:10 sq. Though Abishai (in Joab’s name also, for David addresses the “sons of Zeruiah”) rightly characterizes Shimei’s offence as cursing the “Lord’s Anointed,” for which he deserved death (Exo_22:27; Lev_24:14 sq.; 2Ki_21:10), David will this day not employ the rigor of the law. “Ye will be to me an adversary,” literally, a satan (so Num_22:22, comp. Mat_16:23), not a “peace-destroyer” (Bunsen), or “tempter” (Ewald). He says: “you will be a hindrance to me in the way of joy that I go to-day.” Clericus: “to injure me by your ill-timed severity.” He lays stress on the to-day. “Should any one be put to death to-day in Israel? for, do I not know that to-day I am become king over Israel?” David will show mercy, not because he is now become king and has the right to pardon, but because he sees in his restoration to his kingdom a proof of restoration to the divine favor, and by showing favor to Shimei as his right will fulfil the obligation of gratitude to the Lord.
2Sa_19:23. David’s oath to spare Shimei shows that his mercy was occasioned by his present experience of the divine mercy. But his injunction to Solomon (1Ki_2:8 sq.) to punish Shimei for his reviling contradicts this promise. This contradiction is not removed by saying that Shimei was not promised immunity in the following reign (Hess), nor by the observation that he was a dangerous man capable of repeating under Solomon what he had done under David. David now pardoned Shimei, chiefly, no doubt, for political reasons, in order not to disturb the favorable feeling of the people, especially of Benjamin.24
2. 2Sa_19:24-30. Mephibosheth’s apology.
2Sa_19:24. Comp. 2Sa_9:6. He “came down” from Jerusalem to the Jordan. His feet and his beard he had not made; the word make [= “dress”] (Deu_21:12) is so used in German also [comp. similar use of do in English.—Tr.]. The addition of the Sept.: “nor cut his nails,” is merely explanatory (Bunsen), and is not to be put into the text. He had not washed his feet or dressed his beard25—thus he had mourned for David; in these signs of deep grief comp. Eze_24:17. This was a sign of his sincere, faithful attachment to the house of David, not a sign (Buns., Ewald) that his hopes had not been fulfilled in connection with the new government [Absalom’s].
2Sa_19:25. As now Jerusalem came26 to meet the king.—Jerusalem here stands for its inhabitants or their representatives; this is often the case, and the expression here cannot be called “strange.” The rendering of the Arabic: “and when he came from Jerusalem” introduces a repetition, Mephibosheth’s coming having been already stated [2Sa_19:24]; it is therefore the less warrantable (with Thenius) to change the text on the sole authority of this version. The translation: “when Mephibosheth came to Jerusalem to meet the king” (Sept., Luther, Michaelis, Maur.) contradicts the “came down” of 2Sa_19:24, and the whole connection from which it appears that during this conversation David was still at the Jordan. [This rendering of Erdmann’s is improbable, 1) because it has already been stated that Judah had come to meet the king (2Sa_19:15), and 2) because it does not appear why the coming of the Jerusalemites should be the occasion of David’s addressing Mephibosheth.—The rendering “to Jerusalem” (as in Eng. A. V.) would change the scene abruptly and without connection. It is easier to read “from Jerusalem,” which makes good sense, and agrees with the context. It is not a mere repetition of the “came down” of 2Sa_19:24, since the fact is here added that he came from Jerusalem. It may be, however, that, while he set out and came down to meet the king, the meeting did not actually occur till the latter had advanced on his march as far as Jerusalem.—Tr.]—David’s question: Why wentest thou not with me? presupposes the impression made on him by Ziba’s words (2Sa_16:3), and also contains a reproof.
2Sa_19:26. Mephibosheth’s answer: my servant deceived me, injured me by lies, deceived me (Böttcher); this is the common meaning of the word (Gen_29:25; Jos_9:22; 1Sa_19:17; 1Sa_28:12; 1Ch_12:17). The ground of this assertion: For thy servant (=I) said (not “thought,” as most expositors render, for it appears from what follows that Mephibosheth had given an order that Ziba did not execute), I will have the ass saddled and ride thereon and go to the king.—Certainly the lame prince could not have thought of going himself to saddle the ass, an objection that Thenius urges against the text as he renders it: “and I thought, I will saddle me the ass.” He then adopts the text of the ancient versions (except Chaldee): “Thy servant had said to him: saddle me the ass.” But this change of text is unnecessary; the renderings of the versions are merely explanations. How often in all languages the expression “to do a thing” = “to have it done” (this very verb is so used in Gen_22:3)! To refuse to translate: “I will cause to be saddled” is merely to make a difficulty where none exists. The phrase: “I said: I will” characterizes the circumstantialness of the narrative. [According to Mephibosheth’s statement, then, Ziba, instead of obeying his master’s order, had carried off animals and provisions, and used them in his own interests.—Tr.].
2Sa_19:27. And he slandered thy servant.—No sentence has fallen out before these words, explaining (Böttcher) how Mephibosheth was deceived by his servant. “It is already involved in the word ‘deceived’ that Ziba had not obeyed the order” (Thenius). Mephibosheth had heard of Ziba’s slander (2Sa_16:3), and found it confirmed by the execution of David’s order that all the property should belong to Ziba. David’s reproachful question was a new confirmation of what he already knew. There is no trace here of “a confused way of defending himself” (Bunsen); his curt, summary mode of expression is explained by his excitement and by the situation of David who, occupied with his transit and the solemn escort of the people, had no time to listen to a long narrative. Mephibosheth’s statements were sufficient to establish his innocence, and to show how Ziba had deceived and slandered him.—My lord the king is as the angel of God (comp. 2Sa_14:17) to know what is truth and right.
2Sa_19:28. Mephibosheth refers to David’s former kindness and commits to him his fate, remarking that, though innocent, he could not rightfully demand anything, since he was a member of Saul’s house, all of whom were “only dead men for the king,” that is, all, himself included, might have been slain; being thus without rights, he could not complain or ask for help against the wrong done him.
2Sa_19:29. And the king said to him: Why speakest thou further of thy affairs?—This means: there is no need of further excuse on thy part (Thenius), but also expresses displeasure at Ziba, whose deception David now saw through. Wrongly Bunsen: “David saw through the complainant [Mephibosheth], and, wishing him well, made no further investigation.” David is convinced of Mephibosheth’s innocence. But the words: I say (= I decide) thou and Ziba shall divide the land, are only a half-exculpation of the poor, innocent man. For they do not “in any case” (Buns.) contain the confirmation of his first arrangement (2Sa_9:7-10) and the retraction of his hasty decision in 2Sa_16:4, as if he meant to say: Everything remains as I ordered at first (Then.). The statement is simply: Divide the land between you, that is, Ziba and his sons (to whom David in 2Sa_16:4 gives all) are now to possess a part of the property; neither is the decision of 2Sa_16:4 entirely set aside, nor that of 2Sa_9:7-10, whereby Mephibosheth was made sole possessor, re-established. Thenius thinks that the original arrangement (2Sa_9:7-10) is here restored, “in so far, namely, as Ziba and his sons had of course lived on the produce of the estate;” but a servant’s being maintained from the produce of the estate is a different thing from his being part-owner. David now sees the error of his decision in 2Sa_16:4, and wishes publicly to recognize Mephibosheth’s innocence, but not factually and expressly to acknowledge his own over-haste by completely revoking that decision; and so open wrong is done Mephibosheth, who gets only a part of the estate. David was herein probably controlled by political considerations, being unwilling to make the respectable and influential Ziba his enemy. That Ziba does not attempt to rebut Mephibosheth’s statements proves his own guilt and the innocence of the latter.
2Sa_19:30. He said to the king: Let him take all also.—Cornelius a Lapide: “Mephibosheth seems to have said this, not from desire to insult David and murmur against God, but in the bitterness of his heart.” The words express, not necessarily indeed resentment, but still Mephibosheth’s feeling that wrong had been done him; at the same time he indicates that he is not concerned about property, but that his heart rather goes out to his king, who will show him again his former kindness. Let Ziba have all the land, I am only glad that my lord the king is come again in peace to his own house; as his guest, I do not need the land for my support. Mephibosheth could not more touchingly and unselfishly express his faithfulness to David. [David’s feeling and motive in this procedure are not clear. If he thought Mephibosheth innocent, he was unjust towards him; if he thought the whole affair too uncertain to permit an absolute decision, he can hardly be defended against the charge of carelessness and precipitancy in making a decision. Perhaps he suspected the prince’s fidelity, but thought it not worth while to push the investigation; he was tired of intrigues and conflicts. Opinions differ as to Mephibosheth’s innocence, but the tone of his defence, the silence of Ziba, and the absence in the narrative (15–18) of any hint of defection on his part, concur with his lameness in inclining us to absolve him from the charge of actual or intended rebellion.—Tr.]
3. 2Sa_19:31-40. Barzillai’s greeting and blessing.
2Sa_19:31. Barzillai (see 2Sa_17:27) “came down” from the high region in which Rogelim in Gilead lay. Went with David over the Jordan—anticipatory statement of what did not take place till 2Sa_19:39, after the following conversation. To conduct him defines the statement in 2Sa_19:39; he intended to go with him only to the other side of the river, and then return27
2Sa_19:32. And he provided (2Sa_17:27-29) for the king during his long stay, abode28 in Mahanaim. He was a “very great” man, that is, rich, well thought of (Exo_11:3; Lev_19:15).
2Sa_19:33. The king said, Thou come over with me. The word “thou” is by its position emphatic, the king being chiefly concerned to take him along. That I may provide for thee.—The “provide” here answers to that in 2Sa_19:32. David wished to requite his kindness.
2Sa_19:34. With modest thanks Barzillai declines the king’s invitation: 1) referring to the shortness of his remaining life. “How many days have I to live?” my life is too short to go to court. 2) Referring to his senile weakness, which unfitted him for court-life. Eighty years old, he says, he is intellectually too dull to be useful as a counsellor in distinguishing between good and evil. (For similar constructions see Lev_27:12; Jon_4:11; 1Ki_3:9; Eze_44:23; Gen_26:28; Isa_59:2).—But also his bodily senses, he says (taste and hearing), are too weak to enjoy the pleasures of court-life; 3) he objects that, being such a weak old man, he would be only a burden to the king.
2Sa_19:36. “For a short while,” for the present moment, will thy servant go over Jordan with the king; his purpose, he says, was merely to escort the king across the river, as appears from the context, 2Sa_19:32; 2Sa_19:37. The “short while” does not refer to the time he would have had to spend at court. [The word may also be rendered, as in Eng. A. V., “a little way.”—Tr.] “Why will the king requite me this requital or kindness?” namely, with reference to Barzillai’s maintenance of the king (2Sa_19:32).
2Sa_19:37. As the king might have commanded him to go with him, he requests permission to return home. He is done with life, and wishes to die by the grave of his father and mother. F. W. Krummacher: “Can any thing be more amiable than these simple and sensible words? What a cheerful and peaceful spirit they breathe on us!”—But in his stead he offers the king his son Chimham (1Ki_2:7), not to ask a favor for him, but to put him into his service. The Syr., Arab. and Josephus add “my son” after “Chimham,” which is a proper explanation, but not to be adopted into the text. In 2Sa_19:41 the name is written Chimhan—comp. Jer_41:17. [Jer_41:17 mentions a geruth or sojourning-place of Chemoham or or Chimham. Stanley (Jewish Church, II. 201) thinks that this was a caravanserai (it was on the south of Bethlehem) for travellers to Egypt, and the same in which Joseph and Mary found shelter (Luk_2:7). The connection between the names is, however, not certain.—Tr.]
2Sa_19:38. David receives Chimham, and promises Barzillai further to do all that he desires. “I will do whatever thou shalt choose [require] of (literally, upon) me,” where the upon expresses David’s sense of obligation. He does not here regard Barzillai as a suppliant for a favor. So Clericus. Comp. Jdg_19:20.
2Sa_19:39. Not till after this conversation does the passage across the river take place; why it must have occurred during the conversation (Then., Keil) does not appear from the context; and the space of transit was not great enough for the length of the talk. It is not merely “almost” (Thenius), but, from the fresh and individual touches of the picture, quite certain that this is the account of one who himself heard the conversation. And when the king was come over, he kissed Barzillai.—That is, took leave of him, comp. Rth_1:9. This shows that Barzillai merely intended to accompany the king over the Jordan, and not further.
2Sa_19:40. The king went on to Gilgal, a noted place in the history of Israel, and specially fitted by its position to be a rendezvous for large bodies of men; comp. Jos_4:19; Jos_5:1-12; Jos_9:6; Jos_10:6; Jos_14:6; 1Sa_7:16; 1Sa_10:3; 1Sa_11:14-15; 1Sa_13:7-9.—And Chimhan went on with him.—Ewald’s remark that “this account of Barzillai is given at so great length obviously because his son Chimham and his family were afterwards renowned in Jerusalem,” impairs the inherent significance of this episode (taken in connection with 2Sa_17:27-29) in David’s life, which displays in the most vivid and beautiful way the unchangeable fidelity of this noble and influential Gileadite land-owner, as a representative of the transjordanic region, and the grateful love and devotion of the hard-proved but now once more highly favored king, who in Barzillai’s love and faithfulness saw a proof of the divine grace and truth.
HISTORICAL AND THEOLOGICAL
1. Right and wrong are remarkably mingled in the conduct of David and Joab, and in the affair between them immediately after Absalom’s death. While the father’s grief for the lost son was altogether justifiable, the king by the immoderateness of his sorrow neglected his duty towards his people, through whom God had given him the victory; by his passionate grief, also, he disturbed the clearness of his mental view, and lamed his manly strength; and finally, absorbed in his loss, forgot to thank the Lord that He had avenged the honor of His name by the restoration of the theocratic kingdom to the well-being of the whole people; the whole kingdom of God in Israel, as the bearer and instrument of which he was chosen and called for the present and the future, disappears for him in the gloomy depth of grief, wherein he had buried himself with his feelings and thoughts.—F. W. Krummacher: “It is a reproach to him that he subordinated his kingly consciousness too much to his feelings as head of a family. In view of the general weal, he ought at least to have moderated his grief, given thanks to the Lord, and made acknowledgment of the faithful devotion of his brave soldiers.” Over against this wrong Joab is altogether right in reminding the king of the danger of such a course, and reproving him with severe words. But the savage and bitter manner in which he approaches the king (though it was God’s means of averting a great evil from David and the nation) is to be condemned. His undisciplined word became a means of discipline to David, and the king turned from the destructive path into which unbridled feeling had led him.
2. David’s situation after his splendid victory was, in spite of the change of popular feeling in Israel, a critical one, on account of the hesitation of Judah, the most powerful tribe, and the real historical foundation of the theocratic kingdom, as it was founded in David. For the sins of its bearer, God had before men’s eyes permitted this kingly structure, reared by His hand, to fall, in order to show that human sin must obstruct and ruin His cause, but to make manifest at the same time, that the maintenance of His kingdom is not dependent on human power and wisdom. The point now was the restoration of the ethical foundations of the theocratic kingdom, which were destroyed by the revolution first in the tribe of Judah, where the revolution began; this tribe must be brought back to its faithful obedience to David, its defection having been punished by the divine judgment on Absalom. Recognizing this, David showed discretion and wisdom in his negotiations with the elders, which had the desired result. He saw through the grounds of action of the other tribes, and perceived how dangerous it might be, if his own tribe Judah, his home and support, should be, as it were, conquered by the others, especially as the insurrection had found powerful aid among them. He therefore approached Judah with mildness. But he went beyond ordinary bounds in appointing the general of the insurrection, Amasa, his commander-in-chief in place of Joab, who had won him the victory. This act of political shrewdness, brought back Judah to him as one man. Peter Martyr: “I would not altogether defend David in this, but I regard it as an arrangement of divine providence, which purposed through Amasa to turn Judah to David.”
3. When Shimei meets David with confession of his fault, Abishai is the same hot-blooded zealot for David’s royal honor as in 2Sa_16:9, and is repulsed now, as then. He (with Joab, who was like him in character) is a type of fleshly zeal, as it is seen in the “Sons of Thunder,” who would call down fire from heaven on the Samaritans. But, in contrast with the law which, regarding reviling the king as reviling God, punishes it with death, David, by sparing the reviler passes out of the sphere of the Old Testament into that of the New Testament. The decision as to Shimei’s sincerity he leaves to God, but, in view of the Lord’s pardoning mercy and goodness to himself, is led by the Spirit of the Lord to accept Shimei’s actual confession, and pardon him. Thus he is the type of the merciful love of the New Testament kingdom of heaven in Christ, which blots out all guilt of sin on condition of true repentance; and he is also the type of forgiving love of enemies. He who has himself received forgiveness of sin from God, and can only praise God’s mercy as the source of all that he is and has, will also forgive his neighbor his sins. The antitype of the forgiving David is the king of the New Testament kingdom of God. Mat_18:23-25. David had accorded Shimei mercy by an oath, without reservation and without limitation to his own reign, as some hold against the sense of his words. His command to Solomon shortly before his death, to execute Shimei, is a falling back to the strictly legal standpoint, above which he had lifted himself here on the Jordan, and can be explained only from the fact that David distinguished between his own personal interest and motive, which led him to pardon Shimei, without taking the theocratic-legal standpoint, and the theocratic interests of the kingdom, of which Solomon was the representative, and so held himself bound on theocratic-political grounds, to commit to his successor the execution of the legal prescription, which he himself had passed over.
4. Half-way reparation of a hastily committed, and afterwards recognized wrong (as in David’s conduct to Ziba and Mephibosheth) is as great an injustice as complete neglect. While he pardons the criminal Shimei, he gives the innocent Mephibosheth only half his rights, and the other half he gives to the unrepentant slanderer Ziba, without a word of reproof, evidently in order to avoid making enemies of Ziba’s not uninfluential family in Benjamin. Peter Martyr: “David’s acts are not only unjust, but self-contradictory; there he pardons a wicked man, here he oppresses a good man. Yet, though he sins so often, he does not abandon his faith; he is a weak man, but holds on to God’s word.”—Mephibosheth is an illustration of humility patiently bearing wrong. Peter Martyr: “Mephibosheth thought perhaps, of the word of the law, that God visits sins on children to the third and fourth generation.”
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
2Sa_19:1-8. The sinfulness of unmeasured grief. I. Wherein it consists and manifests itself. 1) As regards the Lord, in ignoring the gracious gifts which He sends us along with and amid our sufferings, and in frustrating His gracious design to purify us by suffering from all selfishness; 2) As regards our neighbor, in slighting and violating the duties of love that we owe him; 3) As regards our own heart and conscience, in reckoning the powers of spirit and will by exhausting emotion and enervating inactivity. II. How it must be overcome: 1) Through the word of earnest admonition, which gives pain; 2) By energetically rising up to new life and faithful discharge of the duties of our calling; 3) By accepting the consolation and strength which come from above through the Spirit of God.
2Sa_19:9-15. What wins for a king his people’s heart? 1) Risking his life for their welfare in fighting against external foes; 2) Deeds of deliverance in the overthrow of internal foes; 3) Timely words of hearty, reconciling love, which anticipates and makes advances.
2Sa_19:16-40. The righteousness of love, showing itself in the fact that after the divine ordinance and after the example of divine righteousness it gives to every one his own: 1) As forgiving love, pardon to the enemy who confesses his wrong and begs forgiveness, 2Sa_19:16 sqq.; 2) As rebuking love, earnest admonition to the unloving zealot, 2Sa_19:21 sq.; 3) As self-denying love, which makes good the wrong done to our neighbor, and unreservedly restores him what belongs to him, 2Sa_19:24 sqq.; 4) As thankful love, ready every moment to requite to our neighbor by word and deed the benefits he has done us, 2Sa_19:31 sqq.
Barzillai the picture and example of a venerable and pious old age: 1) Blessed of God, it devotes the temporal goods it has received to the service of compassionate brotherly love, far from all avarice; 2) Honored by men, it desires not the vain honor of this world, far from all ambition; 3) Near the grave, it longs only for home, far from all disposition to find blessedness in this life; 4) But as long as God grants life, even with failing powers it still serves the Lord and His kingdom, and in this service honors him by the devotion even of its dearest—far from all self-seeking.—[Saurin has a good sermon on Barzillai and Chimham, as suggesting and illustrating the fact that court life is in certain respects proper for the young and improper for the aged.—Tr.]
Fr. Arndt: 2Sa_19:9-40. How David crowns his triumph, and prepares for himself a new and delightful future. 1) By forgiveness of the evil that has been shown him, and 2) By thankfulness for the good that he had likewise received.
2Sa_19:1-8. When once a man has overcome his feelings of grief and gives himself up to fresh activity, then the struggle is soon over, the evil is wholly conquered, the fountain of suffering is thoroughly stopped, the sting of suffering broken; reconciled with past and present, there arises to us for the future a new life.—Osiander: God often so mingles joy and sorrow together, that the pious have in this world no complete joy, in order that they may the more earnestly long after things eternal. Psa_42:3 [2].—Schlier: Let us never forget modesty, but always with genuine respect say what is necessary. Yet when we do that, let us also freely utter the truth, and never keep back through fear of men or men-pleasing.—Wuert. B.: When men do wrong and are overhasty, we should indeed reprove them, but not unseasonably, nor with bitterness, envy, reviling, and too great violence. Psa_141:5.—S. Schmid: A man of sense must bear a slight evil in order that a greater may be averted.—Schlier: How many sore and bitter experiences we might spare ourselves, if we always made it our first wisdom to let ourselves be advised.
2Sa_19:9-14. [Taylor: David had been called to the throne at first by the choice of the people, as well as by the designation of Jehovah, and he would not move in the direction of resuming his regal dignity until, in some form or other, the desire of the tribes had been indicated to him.—Tr.]—Wuert. Bible: Men do not commonly recognize the good while they possess it, but only afterwards, when they have lost it and would like to have it again.—[Henry: Good services done to the public, though they may be forgotten for a while, yet will be remembered again when men come to their right minds.—Tr.]—It is always better to be too gentle than too sharp; for a good word finds a good place, and gentleness wins hearts. Jdg_8:3; Jdg_12:3.—Schlier: Let us also remember our sins and more and more humble ourselves, then we shall also be mild and gentle toward friend and foe, and so receive the blessing promised to all the merciful.—Berl. B.: For such a God, whose goodness is as infinite as His power, it is not so hard to win hearts; He knows the true secret of winning them in the right way; because He knows how to touch them inwardly. Thus hast Thou, O love, inclined the heart of all believers as if it were only one man.
2Sa_19:15-23. [Taylor: In all this procedure David was not actuated by his usual sagacity; and the result of his apparent preference of Judah over the other tribes not only provoked another rebellion after his return to Jerusalem, but also prepared the way for the division of the kingdom, which took place in the days of his grandson, Rehoboam.—Tr].—There is no true forgiveness till the thought of the offences is wholly effaced from the heart. Psa_25:7.—Starke: By honest confession and earnest repentance one may obtain mercy and forgiveness from men, how much more from the merciful God. Jam_4:9.—Schlier: God’s mercy should open our hearts, should make us gentle and mild toward others; for the Lord’s sake who has forgiven us, we should also forgive others.—Berl. B.: God cannot suffer such men as under the appearance of righteousness oppose His mercy.—[Henry: David had severely revenged the abuses done to his ambassadors by the Ammonites (2Sa_12:31), but easily passes by the abuse done to himself by an Israelite. That was an affront to Israel in general, and touched the honor of his crown and kingdom; this was purely personal, and therefore (according to the usual disposition of good men) he could the more easily forgive it.—Scott: Our best friends must be considered as adversaries, when they would persuade us to act contrary to our conscience and our duty. Mat_16:21-23.—Tr.]
2Sa_19:24-30. Starke: For reviling and slander the first and chief occasion is given by selfishness and envy.—God does not let the truth remain always defeated, but causes it at the proper time to come to light.—Schlier: When a man does us good, we should remember him for it, and if sometimes wrong is done us, we will quickly forget the wrong, but the good that has befallen us we will not forget. A thankful man is sure to come to honor, even if in the meanwhile evil times do occasionally intervene; while ingratitude always comes to shame.—[2Sa_19:29. Taylor: Every one knows that when he has been entrapped into the doing of an ungenerous or unjust thing, there springs up in him an irritation at himself, which is apt to betray itself in hastiness of speech and manner quite similar to that here manifested by David. But both the temper and the decision were unworthy of David.—Tr.]
2Sa_19:31-40. Starke: Our gratitude to our neighbor should be shown not only by words, but also by the most devoted affection of the heart, and by actions themselves.—Berl. B.: That is an honorable old age, which dies to the lusts and vanities of the world, seeks peace and quiet, earnestly thinks of the end and prepares for death.—Osiander: If we cannot requite our benefactors in their life-time for their good deeds, we should at any rate make their posterity enjoy it.
[2Sa_19:7-8. In a time of overwhelming calamity the necessity for exertion is often a great blessing.
2Sa_19:9-10. The safety of popular institutions is in reaction.
2Sa_19:16-17. Among the sore trials of high station is the necessity of bearing with men who are grossly unworthy, but manage to command influence.—Tr.]
IV. Strife between Judah and Israel over bringing David back. 2Sa_19:40 b–43 [Heb. 41 b–44.]
40And all the people of Judah conducted29 the king [ins. over] and also half the 41people of Israel; And behold, all the men of Israel came to the king, and said unto the king, Why have our brethren the men of Judah stolen thee away, and have brought the king, and his household, and all David’s men with him, over Jordan? 42And all the men of Judah answered the men of Israel, Because the king is near of kin to us [is near to me]; wherefore then be ye [and why art thou] angry for this matter? have we eaten at all of the king’s cost? or hath he given us any gift?30 43And the men of Israel answered the men of Judah, and said, We [I] have ten parts in the king, and we have also more right in David than ye [and also in David31 I have more than thou]; why then did ye despise us [and why hast thou despised me], that our [my] advice should not be [was not] first had in bringing back our [my] king? And the words of the men of Judah were fiercer than the words of the men of Israel.
V. Sheba’s insurrection and Israel’s defection occasioned by this strife between Judah and Israel. Both quelled by Joab after his murder of Amasa. 2Sa_20:1-22
1And there happened to be there a man of Belial [a wicked man], whose [and his] name was Sheba, the son of Bichri, a Benjamite [Benjaminite]. And he blew a [the] trumpet, and said, We have no part in David, neither have we [and we have] no inheritance in the son of Jesse; every man to his tents,32 O Israel. 2So every man [And all the men] of Israel went up from after David, and followed Sheba the son of Bichri; but the men of Judah clave unto their king, from Jordan even [om. even] to Jerusalem. 3And David came to his house at Jerusalem; and the king took the ten women his concubines, whom he had left to keep the house, and put them in ward, and fed [maintained] them, but went not in unto them; so [and] they were shut up unto the day of their death, living in widowhood [in lifelong widowhood33].
4Then said the king [And the king said] to Amasa, Assemble me the men of Judah 5within three days,34 and be thou here present. So [And] Amasa went to assemble the men of [om. the men of] Judah; but he tarried longer than the set time which he35 had appointed him. 6And David said to Abishai, Now shall [will] Sheba the son of Bichri do us more harm than did Absalom; take thou36 thy lord’s servants, and pursue after him, lest he get him fenced cities, and escape us. 7And there went out after him Joab’s men, and the Cherethites and the Pelethites and all the mighty men; and they went out of Jerusalem, to pursue after Sheba the son of Bichri. 8When they were at the great stone which is in Gibeon, Amasa went before them [came towards them]. And Joab’s garment that he had put on was girded unto him [And37 Joab was girded with his military dress as his garment], and upon it a girdle with [of] a sword fastened upon his loins in the sheath thereof 9[its sheath], and as he38 went forth, it fell out. And Joab said to Amasa, Art thou in health, my brother? And Joab took Amasa by the beard with the right hand 10to kiss him. But [And] Amasa took no heed to the sword that was in Joab’s hand; so [and] he smote him therewith in the fifth rib [into the belly], and shed out his bowels to the ground, and struck him not again; and he died. So [And] Joab and Abishai his brother pursued after Sheba the son of Bichri. 11And one of Joab’s men [young men] stood by him, and said, He that favoureth Joab, and he that is for David, let him go after Joab. And Amasa wallowed in blood in the midst of 12the highway. And when [om. when] the man saw that all the people stood still, [ins. and] he removed Amasa out of the highway into the field, and cast a cloth upon him, when he saw that every one that came by him stood still [or, because every one that came on him saw and stood still]. 13When he was removed out of the highway, all the people [every man] went on after Joab to pursue after Sheba the son of Bichri. 14And he went through all the tribes of Israel unto Abel and to Beth-maachah and all the Berites;39 and they were gathered together, and went also after him.
15And they came and besieged him in Abel of Beth-maachah [Abel-beth-maachah], and they cast up a bank against the city, and it stood in the trench [at the outer wall]; and all the people that were with Joab battered40 the wall to throw it down. 16Then cried a wise woman out of the city, Hear, hear; say, I pray you, unto Joab, Come near hither, that I may speak with thee. 17And when he was come [And he came] near unto her, [ins. and] the woman said, Art thou Joab? And he answered [said] I am he. Then [And] she said unto him, Hear the words of thine handmaid. And41 he answered [said], I do hear. 18Then she spake [And she said], saying, They were wont to speak in old time, saying, They shall surely [Let 19them] ask counsel at Abel; and so they ended the matter. I am one of them that are peaceable and faithful in Israel; thou seekest to destroy a city and a mother 20[a mother-city] in Israel; why wilt thou swallow up the inheritance of the Lord [Jehovah]? And Joab answered and said, Far be it, far be it, from me, that I should swallow up or destroy. 21The matter is not so; but a man of Mount Ephraim, Sheba the son of Bichri by name, hath lifted up his hand against the king, even [om. even] against David; deliver him only, and I will depart from the city. And the woman said unto Joab, Behold, his head shall be thrown to thee over 22[through] the wall. Then [And] the woman went unto all the people in her wisdom. And they cut off the head of Sheba the son of Bichri, and cast it out to Joab. And he blew a [the] trumpet, and they retired [dispersed] from the city, every man to his tent [tents]. And Joab returned to Jerusalem unto the king.
VI. David’s chief officers after the restoration of Ms royal authority. 2Sa_19:23-26
23Now [And] Joab was over all the host of Israel; and Benaiah the son of Jehoiada was over the Cherethites and over the Pelethites; 24And Adoram was over the tribute; and Jehoshaphat the son of Ahilud was recorder; 25And Sheva was scribe; and Zadok and Abiathar were the [om. the] priests; 26And Ira also the Jairite was a chief ruler42 about [to] David.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
2Sa_19:41-43. Strife between Judah and Israel about bringing David back.
2Sa_19:41 [40 b, Heb. 41 b]. The text (וי׳) would be rendered: “and as to the whole people of Judah, they had conducted,” etc. (Keil). But this would be a strange and heavy construction, and the Qeri or margin is preferable [“and … Judah conducted,” as in Eng. A. V.]. This last clause is to be connected with the following verse (Thenius): “and when all the people of Judah had conducted the king, and also half the people of Israel, behold, then came all the men of Israel,” etc. Besides Judah, half the people of Israel also acted as David’s escort over the Jordan. This part of Israel consisted first of the thousand Benjaminites that had come with Shimei, and then of others living near by, especially, it is probable, from the east-jordanic district (S. Schmid). The passage over the Jordan was completed, and David (as appears from the connection) with his escort had reached Gilgal (Bunsen), when there, not “at the Jordan” (Then., Ew.), “all the men of Israel,” that is, the body of deputized representatives of the other tribes (Clericus) arrived and made their complaint to David: Why have our brethren the men of Judah stolen thee away? escorted thee over so secretly, without informing us of their purpose? By directing this question to David, they at the same time reproached him, for “very probably it had been learned that he had a hand in the movement, see 2Sa_19:11-12” (Then.). “All David’s men” are the faithful followers that had fled with him from Jerusalem (2Sa_15:17 sqq.). In all this we see, on the one hand, the discord between the main divisions of the nation, Judah and Israel, and on the other the eager rivalry in the exhibition of devotion to the king, which, however, contained in itself the seeds of further disorder. Grotius: “an honorable contest—but, heated by bitter words, it afforded opportunity to those that desired revolution. ‘Honorable indeed,’ says Tacitus, ‘but the source of the worst things’ (Annal. I.).”
2Sa_19:42. Not David, but the representatives of the tribe of Judah answered the reproach. Literally: “the men of Judah answered against (Böttcher) the men of Israel,” they met them with an answer.—There is no need to insert (Thenius, after Sept., Syr., Arab.) “and said” after the word “Israel,” as in 2Sa_19:43; Böttcher remarks that the “and said” is omitted also in 1Sa_9:17; 1Sa_20:28.—Because the king is nearer to me (not: “the king is near to me”); the “because” is the answer to the “why?” of 2Sa_19:41. Near = near of kin, comp. v. 1. Why art thou angry? there is no ground for it. [The Singular Pronoun here used (Eng. A. V. substitutes the Plural) perhaps refers to the individual speaker, who represented the nation or tribe, or the nation or tribe may be regarded as a unit.—Tr.]—Have we eaten of the king? To eat of the king = to be fed by the royal bounty (Clericus). Have we enjoyed advantages from him? Have you reason to be envious of us because we have enjoyed advantages that you were deprived of? Whether this is also a side-hit at the Benjaminites (Mich., Then., Buns., Keil), who enjoyed many favors from Saul (comp. 1Sa_22:7), must be left undecided; nothing of this sort is indicated in the words or the connection. “Or, has anything been taken by us?” not: “has he given us any gift?”43 [so Eng. A. V., whose rendering is defended in “Text. and Gram.”—Tr.].
2Sa_19:43. The men of Israel’s answer to this hot discourse of the Judahites is still hotter. Over against the latter’s qualitative relation to David (“he is nearer to us”) they set the numerical quantitative: Ten parts have I in the king, and also in David more than thou.—The “ten parts” are the ten tribes as against the two, “Judah and Benjamin” (Theodoret); “the tribe of Benjamin might already after the removal of the royal residence to Jerusalem have attached itself more to Judah, as indeed it now came a thousand strong with Judah, and afterwards with this tribe formed the Judah-kingdom, 1Ki_12:21” (Thenius). Add to this that Jerusalem was within the tribe of Benjamin just on the border of Judah. The king belonged to the whole nation, and therefore Israel, with its ten tribes, had a ten-fold part in and claim on the king.—And also in David more than thou.—The above general statement is here specialized and individualized in respect to the person of David. The men of Israel had indeed “deserved very ill of him.” But this cannot be urged against the genuineness of the reading: “in David” (Then.), for the men of Judah had behaved still worse, since the insurrection originated among them. But Israel’s claim to superiority to Judah in having ten parts “also in David” “does not refer to the fact that the insurrection began in Judah” (O. v. Gerlach), for they (Israel) had straightway joined the rebellion. The words are to be taken simply in closest connection with the previous numerical statement in reference to the king. The sense is: in the kingdom of Israel you have no claim to a nearer relation to the king, who is put there for all the tribes, and to whom as king all the tribes stand equally near, so that we, with our ten, have a ten-fold claim on him. As this is true of every king, so also of David. Seb. Schmid: “David is here considered not as of the tribe of Judah, but as king. But now we have ten parts in the king, therefore also in David as king, and so your argument from consanguinity is worthless.” This hair-splitting calculation and passionate assertion of the mere numerical relation to David is psychologically quite characteristic of the ill feeling towards Judah that prevailed in Israel. Instead of “and also in David more than thou,” Böttcher and Thenius adopt the reading of the Sept.: “and I am first-born44 (more) than thou.” But this reading is suspicious at the outset, because the Sept. has also the reading of the Heb. text. Then Thenius’ explanation of the term “firstborn” from the tribes of Reuben and Simeon, whose ancestors were born before Judah, does not apply to the other tribes, whose stem-fathers were born after Judah; and to understand the term as meaning at the same time (Thenius) that “Israel after Saul’s death had held to his dynasty and continued the national name,” seems very farfetched.—Why hast thou despised me?—The men of Israel felt that they had been made little of in that they had not been informed of the restoration and permitted to take part in it. In contrast with the solidarity of the revolutionary movement, which had united both sections, they here emphasize the jointness of the desire for and return to the old fealty.—And was not my word the first to bring back my king? Literally: “and was not my word first to me to bring back my king?” On Israel’s “word,” comp. 2Sa_19:10-11. The “to me” is not to be attached (Keil) against the accents (and against the order of the words) to “bring back” [= “bring back to me”], but is apposition to “my word,” to emphasize the possessive pronoun “my” (Ges., § 121, 3), and to bring out strongly the thought that Israel had first spoken of and counselled the king’s restoration.—Judah’s reply to Israel’s words was still harder, more violent, than they. A violent war of words flamed up, wherein Israel, as feeling itself the aggrieved party, was led to a new, evil purpose, which shaped itself into a repetition of the rebellion just crushed. Comp. a Lapide: “This scene paved the way to Sheba’s war. Learn from this proud quarrel of Judah and Israel how true is the proverb in Pro_15:1.”
For the HISTORICAL AND THEOLOGICAL and HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL sections, see 1Sa_20:1 ff.
Footnotes:
[1][2Sa_19:1. This verse is one of those cited among the “Corrections of the Scribes.” The exact nature of the correction is not stated, but Tanchum states that in Chron. instead of לְאֹהָלָיו “to his tents” is written לֵאלֹהָיו “to his gods” (Buxtorf). Geiger (Urschrift, pp. 290, 315) adopts this latter reading, and sees in it a trace of ancient Israelitish idolatry, to conceal which, he thinks, our text has been changed. But, as our reading is fully supported externally and internally, there is as little ground for this as for most other changes proposed by Geiger.—Tr.]
[2][2Sa_19:2. תְּשֻׁעָה, properly “salvation, deliverance,” not the idea of a conquering of enemies, but of being saved from them.—Tr.]
[3][2Sa_19:4. Instead of לָאַט, Wellhausen would write לָאט as if from לוּט (1Sa_21:10).—Tr.]
[4][2Sa_19:6. Conditional sentence, in which condition and consequence are represented as non-existent; the protasis with לֻא (= לוּ) and Adjective (or Participle), the apodosis with the Perfect. The action is stated in the simplest form: “if Absalom is living, it is right,” it being otherwise understood that Absalom is not living.—Tr.]
[5][2Sa_19:7. Conditional sentence, in which both members are undetermined, put as mere possibilities. The protasis is in the form of simple assertion (אִם אֵינְךָ), the apodosis has the Imperf. (יָלִין) with future sense.—Tr.]
[6][2Sa_19:7. Sept.: “and know thou that,” etc., reading probably דְּעָה לְךָ for רָעָה לְךָ; but it had the latter reading also.—Instead of עַד־עַתָּה some VSS., EDD. and MSS. have וְעַד־עֶתָּה, which would not, however, alter the translation. The ו in this case merely carries on the sequence of time up to the limit, and is not to be rendered “even” (as if emphatic), as Eng. A. V. often does.—Tr.]
[7][2Sa_19:8. So Thenius, Wellhausen, Bib.-Com., Erdmann.—Tr.]
[8][2Sa_19:9. מֵעַל is rendered by Gesenius: “from on,” as conveying the notion that David had been a burden on Absalom; but it also sometimes = “from the presence of,” as in Gen_17:22. There is not sufficient ground, therefore, for Böttcher’s remark that the phrase is not Hebrew, and should at least be מִפְּנֵי, or for regarding the מֵעַל as the remnant of an original וּמִמַּמְלַכְתּוֹ, “and from his kingdom” (Sept.), which may be merely a marginal explanation. Syr.: “come now, let us flee from the land from after Absalom,” reading נִבְרַח.—Tr.]
[9][2Sa_19:10-11. The expression: “to his house,” at the end of 2Sa_19:11 is here inappropriate; for the talk among the people had certainly not come to the king’s house (i. e. dwelling, as the context shows); it was perhaps repeated from the previous clause after the הַמֶּלֶךְ. Moreover this last clause seems to be better put at the end of 2Sa_19:10; it sounds more like the statement of the narrator than like a part of the king’s speech to Judah. In 2Sa_19:10; it may have fallen out by similar ending, two successive clauses there ending in הַמֶּלֶךְ. See Erdmann’s remarks in the Exposition.—Tr.]
[10][2Sa_19:15. Instead of לָלֶכֶת some ancient EDD. and MSS. have לָרֶדֶת, “to descend;” but the weight of authority is on the side of the text.—The Hiph. Inf. with Prep. is in this verse written לְהַעֲבִיר, in 2Sa_19:18 (Heb. 19) לַעֲבִיר.—Tr.]
[11][2Sa_19:16 sqq. Wellhausen regards the statement about Ziba as a sort of parenthesis (2Sa_19:18 b being connected with 2Sa_19:16), and makes some changes in the text: he omits the וְ before צָלְחוּ, and at the beginning of 2Sa_19:18 (Heb. 19) reads עָבְרוּ (so Vulg.; Syr. עברו), instead of עָבְרָה. The account would then read: “And Shimei, etc., came to meet David, and one thousand Benjaminites with him. And Ziba, etc., pressed (צָלְחוּ) to the Jordan before the king, and crossed (עָבְרוּ) the ford, etc. And Shimei fell down,” etc. The reading of Vulg. at beginning of 2Sa_19:18 : “and they crossed the ford,” commends itself as appropriate, for we should not expect the statement about the ferry-boat to be inserted in the middle of the account of Sheba. But there seems to be no good ground for omitting the וְ before צָלְחוּ and thus confining this action to Ziba and his party. Shimei (with whom Ziba was) may have managed the arrangements for the transportation of the king’s household. Ziba may have assisted; but it is not necessary to suppose that it was out of gratitude for this service that David made the decision in 2Sa_19:29 (Heb. 30).—Tr.]
[12][2Sa_19:24. The two verbs in the Sept. ἐθεράπευσε and ὠνυχίσατο may be two renderings of the same Heb. word (Wellh.). As Wellhausen remarks, to express both verbs, the Heb. would use the expression: “he did not dress the nails (צִפָּרְנֵי) of his hands and of his feet,” which hardly stood in our text.—Other points in the account of Mephibosheth are referred to by Erdmann in the Exposition.—Tr.]
[13][2Sa_19:26. Instead of אֶת some very good EDD. and MSS. have אֶל, which is a more natural reading, but is unsupported by ancient versions.—Tr.]
[14][2Sa_19:31. The אֶת is omitted in some EDD. and MSS.; others have the Qeri.—Tr.]
[15][2Sa_19:32. בְּשִׁיבָתוֹ. The ancient versions and a few Heb. MSS. have the Infin. בְּשִׁבְתּוֹ, which is the usual construction. Another reading given by De Rossi from some MSS. is בְּשֵׁיבָתוֹ, “in his old age,” which he thinks gives a good sense, but which will hardly commend itself.—Tr.]
[16][2Sa_19:36. Wellhausen unnecessarily regards the words “the Jordan” as an addition to the text, on the ground that the expression: “I will go a little way over the Jordan.” is inappropriate, and that it was clearly not Barzillai’s purpose to cross the river. But he may well have desired to do the king the honor of escorting him across the boundary-line, the river, while he would not attach himself to the court by entering Jerusalem.—Tr.]
[17][2Sa_19:36. The verb גָּמַל means in general: “to perform an act towards one,” whether of good or of evil. The context here indicates that it is a favor that is done: but the idea of reward, which is not properly contained in the word, is here better omitted in the courtly speech of Barzillai.—Tr.]
[18][2Sa_19:40. The Heb. has “Chimhan,” which Böttch (though with scarcely any ground) regards as a Judaized form of the native name “Chimham.” There may have been different pronunciations of proper names (there are signs of this elsewhere in the Old Testament), or this different writing may be a scribal inadvertence (the difference is not retained in the ancient versions), proper names being especially liable to corruption.—Tr.]
[19]Instead of לֹא read לוּ = לֻא.
[20][The gate was the place of assembly and business. See Rth_4:1-2; 2Ki_7:2; Job_29:7.—Tr.]
[21][See “Text, and Gram.” In any case the words: “to his house” at the end of 2Sa_19:11 (Hebrews 12) seem out of place.—Tr.]
[22] צָלַח, “to go over a thing,” with אֵל ,עַל and Acc.; Sept.: κατεύθυναν ἐπὶ τὸν Ἰορδάνην; Vulg.: et irrumpentes Jordanem transierunt.
[23][Others render: “to meet the king;” more exactly: “into the presence of the king.”—Tr.]
[24]This is shown by the בְּ in בְּעָבְרוֹ.—[The phrase: “in his crossing over” means “during the general fact of crossing,” and may very well here apply to David. While the crossing was going on (the statements of time are quite general and loose) Shimei fell down, etc. For remarks on the arrangement of these verses (15–19) see “Text. and Gram.”—Tr.]
[25][David’s charge to Solomon (1Ki_2:8-9) is defended as the act of a prudent ruler, or as that of a righteous theocratic judge; but on neither ground can it be seen why he should break his promise. Perhaps, if we knew the circumstances more fully, there would be some explanation; at present we can only say that David’s conduct was wrong, like many other acts of his.—Tr.]
[26][Literally his “lip heard,” moustache (and perhaps the beard at the lower lip), Sept. μύστακα, Chald. “lip-beard.”—Tr.]
[27] בָּא, masc., referring to the inhabitants. On this gender ad sensum see Ew. § 318 a.
[28]This is the meaning of אֶת־בַּיַּרְדֵּן. If this Kethib be retained, אֵת is to be taken as sign of Acc. of space with an exacter definition by בְּ. So Ges. (Thes.): “that he might accompany him in crossing the river; the words אֶת־בַּיַּרְדֵּן designate the bed of the Jordan, and אֵת denotes the Acc. of place or space after a verb of going.” So Maurer: “that he might accompany him τὸ (i. e., τὴν ὁδὸν = τὰς διαβάσεις) ἐν τᾠ Ἰορδάνῃ,” and Böttcher: אֶת־ = “id quod, to conduct him what (the piece of way) was in the Jordan (but not farther).” It does not appear how this explanation leads to the absurd statement (Then.) that the octogenarian Barzillai “went in the Jordan alongside of the ferry-boat,” for the אֶת־בּה֞ = “the in the Jordan,” denotes the space that, makes the breadth of the Jordan. The Qeri אֶת־ה֞ is adopted by Thenius, who appeals to the Sept, Chald. and Arabic (holding that the Keth. comes from miswriting כ for ה), and renders: “to escort him the Jordan” [Acc.]; this gives the same sense, but is an attempt to lighten the certainly difficult Kethib.
[29] שִׁיבָה for יְשִֹׁיבָה (Maur., Böttch., Ew. § 153, 2 b).
[30][2Sa_19:40. Eng. A. V. here adopts the Qeri, so Erdmann, Vulg. This reading is supported by Sept., Syr., Arab., Chald., and by a number of Heb. MSS. and printed editions.—Tr.]
[31][2Sa_19:42. Böttcher and Erdmann: “has anything been taken by us?” The rendering of Eng. A. V. is that of the ancient versions, Gesen., Philippson, Cahen. In defence of it may be said that נִשָּא occurs elsewhere as Piel (1Ki_9:11), and that the parallelism does not absolutely demand the Infin. Absol. in the second member. On the other hand, Böttcher’s rendering of לְ as introducing the agent is strange.—Tr.]
[32][2Sa_19:43. The masoretic text is here supported by all the ancient versions except Sept., which gives בְּכוֹר, πρωτότοκος, but this word would hardly be followed in Heb. by the comparative מִן = “I am first-born over thee;” it would be simply “I am the first-born” or, “I am older (זָקֵן) than thou.” The material argument against the Sept. reading is given by Erdmann.—After מַדּועַ Böttcher inserts זֶה from the Sept. τοῦτο; but (as he says) this expression is not found elsewhere, and the frequency of the Sept. ἱνατί τοῦτο would account for it here without the supposition of a זֶה in the Hebrew.—Tr.]
[33][2Sa_19:3. Böttcher and Erdmann (retaining the masoretic pointing): “in a widowhood during lifetime,” that is, during the lifetime of the husband, which while it avoids a repetition is somewhat violent. The same sense is gotten by Wellhausen, who for חיִוּת (which he thinks a doubtful form) writes חַיוֹת, and renders: “living widows” = widows of a living husband, which is also hard. The phrase “widowhood of life” (as in the masoretic pointing) naturally means “lifelong widowhood,” and so Ewald (Gesch. III. 262) understands it: “widows that could never be married again.”—Tr.]
[34][2Sa_19:4. Before “three days” Wellh. thinks ו (“and”) necessary, since the עמד is defined by this term of days. But as Amasa is ordered to present himself immediately after assembling the troops, the time assigned to this assembling will of course apply also to his coming, so that the insertion of “and” is unnecessary.—Tr.]
[35][2Sa_19:5. As subject of the verb Sept. supplies “David,” Vulg. “the king,” and Syr. “king David,” which seem to be explanatory insertions, and do not call for correction of the simpler Heb. text (against Böttcher).—Tr.]
[36][2Sa_19:6. Instead of אתה some MSS. and printed editions have עַתָּה “now” (Vulg. igitur), and the ancient versions (except Chald.) add the Dat. commodi לִי “me.”—Instead of the Sing. עֵינֵנוּ some MSS. and EDD. Have the Plural “eyes.” Eng. A. V. follows the Vulg. in rendering: “escape us.” This phrase and the reading “Joab” instead of “Abishai” are discussed in the Exposition.—Tr.]
[37][2Sa_19:8. This is the only possible translation of the Heb. text; but the whole sentence is difficult. The word לְבוּשׁ “garment,” occurs only in poetical passages (so 2Ki_10:22 perhaps) and in late prose (Esth.), and the מד—“garment” (especially, military dress) is construed with the verb לבשׁ, not with חגר, see 1Sa_17:38-39 : Lev_6:3. It would be simpler to read: מִדוֹ (or, מַדָּיְו) וְיוֹאָב לְבוּשׁ “and Joab was dressed in his military dress,” the rest of the verse following as in the Heb., except that instead of the substantive הֲגוֹר “girdle” we should read the adjective חגור (or the fem.) “girded:” “and on it was girded a sword, etc.” The first חגור may have been repeated from the second. Wellhausen quotes the Itala: “et Joab indutus est mandyam indutoriam suam super se et qladiwm rudentem in vagina sua cinctus erat ad lumbos suos” and gets a Heb. text that reads: “and Joab was clothed in his military dress on him, and with a sword fastened in his sheath he was girded upon his loins,” where the reference of the עליו to לבוּש is not good, and the change of order in the latter part of the verse is unnecessary—Tr.]
[38][2Sa_19:8. Erdmann “and it ((i. e., the sheath) came out, and it (the sword) fell.” But this change of subject is harsh, and it is better to read הִיא יָצְאָה: “it (the sword) came out (of the sheath) and fell.” The Eng. A. V., referring the coming out to Joab, makes no sense. We may see also how appropriately the word בְּתַעֲרָהּ “in its sheath” stands at the end of the sentence, just before the statement that the sword fell out of the sheath—Tr.]
[39][2Sa_19:14. Or, “all Berim” (Philippson), as the name of a region. Sept. ἐη χαῤῥί, Syr. קרין “cities” (misreading), Chald. Berim (a region) Vulg. electi, from בָּרָה “to choose” (Philippson), or = בחוּרים (Böttcher, Thenius, Wellh., Erdmann). Bib.-Com. suggests that בֵּרִים means “fortresses” (from בִּירָה), but no such form occurs. It is better to read: “and all the choice young men were gathered together, etc.” The rendering “gathered” is of the Qeri, which is supported by the versions, and by many MSS. and EDD. Chandler adopts as Kethib יִקָלְהוּ “they were ardently excited,” pursued ardently after him.”—Tr.]
[40][2Sa_19:15. Literally: “were razing (or, easting down) to make the wall fall,” a strange expression. Hence Ewald, Böttcher, Thenius and Erdmann make the participle a denominative from שַׁחַת “a pit,” and render: “were digging ditches to throw down the wall.” But the form is elsewhere unknown (and none of the ancient versions suggest it here), and the military practice thus described is doubtful. As the text stands the word hardly yields a fair sense. But Chald. renders מִתְעַשְׁתִין “were thinking, purposing,” which agrees with the Sept. ἐνοοῦσαν, and perhaps represents the Heb. מְחַשְּׁבִים (Wellh.); “the people were devising to throw down the wall.”—Tr.]
[41][2Sa_19:18. The Sept. is the only ancient version that offers material for alteration of the text of the woman’s speech, and this is discussed by Erdmann. Chald. paraphrases: “And she said, saying, Remember now what is written in the book of the law to ask of the peace of a city (Walton’s Polygl.: to ask of a city) in the beginning, saying, was it in this wise thy duty to ask of Abel, whether they are peaceable? We are peaceable, in fidelity with Israel, etc.;” on this interpretation see further in notes to the Exposition. Syr.: “The woman said, They used to say of old time that they asked the prophets, and then they destroyed; am I to make satisfaction for the sins of Israel, that thou desirest to slay the child and his mother in Israel?” where the misreadings (נְבִיאִים for אבל and נַעַר for עיר) are obvious. These versions (and the Vulg.) confirm the Heb. text, which, with all its difficulties, seems preferable to the Sept. variation adopted by Ewald and Wellhausen.—Tr.]
[42][2Sa_19:26. כהֵן the word ordinarily rendered “priest.” See on 2Sa_8:18.—Tr.]
[43] נִשָּׂא is not Piel, and נִשֵּאת Pi. Particip. (“hath he given us a gift?”), for the Pi. is elsewhere נִשֵּׂא, and this construction would require חוּא. And though נִשֵּא פּ׳ בְּ = “to help one with gifts” (1Ki_9:11), our phrase does not therefore mean “to give to one” (Böttcher). Rather we have here the Pert. Niph. with Absol. Infin. (fem., as verbs לֹח, Ewald § 240 d), corresponding to אָכֹל, literally: “has anything been as to taking taken by us?”—has any thing at all been taken by us?
[44] בְּכוֹר Instead of בְּדָוִד.
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv4–5 the king covered his face--one of the usual signs…
the king covered his face--one of the usual signs of mourning (see on Sa2 15:30).
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 6 DAVID REPROVED BY JOAB, 2Sa_19:1-8.
DAVID REPROVED BY JOAB, 2Sa_19:1-8.
The stern and chivalrous Joab was highly indignant at the king’s grief. His nature was incapable of sympathy with the tender, paternal emotions of a soul like David’s, and with him the notion of crushing the rebellion and at the same time dealing tenderly with the arch-rebel, was the height of absurdity. He saw, too, that it was high time for David to turn his attention to the affairs of state, for such unmanly grief on a day of victory might lead to further disaffection, and even a general revolt of the people from a king that seemed to care more for an incorrigible son than for the national honour. The bold captain, therefore, ventures to approach his sovereign with words of sharp reproof.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 4, 5, 6 Ch. 2Sa_19:1-8. David roused from his grief by Joab
Ch. 2Sa_19:1-8. David roused from his grief by Joab
2. the victory] The Heb. word means literally the salvation or deliverance. Cp. 1Sa_9:16; 1Sa_11:3; 2Sa_3:18, &c.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On v5 (5) And Joab came.—This is a continuation of 2Sa_19:1,…
XIX.
(5) And Joab came.—This is a continuation of 2Sa_19:1, the intervening verses being parenthetical. Joab’s whole character appears strikingly in his conduct on this occasion. With his hand red with the blood of the beloved son, he goes, in the hardest and most unfeeling terms, to reproach the father for giving way to his grief; he treats the king with thorough insolence, and with the air of a superior; yet withal he counsels David for his own welfare and for that of the kingdom as a wise and loyal statesman. It may be doubted whether David yet knew of Joab’s part in the death of Absalom.
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The lives of thy sons.—Had Absalom succeeded he would no doubt not only have slain his father, but also, after the Oriental custom, have put out of the way all who might possibly have become rival claimants of the throne. (Comp. Jdg_9:5; 1Ki_15:29; 1Ki_16:11; 2Ki_10:6-7; 2Ki_11:1.)
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv1, 5, 6 The victory (Hebrew, the salvation) that day was turned…
The victory (Hebrew, the salvation) that day was turned into mourning. Naturally, the people did not understand the poignant emotions caused by the activity of David"s conscience, and were pained at this seeming ingratitude to them for their brave exertions in his behalf, and at what they must have regarded as indifference to the welfare of the nation. Nor would it be easy for us to understand his conduct during the flight from Jerusalem, and in bearing Shimei"s imprecations so tamely, did we not find in the psalms written at this time that David was suffering extreme and even excessive self-reproach and mental anguish at his past sin. It was a relief to bear Shimei"s rudeness, for God might remember it for good. Racked thus with self-reproach, he had urged upon his generals to spare the young man, (2Sa_18:5) whose sin was part of a web which he had himself begun to spin, and in terror he waited for the result. Mentally it would have been better for him if he had gone to the battle instead of sitting in gloomy self-reproach between the gates. His eager inquiries, "Is the lad safe? meant Has the hand of justice again smitten me? and when he found that a second blow had fallen, his self control gave way. Joab, more statesmanlike, and with his personal feelings unmoved, notices the fresh wrong that David is committing, and is vexed at seeing his brave warriors slink into Mahanaim ashamed, instead of being welcomed with deserved praise. But their conduct in being so depressed at David"s sorrow is a proof of their affection for him, and it was plainly his duty to master his feelings, and to think of making a due return for the great service they had rendered him. The Hebrew word "salvation," that is, deliverance, gives the better side of the idea, while "victory" is a coarser word, taken from the language of a people whose trade was war.
Vers. 1-15. The facts are:
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1. In consequence of David"s sorrowful isolation, the people mourn andbetake themselves to the city ashamed and discouraged.
2. Joab, being informed of the fact, enters the king"s house, and sharplyrebukes him for his conduct, charging him with disregarding the sacrifices his people had made, and caring more for his rebellious son than for his attached friends.
3. Joab then advises him at once to arise and go forth to encourage thepeople, pointing out that otherwise the greatest trial of his life will be sure to come in the alienation of his subjects.
4. The king thereupon sits in the gate of the city, and all the people cometo him.
5. Meanwhile, during David"s sojourn at Mahanaim, the people of Israel are at variance as to the course to be pursued with reference to brining him back to rule over them, and it is urged that, under all the circumstances of the case, something should be done in that direction.
6. David, hearing of the intentions of Israel, sends to Zadok and Abiathar to suggest to the elders of Judah the impropriety of their being forestalled in the movement by their brethren of Israel.
7. He also instructs them to inform Amasa of his purpose to displace Joab in his favour.
8. The heart of the people of Judah being entirely won, they send unto hima message that he should return, and the king acting upon it, they meet him at Gilgal to conduct him over Jordan.
Solitariness in religious experience.
The isolation of David from his people during this absorption in what appeared to be a domestic sorrow caused pain to his staunchest friends, was very near imperilling his influence as sovereign, and gave some ostensible ground for the ungracious remonstrance of Joab. But the fact is, David was true to himself as a man of deepest piety, and the people were unable to enter into the actual struggle through which he was passing. Like One greater, he "trod the wine press alone." It was not mere natural affection for a son, it was not pain that a son had been ungrateful, that crushed him and rendered him for the time forgetful of the claims of his people and the duties of his office. The key to the whole is to be sought in the prediction of Nathan, (2Sa_12:9-12) the fulfilment of this in its severest form in the tragedy of the life just ended, and the keen perception of this in relation to his own dreadful sin. His distinct recognition of the chastising hand of God (2Sa_15:24-30) when, with bare feet and broken heart, he passed in silence and tears over Mount Olivet, was now repeated with, of course, the fuller and more overwhelming anguish attendant on the ruin of a life, yea, of a soul, as he felt, through his own great sin. Joab and the people never, perhaps, knew of Nathan"s declaration. It was always a latent element in David"s restored life of piety; but now it was the crushing force before which he could not hold up. He saw, as he believed, how his spiritual degeneracy, during those dark months of horrible sin and guilt, had acted perniciously on the spirit of his son; and he could not but feel that, in the temporal and spiritual destruction of his son, he was now reaping just what he had sown. Yet all this he had to bear alone! No one could share the dreadful secret; and in proportion as he saw what was involved in a ruined soul, so would be the utterness of his anguish. No wonder if in his solitary experience he forgot all earthly things, and gave himself up to the bitterness of his grief.
I THERE ARE CRISES IN SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE. David was a man of many crises. The history and the Psalms reveal them. His call to kingship by Samuel meant an unrecorded experience of a most extraordinary kind. His anguish in exile when pursued by Saul put his faith to a terrible test. His sad fall was a descent into a pit of horrors. The tremendous conflict involved in his restoration is indicated in the fifty-first psalm, and now, when the judgment of God for his sin falls in heaviest form, he descends into the depths (Ps 130) further, perhaps, than was ever known by any other man. We see similar crises in the lives of some others. Jacob knew the desolation of Bethel and the pains of the wrestling with the angel. Paul was dumb and blind before God till prayer brought him forth to light and peace; and he later on had experiences of things which it was "not lawful" to utter. Most men whose religion has depths have known times when anguish before God has shut out all thought and care of earthly things. Some have seasons of temptation equal to that of Bunyan"s Pilgrim in the Valley of the Shadow of Death. As a rule, religious life is a steady growth, but there are checks and disasters when the question of life itself is at stake. We can understand David"s experience in the case before us without having recourse to the hypothesis of a weak mind overborne by natural sorrow for the death of a favourite son.
II CRISES IN RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE ARE OFTEN MOST ABSORBING. David was so absorbed in the spiritual anguish springing from a religious view of the ruin of Absalom in connection with his own great sin, as practically to forget that he was a king, and that a nation needed his guidance. The narrative is true to the spiritual facts that may be traced by a comparison of this event with the king"s previous conduct. The intensity of his nature, as revealed in the strong and passionate utterances of the psalms, whether in joy or sorrow, would add to the tendency to yield himself utterly to this greatest of all the calamities consequent on his sin. The passion with which he once pleaded for Bathsheba"s child (2Sa_12:16-20) was an instance of the same kind, only less than this, because here the trouble was the more serious in so far as the moral and bodily ruin of a son was a greater consequence of his sin. All who have entered into the solitariness of the great crises in the soul"s career know how at such times all earthly things seem to vanish into insignificance; and it is with extreme difficulty that ordinary and necessary duties can be attended to. Men have been known to forget to take food, and to isolate themselves from their friends. And no wonder, when the soul sees its sins in the awful light of God"s judgments, or is made to feel the consequences to others of its past deeds. Peter did not associate freely with friends that night on which he "went out and wept bitterly.
III THERE ARE QUALIFYING CIRCUMSTANCES THAT DETERMINE THE DEGREE OF ABSORPTION IN THE SORROWS OF A RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. David never felt anything like this. But the reason is plain. Never before did he see a connection between his own past conduct and so awful an event. The special elements contributing to his self-absorbing misery were a vivid remembrance of his dreadful sin in the case of Bathsheba and Uriah; a spiritual appreciation of the awful issue of his son"s life; a deep conviction that that issue was, in the judgment of God, in some way connected with his own sin; a contrast, inevitable in the association of ideas, of the end of Absalom with the hopes once cherished concerning him; a reflection, which could not but occasionally force itself, (2Sa_12:13) that he only was forgiven and saved; a feeling that no one on earth could enter into his sorrows and afford him consolation. All these circumstances gained force by the fact that constitutionally he always felt strongly, and religiously his superior spiritual discernment rendered sin and its effects the more terrible. So in our own experience there will be, perhaps, specialities which may render our absorption much more absolute than is that of others. The natural mental and moral texture of our nature, the conditions under which our sins were committed, the consequences which we can trace from our former sins, the vividness with which an ideal past is contrasted with present facts, the relative clearness of our spiritual perceptions and tenderness of our susceptibilities, and degree of homage paid to the majesty of God"s holy Law, all these may qualify the self-surrender to the experience of the time. We cannot expect cold and stolid men to bear the same troubles in the same way as do men of quick and highly developed spiritual sensibilities.
IV THE SORROWS OF SUCH CRISES CANNOT BE SHARED. A community of experience is necessary to the creation of a sympathy coextensive with the depth of the sorrow. There were parents in Israel and Judah who had lost sons, and they would be able to enter into David"s grief to that extent, and he could so far speak to them of his trouble. There were sinful men at Mahanaim who knew what trouble of conscience was, and who might afford comfort to their neighbours when mourning over their guilt; but there was no man in all the world who had sinned as David had, and no one in the world, perhaps, who now saw what an unutterably awful thing sin in general was, and especially his sin. To no one except Nathan, who probably kept aloof from him, had the connection of David"s sin with this judgment on it been known. Consequently, David felt shut up to his own anguish. "Of the people there was none with him." The transaction was between himself and God. He knew that the people did not understand him, and he could not explain himself to them. So is it with all our deepest experiences before God. We see our sins set in the light of his countenance, and no one can share the experience involved therein. Reversing the picture, it may be said that there are also seasons of blessedness in the course of life when the "joy is unspeakable and full of glory," and which can never be fully told or even understood.
GENERAL LESSONS.
1. Let us remember that there are daily some persons passing throughfearful crises in their religious life, and that it is possible to help all such by our prayers.
2. We should be very considerate of others who may appear to be undulycast down, as there may be circumstances which, if known, would strengthen our pity.
3. It is very possible for us to misjudge others in the conduct they adopt,and make our own contracted experience a standard of judgment.
4. We may expect that those who are utterly broken down in spirit will becalled out of their self-absorption by the voice of Providence.
5. It is a comfort to us all to know that God understands our real thoughtsand feelings, and that we have a High Priest who is touched with a feeling of our infirmities, he having entered into deeper depths of sorrow than we can ever know.
The remoter consequences of sin.
The narrative sets forth the action of Joab to arouse the king from his self-absorption, and the changed attitude of the people towards him, as also the measures taken by David to bring about a reconciliation between himself and the entire nation. The great judgment on David"s sin was now passed. Nathan"s words had been fearfully fulfilled, but in what followed we see also some of the remoter consequences of the sin. Thus Joab"s rough treatment and unbecoming familiarity in the discharge of an honest duty were connected with the fact that David had put himself in Joab"s power by making him privy and accessory to the death of Uriah. The people were now almost alienated because of the absorption of the king in sorrow. which would not have happened but for the sin which created the sorrow. The question of the precedence of Judah in the matter of his restoration was the distinct formulation of a jealousy and sectional interest which subsequently resulted in a schism of the kingdom, and this question would not have arisen but for the chastisement for sin in the form of a son"s rebellion. Likewise the ultimate death of Amasa came through David"s having, probably because Joab bad been insulting and because a complete amnesty was deemed desirable, displaced Joab in his favour. These bitter streams all flowed into the remoter ramifications of life from the fountain of trouble opened by the fall of David. Hereon we may observe
I THE FORGIVENESS OF SIN MAY COEXIST WITH THE ONWARD FLOW OF SOME OF ITS CONSEQUENCES. There is a certainty that David"s great guilt was covered. (2Sa_12:13) The prayer of the fifty-first psalm had been fully answered, and privately he had been able to rejoice again in the God of his salvation. But we have in this history the spectacle of a pardoned, reconciled man, confident in his personal salvation, and the onward flow of a stream of social and material evils which, so far at least as they were related to him, sprang from his sin. The prediction of Nathan did not establish an arbitrary relation between his conduct to Bathsheba and Uriah, and the whole mental and moral condition implied therein, and the rebellion of Absalom and the perplexities of the situation after its suppression. There was an organic connection between the spiritual fall and the civil troubles. The spiritual element in us is the centre of our composite nature. A change for the worse in it radiates through the entire being, and as the outward relations are affected by the condition and direction taken by our various powers, so the inmost change is the spring of manifold and ever-flowing consequences. The deteriorated influence on others, consequent on a period of spiritual declension, cannot but act dynamically as a wave long after we have by repentance and faith been restored to God. The personal condemnation is gone, but the injury done on society is not gone. The intricate mass of material and social evils now afflicting the world is the outcome of deviation from the perfect will of God, and though some who thus deviated are now blessed in heaven, the quota they contributed by their former sins is still somewhere in the tangled mass.
II SIN IS A DISTURBER OF MANY RELATIONS. David"s sin affected his relation to God and to his own family and people. It touched his personal influence among friends, his administration, and indirectly, through the rebellion, the lives and dearest interests of multitudes. The distress and uncertainty at Mahanaim after the defeat of Absalom and the hesitancy of the tribes to welcome him back, were traceable to what he had formerly done. Who can describe the manifold disturbances in the order of things produced in our world by the sin of Adam? The ramifications of the wave of disturbance created by any one sin are more than can be numbered. It is in the more conspicuous acts of transgression that we get visible traces of a widespread disturbance similar to what is caused by every inconspicuous act. A rebellious son in a home, a dishonest deed in business, a vicious habit, these reveal a manifest series of troubles in private, social, and public connections. No sinner sins to himself. Moral evil gives colour and form to all things. It infuses an element of defect, if not of positive evil, into every bodily, mental, and moral relation sustained by the sinning man.
III THE DISTURBANCE CAUSED BY SIN FLOWS ON INTO THE REMOTE FUTURE. The great moral shock involved in David"s great sin produced effects which for years flowed on, and which, in fact, are flowing on now. The great storm in mid-ocean sends the under swell into far distant bays, and long after quietude has been restored at the centre the sullen roll falls on the beach. The whole subsequent course of Hebrew history was modified by the deed of evil done in secret. In so far as the power of David over the world is less, and different in kind, from what it would have undoubtedly been had he kept himself pure, so far his sin is still at work shaping the destinies of men. We can never call back the waves of pernicious influence we send forth in a single sinful act or feeling. It is the law of the universe that they go on. The supposed counteraction of them by subsequent repentance and amendment only means that we modify the influence previously sent forth, we make the world somewhat better than it would have been had the sinful influence gone out alone. We cannot annihilate it any more than we can annihilate force. The future is the sum of all the influences of the past.
IV THE MANIFOLD AND EVER-FLOWING CONSEQUENCES OF SIN ARE NOT ADEQUATELY RECOGNIZED BY MANKIND. David recognized the rebellion and death of Absalom and the associated civil inconveniences as being in some way connected with his sin; but even he did not see, when at Mahanaim, that the subsequent death of Amasa and the schism of the two kingdoms were also a consequence of his conduct, and therefore of his sin. His own people probably did not even connect the troubles of the times with his sin, but rather with what they regarded as a foolish over fondness for a favourite son. In our life we do not sufficiently connect our bodily and mental imperfections with the sins of others in the past, or, in some cases, especially with our own sins. Political bodies and publicists fail to recognize the spiritual origin of vast and complicated social troubles. The Bible in this respect is the most statesmanlike and philosophical of all books, in that it gives prominence to sin as the determining factor in all our material and social troubles. A spiritual mind discerns the spiritual causes.
HOMILIES BY B. DALE. Vers. 1-8. (MAHANAIM.)
Immoderate grief.
This interview between David and Joab throws light upon the character of both, and the relations subsisting between them.
1. The best of men are by no means perfect. David"s grief, although natural, and, in some respects, commendable, was unseasonable, excessive, and injurious; and exposed him to just reproof.
2. The worst of men are not altogether bad, but often exhibit admirable qualities. When Joab put Absalom to death against the king"s order he was actuated partly by regard for the king"s interest and the national welfare, "loyal disobedience;" he was also desirous of preventing unnecessary slaughter, (2Sa_18:16) and showed a thoughtful concern for Ahimaaz; (2Sa_18:19, 2Sa_18:20, 2Sa_18:22) and now, although his bearing toward the king was harsh and cruel, (2Sa_3:24) he was fully justified in expostulating with him. (as on another occasion, 2Sa_24:3)
3. The worst of men are often intimately associated with the best of men, and render them invaluable services; but their association is usually uncongenial, and productive of trouble and mischief. (2Sa_3:39) By his great abilities Joab made himself necessary to David, and became confirmed in his high position; (1Ch_11:6) and by his complicity "in the matter of Uriah," he gained a despotic influence over him; hence his daring disobedience and overbearing attitude, and when the king, resenting his conduct, seeks to replace him as captain of the host, he strikes down his rival, then "calmly takes upon himself to execute the commission with which Amasa had been charged; and this done, "he returns to Jerusalem, unto the king," and once more he is "over all the host of Israel (Blunt, "Coincidences"). David"s inordinate grief was
I REALLY REPRESENTABLE. "And the king covered his face," etc. (ver. 4). It was connected (as cause or effect) with:
1. The lack of due consideration of the moral causes of the event which he mourned over, and which was their natural and deserved consequence; and of the salutary influence which that event would have upon the nation. In surrendering himself to sorrow for the loss of his son, he was in some measure blind to the justice of his doom.
2. The absence of humble submission to the Divine will, such as he had previously displayed in "the day of his calamity". (2Sa_12:20 2Sa_15:26 2Sa_16:10)
3. The feeling of bitter resentment against those who had despised his commandment and disappointed his hopes. He would at first, perhaps, blame all his "servants;" and, when he was informed (2Sa_18:13) of the circumstances under which Absalom came to his end, would naturally regard the conduct of his executioners in its darkest aspect. "To understand this passionate utterance of anguish, we must bear in mind not only the excessive tenderness, or rather weakness, of David"s paternal affection toward his son, but also his anger that Joab and his generals should have paid so little regard to his command to deal gently with Absalom. With the king"s excitable temperament, this entirely prevented him from taking a just and correct view of the crime of his rebel son, which merited death, and of the penal justice of God, which had been manifested in his destruction" (Keil).
4. The neglect of urgent duties: thanksgiving to God for victory, the commendation of his faithful soldiers, the adoption of proper measures to confirm their attachment and secure peace and unity, the subordination of private grief to the public weal. "The deliverance that day was turned into mourning unto all the people," etc. (ver. 2). "Their hearty participation in the sorrow of their beloved king, for whom they had perilled their lives, soon changed to gloomy dissatisfaction at the fact that the king, absorbed in private grief, did not deign to bestow a look upon them" (Erdmann).
II RUDELY REPROVED. "And Joab came into the house of the king," etc. (vers. 5-7). His reproof (2Sa_12:1) was:
1. Unfeeling, hard hearted, pitiless. He had no respect whatever for the natural feelings of the father; no sympathy with David"s intense and peculiar emotion,
2. Unscrupulous and reckless; whilst declaring the truth in part (ver. 5), and as it appeared on the surface, casting unjust reproaches on the king for his heartless selfishness, ingratitude, and hatred (ver. 6).
3. Unbecoming the relation of a subject to his sovereign; in language and manner, as well as in substance.
4. United, nevertheless, with wise counsel and solemn warning. "And now arise, go forth," etc. (ver. 7). No doubt David felt greatly hurt; and "the immediate effect of his indignation was a solemn vow to supersede Joab by Amasa; and in this was laid the lasting breach between himself and his nephew, which neither the one nor the other ever forgave" (Stanley) But, convinced that he had given occasion for reproof, he now patiently submitted to it (Psa_141:5) "Hard natures and harsh words have their uses in life after all" (Scott). "The undisciplined word of Joab became a means of discipline to David, and the king turned from the destructive path into which unbridled feeling had led him.
III READILY RESTRAINED and laid aside. "And the king arose," etc. (ver. 8). "He was stung into action, and immediately roused himself to the discharge of his royal duties." Would we overcome immoderate grief? We must:
1. Listen to the admonitions of truth, however disagreeable; and learn theevil of indulging it.
2. Receive the consoling assurances of Heaven, and pray for needfulstrength.
3. Repress it with prompt and determined effort.
4. Devote ourselves with diligence to necessary and useful activities.
Heaven hath assigned Two sovereign remedies for human grief: Religion, surest, firmest, first, and best Strength to the weak, and to the wounded, balm; And strenuous action next. (Southey.)
Ordinary grief must be restrained within due bounds. But there is a sorrow tender, hopeful, godly sorrow for sin, to which we may freely and fullysurrender ourselves; for it always conducts to greater purity, strength, and joy. D.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On v2 And the victory of that day was turned into…
2Sa_19:2
And the victory of that day was turned into mourning unto all the people.
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Victory turned into mourning
The victory spoken of is a victory that was longed for, and yet when it came it was as intolerable as the sting of an adder. How is it that we are always wanting things, and often when we get them they are bitterness itself? David wanted to be rid of his enemies--he was in this case challenged to vindicate his own throne. This was no fight of his own forcing--he was obliged to meet the insubordination and the revolt of his own son. David, mighty king--you wanted to be rid of your enemies: they are dead: how now? Yes, said he, I wanted to be rid of my enemies, but not in that way. There it is again--it is always in some other way that we want our desire granted. You want to get clear of that son of yours? You dont. And you have said how much you would give if he were only out of the way. But all the while you made a great fatherly reservation when you said so, and a great motherly emphasis unexpressed was in your heart when you talked about his being out of the way. You meant somewhere--more comfortable, more useful, more happy. You did not mean out of the way in any tragic sense. O strange man--wild, tumultuous life. We want, and we dont want; we pray, and we dont want the answer, at least, not so--but thus, a crooked answer to a straight request. We are all trying for victory. See if that be not true. Every man, even the poorest, is aiming at some kind of victory in life. Think if this be not so, father, mother, child, man of business, man of letters, boy challenging schoolmate to a marble encounter--through and through life, every section of it, we are trying in some way to get the promised end. But we are taught here that there are occasions upon which the victory is not worth winning. Is that not so in most cases? What do men want? One says: Riches. He heapeth up riches and knoweth not who shall gather them--is the victory worth the winning? Another says: Well, I want to conquer that human heart, and make it mine--mans heart, womans heart--saith the young. Is it worth doing? It may be, it may not be. I want that apple on the bough above--not that one, but the one higher. Is it worth fetching a ladder for? Try: you get it, but the worm had it first, and you spurn it with keen disappointment from your hand. It is well, therefore, for men, before they go out to battle, to answer the question--if I win, is it worth doing?--because there are victories that are defeats, there are triumphs that are stings, there are achievements that have nothing in them but graves and horrors and mockeries. Shall we say, without any desire to be too gloomy, that there is nothing upon earth out of God, out of Christ, that is worth doing, worth having? Are there any victories that cannot be turned into mourning? Blessed be God, there are victories that are followed by no compunction, no humiliation--blessings that have no sorrow in them. What is your complaint before God? What is the disease that is poisoning your blood, and burning in your marrow, and consuming your soul--your own peculiar diseases? Jealousy? Conquer it by the Spirit of God, pray about it, shut thyself up long months and have it out with heaven. It will be a victory for ever, unimpaired, complete, full of joyous self-content. What is thy disease, thou who dost say that jealousy is no element in thy constitution--what is thy plague? Self-indulgence, self-gratification, self-delight--self, self, self, morning, noon, and night. I alone, I am the world, think of me, comfort me, let me have my way, satisfy my want--is the key of thy life so struck, Conquer thyself. If any man would be my disciple, saith Christ, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, not periodically, not with occasional heroism, but with steady, constant self-crucifixion, and let him follow Me. You have gone out to the battle. Hast thou won that battle? There is no other battle to be won; fight yourself--beat your-self--set the standard of a new being upon the fortresses and citadels of your own obstinacy, and then you may beat your sword into a ploughshare, and make a pruning-hook of your spear, for in your case there is no more war to be done. How is all this to be accomplished? The answer is as complete as the question is earnest and emphatic. This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. We sometimes celebrate a mourning that shall be turned into victory, even the mourning of Christ the crucified Man, who said, My soul is troubled, even unto death. Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me? These are the words of mourning. All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth--Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations. These are the words of victory. Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning. Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted. Unless we have known the bitterness of this mourning we never can know the joy of true victory. (J. Parker, D. D.)
Mourning in a revival
In the spiritual kingdom of God there are experiences akin to those recorded in the text; times when, amid victories that send a thrill of joy through heaven and may well excite hallelujahs in the Church below, the sacramental host feel like putting on sackcloth and sitting down to weep between the porch and the altar. Such is the case often in times of revival, when Gods spirit is poured out, and sinners are convicted and converted. Although it be an occasion for rejoicing and thanksgiving on the part of Gods people, it is equally an occasion for humiliation and weeping. What are some of the reasons for mourning on the part of the Church in the midst of revival scenes?
1. That so few of Gods professed friends enter actively into the work. The Spirits presence in extraordinary power is a day of glorious opportunity, both for the Church and for sinners without. It is Gods set time to favour Zion. He then waits to be gracious. It is harvest time. Prayer has power to prevail. Souls are pressing into the kingdom.
2. That so many sinners are passed by and left in their sins, even in the day of special merciful visitation. We have witnessed and laboured in many revivals; seen a whole community shaken as by a rushing mighty wind, and hundreds convicted and made to cry out, What must we do to be saved? And yet many were unmoved--only looked on and wondered or scoffed. And the Spirit passed by, and they were farther than ever before from salvation!
3. That so many are convicted who are not converted; wounded, but not healed. In times of revival, it is common for many sinners to be deeply interested, and even brought under conviction of sin, who never get farther.
4. That, in all probability, a large proportion of those who are not reached and rescued in a revival will finally perish in their sins! We dare not limit the power of God. But there is a world of fact to bear out the remark. The grace of God is at flood-tide in revival seasons: what hope when the ebb comes? (Homiletic Review.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain On v5
CHAPTER X X V.
THE RESTORATION.
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2Sa_19:5-30.
O rouse one's self from the prostration of grief, and grapple anew with the cares of life, is hard indeed. Among the poorer classes of society, it is hardly possible to let grief have its swing; amid suppressed and struggling emotions the poor man must return to his daily toil. The warrior, too, in the heat of conflict has hardly time to drop a tear over the tomb of his comrade or his brother. But where leisure is possible, the bereaved heart does crave a time of silence and solitude; and it seems reasonable, in order that its fever may subside a little, before the burden of daily work is resumed. It was somewhat hard upon David, then, that his grief could not get a single evening to flow undisturbed. A rough voice called him to rouse himself, and speak comfortably to his people, otherwise they would disband before morning, and all that he had gained would be lost to him again. In the main, Joab was no doubt right; but in his manner there was a sad lack of consideration for the feelings of the king. He might have remembered that, though he had gained a battle David had lost a son, and that, too, under circumstances peculiarly heart-breaking. Faithful in the main and shrewd as Joab was, he was no doubt a useful officer; but his harshness and want of feeling went far to neutralize the benefit of his services. It ought surely to be one of the benefits of civilization and culture that, where painful duties have to be done, they should be done with much consideration and tenderness. For the real business of life is not so much to get right things done in any way, as to diffuse a right spirit among men, and get them to do things well. Men of enlightened goodness will always aim at purifying the springs of conduct, at increasing virtue, and deepening faith and holiness. The call to the royal bridegroom in the forty-fifth Psalm is to "gird his sword on his thigh, and ride forth prosperously, because of truth, and meekness, and righteousness." To increase these three things is to increase the true wealth of nations and advance the true prosperity of kingdoms. In his eagerness to get a certain thing done, Joab showed little or no regard for those higher interests to which outward acts should ever be subordinate.
But David felt the call of duty - "He arose and sat in the gate. And they told unto all the people saying, Behold, the king doth sit in the gate. And all the people came before the king: for Israel had fled every man to his tent." And very touching it must have been to look on the sad, pale, wasted face of the king, and mark his humble, chastened bearing, and yet to receive from him words of winning kindness that showed him still caring for them and loving them, as a shepherd among his sheep; in no wise exasperated by the insurrection, not breathing forth threatenings and slaughter on those who had taken part against him; but concerned as ever for the welfare of the whole kingdom, and praying for Jerusalem, for his brethren and companions' sakes, "Peace be within thee."
It was now open to him to follow either of two courses: either to march to Jerusalem at the head of his victorious army, take military possession of the capital, and deal with the remains of the insurrection in the stern fashion common among kings;or to wait till he should be invited back to the throne from which he had been driven, and then magnanimously proclaim an amnesty to all the rebels. We are not surprised that he preferred the latter alternative. It is more agreeable to any man to be offered what is justly due to him by those who have deprived him of it than to have to claim it as his right. It was far more like him to return in peace than in that vengeful spirit that must have hecatombs of rebels slain to satisfy it. The people knew that David was in no bloodthirsty mood. And it was natural for him to expect that an advance would be made to him, after the frightful wrong which he had suffered from the people. He was therefore in no haste to leave his quarters at Mahanaim.
The movement that he looked for did take place, but it did not originate with those who might have been expected to take the lead. It was among the ten tribes of Israel that the proposal to bring him back was first discussed, and his own tribe, the tribe of Judah, held back after the rest were astir. He was much chagrined at this backwardness on the part of Judah. It was hard that his own tribe should be the last to stir, that those who might have been expected to head the movement should lag behind. But in this David was only experiencing the same thing as the Son of David a thousand years after, when the people of Nazareth, His own city, not only refused to listen to Him, but were about to hurl Him over the edge of a precipice. So important, however, did he see it to be for the general welfare that Judah should share the movement, that he sent Zadok and Abiathar the priests to stir them up to their duty. He would not have taken this step but for his jealousy for the honour of Judah; it was the fact that the movement was now going on in some places and not in all that induced him to interfere. He dreaded disunion in any case, especially a disunion between Judah and Israel. For the jealousy between these two sections of the people that afterwards broke the kingdom into two under Jeroboam was now beginning to show itself, and, indeed, led soon after to the revolt of Sheba. Another step was taken by David, of very doubtful expediency, in order to secure the more cordial support of the rebels. He superseded Joab, and gave the command of his army to Amasa, who had been general of the rebels. In more ways than one this was a strong measure. To supersede Joab was to make for himself a very powerful enemy, to rouse a man whose passions, when thoroughly excited, were capable of any crime. But on the other hand, David could not but be highly offended with Joab for his conduct to Absalom, and he must have looked on him as a very unsuitable coadjutor to himself in that policy of clemency that he had determined to pursue. This was significantly brought out by the appointment of Amasa in room of Joab. Both were David's nephews, and both were of the tribe of Judah; but Amasa had been at the head of the insurgents, and therefore in close alliance with the insurgents of Judah. Most probably the reason why the men of Judah hung back was that they were afraid lest, if David were restored to Jerusalem, he would make an example of them; for it was at Hebron, in the tribe of Judah, that Absalom had been first proclaimed, and the people of Jerusalem who had favoured him were mostly of that tribe But when it became known that the leader of the rebel forces was not only not to be punished, but actually promoted to the highest office in the king's service, all fears of that sort were completely scattered. It was an act of wonderful clemency. It was such a contrast to the usual treatment of rebels! But this king was not like other kings; he gave gifts even to the rebellious. There was no limit to his generosity. Where sin abounded grace did much more abound. Accordingly a new sense of the goodness and generosity of their ill-treated but noble king took possession of the people. "He bowed the heart of the men of Judah, even as the heart of one man, so that they sent this word unto the king. Return thou, and all thy servants." From the extreme of backwardness they started to the extreme of forwardness; the last to speak for David, they were the first to act for him; and such was their vehemence in his cause that the evil of national disunion which David dreaded from their indifference actually sprang from their over-impetuous zeal.
Thus at length David bade farewell to Mahanaim, and began his journey to Jerusalem. His route in returning was the reverse of that followed in his flight. First he descends the eastern bank of the Jordan as far as opposite Gilgal; then he strikes up through the wilderness the steep ascent to Jerusalem. At Gilgal several events of interest took place.
The first of these was the meeting with the representatives of Judah, who came to conduct the king over Jordan, and to offer him their congratulations and loyal assurances. This step was taken by the men of Judah alone, and without consultation or co-operation with the other tribes. A ferry-boat to convey the household over the river, and whatever else might be required to make the passage comfortable, these men of Judah provided. Some have blamed the king for accepting these attentions from Judah, instead of inviting the attendance of all the tribes. But surely, as the king had to pass the Jordan, and found the means of transit provided for him, he was right to accept what was offered. Nevertheless, this act of Judah and its acceptance by David gave serious offence, as we shall presently see, to the other tribes.
Neither Judah nor Israel comes out well in this little incident. We get an instructive glimpse of the hotheadedness of the tribes, and the childishness of their quarrels. It is members of the same nation a thousand years afterwards that on the very eve of the Crucifixion we see disputing among themselves which of them should be the greatest. Men never appear in a dignified attitude when they are contending that on some occasion or other they have been treated with too little consideration. And yet how many of the quarrels of the world, both public and private, have arisen from this, that someone did not receive the attention which he deserved! Pride lies at the bottom of it all. And quarrels of this kind will sometimes, nay often, be found even among men calling themselves the followers of Christ. If the blessed Lord Himself had acted on this principle, what a different life He would have led! If He had taken offence at every want of etiquette, at every want of the honour due to the Son of God, when would our redemption ever have been accomplished? Was His mother treated with due consideration when forced into the stable, because there was no room for her in the inn? Was Jesus Himself treated with due houour when the people of Nazareth took Him to the brow of the hill, or when the foxes had holes, and the birds of the air had nests, but the Son of Man had not where to lay His head? What if He had resented the denial of Peter, the treachery of Judas, and the forsaking of Him by all the apostles? How admirable was the humility that made Himself of no reputation, so that when He was reviled He reviled not again, when He suffered He threatened not, but committed Himself to Him that judgeth righteously! Yet how utterly opposite is the bearing of many, who are ever ready to take offence if anything is omitted to which they have a claim - standing upon their rights, claiming precedence over this one and the other, maintaining that it would never do to allow themselves to be trampled on, thinking it spirited to contend for their honours! It is because this tendency is so deeply seated in human nature that you need to be so watchful against it. It breaks out at the most unseasonable times. Could any time have been more unsuitable for it on the part of the men of Israel and Judah than when the king was giving them such a memorable example of humility, pardoning every one, great and small, that had offended him, even though their offence was as deadly as could be conceived? Or could any time have been more unsuitable for it on the part of the disciples of our Lord than when He was about to surrender His very life, and submit to the most shameful form of death that could be devised? Why do men not see that the servant is not above his lord, nor the disciple above his master? "Is not the heart deceitful above all things and desperately wicked"? Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.
The next incident at Gilgal was the cringing entreaty of Shimei, the Benjamite, to be pardoned the insult which he had offered the king when he left Jerusalem. The conduct of Shimei had been such an outrage on all decency that we wonder how he could have dared to present himself at all before David, even though, as a sort of screen, he was accompanied by a thousand Benjamites. His prostration of himself on the ground before David, his confession of his sin and abject deprecation of the king's anger, are not fitted to raise him in our estimation; they were the fruits of a base nature that can insult the fallen, but lick the dust off the feet of men in power. It was not till David had made it known that his policy was to be one of clemency that Shimei took this course; and even then he must have a thousand Benjamites at his back before he could trust himself to his mercy. Abishai, Joab's brother, would have had him slain; but his proposal was rejected by David with warmth and even indignation. He knew that his restoration was an accomplished fact, and he would not spoil a policy of forgiveness by shedding the blood of this wicked man. Not content with passing his word to Shimei, "he sware unto him." But he afterwards found that he had carried clemency too far, and in his dying charge to Solomon he had to warn him against this dangerous enemy, and instruct him to bring down his hoar head with blood. But this needs not to make us undervalue the singular quality of heart which led David to show such forbearance to one utterly unworthy. It was a strange thing in the annals of Eastern kingdoms, where all rebellion was usually punished with the most fearful severity. It brings to mind the gentle clemency of the great Son of David in His dealings, a thousand years after, with another Benjamite as he was travelling, on that very route, on the way to Damascus; breathing out threatenings and slaughter against His disciples. Was there ever such clemency as that which met the persecutor with the words, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me? Only in this case the clemency accomplished its object; in Shimei's case it did not. In the one case the persecutor became the chief of Apostles; in the other he acted more like the evil spirit in the parable, whose last end was worse than the first.
The next incident in the king's return was his meeting with Mephibosheth. He came down to meet the king, "and had neither dressed his feet, nor trimmed his beard, nor washed his clothes from the day the king departed unto the day when he came again in peace." Naturally, the king's first question was an inquiry why he had not left Jerusalem with him. And Mephibosheth's reply was simply, that he had wished to do so, but, owing to his lameness, had not been able. And, moreover, Ziba had slandered him to the king when he said that Mephibosheth hoped to receive back the kingdom of his grandfather. The words of this poor man had all the appearance of an honest narrative. The ass which he intended to saddle for his own use was probably one of those which Ziba took away to present to David, so that Mephibosheth was left helpless in Jerusalem. If the narrative commends itself by its transparent truthfulness, it shows also how utterly improbable was the story of Ziba, that he had expectations of being made king. For he seems to have been as feeble in mind as he was frail in body, and he undoubtedly carried his compliments to David to a ridiculous pitch when he said, "All my father's house were but dead men before my lord the king." Was that a fit way to speak of his father Jonathan?
We cannot greatly admire one who would depreciate his family to such a degree because he desired to obtain David's favour. And for some reason David was somewhat sharp to him. No man is perfect, and we cannot but wonder that the king who was so gentle to Shimei should have been so sharp to Mephibosheth. "Why speakest thou any more of thy matters? I have said, Thou and Ziba divide the land." David appears to have been irritated at discovering his mistake in believing Ziba, and hastily transferring Mephibosheth's property to him. Nothing is more common than such irritation, when men discover that through false information they have made a blunder, and gone into some arrangement that must be undone. But why did not the king restore all his property to Mephibosheth? Why say that he and Ziba were to divide it? Some have supposed (as we remarked before) that this meant simply that the old arrangement was to be continued - Ziba to till the ground, and Mephibosheth to receive as his share half the produce. But in that case Mephibosheth would not have added, "Yea, let him take all, forasmuch as my lord the king is come again in peace unto his own house." Our verdict would have been the very opposite, - Let Mephibosheth take all. But David was in a difficulty. The temper of the Benjamites was very irritable; they had never been very cordial to David, and Ziba was an important man among them. There he was, with his fifteen sons and twenty servants, a man not to be hastily set aside. For once the king appeared to prefer the rule of expediency to that of justice. To make some amends for his wrong to Mephibosheth, and at the same time not to turn Ziba into a foe, he resorted to this rough-and-ready method of dividing the land between them. But surely it was an unworthy arrangement. Mephibosheth had been loyal, and should never have lost his land. He had been slandered by Ziba, and therefore deserved some solace for his wrong. David restores but half his land, and has no soothing word for the wrong he has done him. Strange that when so keenly sensible of the wrong done to himself when he lost his kingdom unrighteously, he should not have seen the wrong he had done to Mephibosheth. And strange that when his whole kingdom had been restored to himself, he should have given back but half to Jonathan's son.
The incident connected with the meeting with Barzillai we reserve for separate consideration.
Amid the greatest possible diversity of circumstance, we are constantly finding parallels in the life of David to that of Him who was his Son according to the flesh. Our Lord can hardly be said to have ever been driven from His kingdom. The hosannahs of to-day were indeed very speedily exchanged into the ''Away with Him! away with Him! Crucify Him! crucify Him!" of to-morrow. But what we may remark of our Lord is rather that He has been kept out of His kingdom than driven from it. He who came to redeem the world, and of whom the Father said, "Yet have I set My King upon My holy hill of Zion," has never been suffered to exercise His sovereignty, at least in a conspicuous manner and on a universal scale. Here is a truth that ought to be a constant source of humiliation and sorrow to every Christian. Are you to be content that the rightful Sovereign should be kept in the background, and the great ruling forces of the world should be selfishness, and mammon, and pleasure, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eye, and the pride of life? Why speak ye not of bringing the King back to His house? You say you can do so little. But every subject of King David might have said the same. The question is, not whether you are doing much or little, but whether you are doing what you can. Is the exaltation of Jesus Christ to the supreme rule of the world an object dear to you? Is it matter of humiliation and concern to you that He does not occupy that place? Do you humbly try to give it to Him in your own heart and life? Do you try to give it to Him in the Church, in the State, in the world? The supremacy of Jesus Christ must be the great rallying cry of the members of the Christian Church, whatever their denomination. It is a point on which surely all ought to be agreed, and agreement there might bring about agreement in other things. Let us give our minds and hearts to realize in our spheres that glorious plan of which we read in the first chapter of Ephesians: ''That, in the dispensation of the fullness of time, God might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth, even in Him, in whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of Him who worketh all things according to the counsel of His own will, that we should be to the praise of His glory, who first trusted in Christ."
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On v1 2Sa_19:1. Comp. 2Sa_18:33. The purpose of the informant was,…
CRITICAL AND EXPOSITORY NOTES.—
2Sa_19:1. Comp. 2Sa_18:33. The purpose of the informant was, “it seems, to explain to Joab and the army why the king did not come forth to greet his returning victorious warriors.” (Erdmann.)
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2Sa_19:2-3. “These men’s hearty participation in the sorrow of their beloved king, for whom they had perilled their lives, soon changed into gloomy dissatisfaction at the fact that the king, absorbed in his private grief, did not deign to bestow a look upon them. The description of the manner in which the troops, thus dissatisfied, returned to the city, is pyschologically very fine.” (Erdmann.)
2Sa_19:4. “Covered his face.” See on 2Sa_15:20. “A loud voice.” According to the open and violent mode of expressing grief common in the East (and so also the heroes of the Illiad); there are striking illustrations of this in the Arabian Nights. (Translator of Lange’s Commentary.)
2Sa_19:5. “Thou hast shamed,” etc. “By deceiving their hopes that thou wouldest rejoice in the victory.” (Keil.)
2Sa_19:6 “I perceive,” etc. Joab dissects David’s words of lamentation with inexorable cruelty, and draws thence with his intellectual acuteness and the grim bitterness of his rude nature, consequences that are seemingly logical, yet lay far from David’s nature, though his conduct looked like what he was reproached with.” (Erdmann.)
2Sa_19:7. “Speak comfortably.” Lit., Speak to the heart. “There will not tarry one.” “This threat, grounded as it was on Joab’s unbounded popularity with the army, showed him to be a dangerous person; and that circumstance, together with the violation of an express order to deal gently for his sake with Absalom, produced in David’s mind a settled hatred, which was strongly manifested in his last directions to Solomon.” (Jamieson.)
2Sa_19:8. “The people came,” etc., i.e., “the troops marched before the king, who (as we may supply from the context) manifested his good will both in looks and words” (Keil). “Israel.” “It is the other tribes, excepting Judah, that are meant.” (Erdmann.) “To his tent,” i.e., gone home. It has been remarked that the use of this expression must have been handed down from the days of the wilderness-journeyings, when Israel did actually dwell in tents.
2Sa_19:9. “At strife,” etc. “The kingdom was completely disorganised. The sentiments of the three different parties are represented in this and the following verse—the royalists, the adherents of Absalom, who had been very numerous, and those who were indifferent to the Davidio dynasty.” (Jamieson.)
2Sa_19:10. “Why speak ye not?” “The people are re-assembled after their dispersion; their representatives consult zealously together about the restoration to the throne, to which they had raised the insurgent Absalom by the act of anointing. They reproach one another for doing nothing to restore the king. In their hearts, therefore, they feel the grievous wrong they have done an anointed of the Lord, as is shown indirectly by their words, in which David’s great deeds and the terrible misfortunes of the time just past are mentioned.” (Erdmann.)
2Sa_19:11. “Why are ye the last?” “The backwardness of Judah in the movement is explained by the fact that the insurrection started in Judah, and Absalom was first recognised as king in Jerusalem.” (Erdmann.) “Conscious that they had offended David, and fearing Absalom’s garrison in Zion, they did not dare to recall him.” (Cornelius or Lapide.)
2Sa_19:13. “Captain of the host,” etc. Very different opinions are held concerning this action of David. Ewald considers that it “was not only a wise and politic act, but strictly considered no injustice to Joab, who, long notorious by his military roughness had now shown such disobedience to the royal command in the case of Absalom as could not be pardoned without offence to the royal dignity.” On the other hand Keil says, “It was not only unwise, but unjust, to give to Amasa, the traitor-general of the rebels, a promise on oath that he should be commander-in-chief in the place of Joab; for even if the promise was only given privately at first, the fact that it had been given could not remain a secret from Joab very long, and would be sure to stir up his ambition, and lead him to the commission of fresh crimes.… For however Joab might have excited David’s anger by slaying Absalom, and by the offensive manner in which he had reproved the king, David ought to have suppressed his anger in existing circumstances.”
2Sa_19:14. “The partial severance of the kingdom which David apprehended from the coldness and inaction of Judah, was nearly produced by the sudden impetuosity of their zeal in the cause of royalty.” (Jamieson.) “Throughout this narrative the tribal feeling which never wholly disappeared, is apparent, see 12, 2Sa_20:4; 2Sa_16:8.” (Translator of Lange’s Commentary.)
2Sa_19:15. “To Jordan.” From Mahanaim to the eastern bank of the river. Gilgal, west of the Jordan below Jericho. “The place consecrated by the historical associations of Joshua and of Samuel, Jos_5:9; Jos_9:6; Jos_10:6; 1Sa_7:16; 1Sa_15:33.” (Wordsworth.)
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—2Sa_19:1-15
DAVID’S RESTORATION
I. A good man must beware lest sorrow make him forgetful of duty. David’s deep grief at the death of Absalom made him insensible for a time to the claims of both God and man. He has now an abundant answer to his prayer, “O Lord, turn the counsel of Ahithophel into foolishness,” yet his distress at the means by which his desire is accomplished is so great as to banish from his soul all sense of gratitude to God. The death of the rebel leader was the only way by which peace could be restored to the nation and the throne to the king, and was therefore an event which David should have regarded from other points of view beside the parental one. But, omitting to do this, his natural grief over an unworthy child is allowed to swallow up other emotions which should also have had a place in his soul, and which would have made him more alive to his duty to others. David’s fault here is one of which all in similar circumstances should beware. If we allow our thoughts to dwell entirely upon a personal loss, we shall forget both our gains and the gratitude and service we owe to God and our fellow-creatures, and thus show ourselves both self-willed and selfish. Immoderate and absorbing sorrow is a reflection upon the dealings of God, and no private sorrow can absolve a man from his obligations to others, especially when he has received from them much sympathy and devotion.
II. An ungodly man may sometimes administer needed rebuke to a servant of God. Only men of very high spiritual attainments and well-balanced character behave themselves at all times in such a manner as to deserve no reproach from the ungodly. David was perhaps the most godly man of his age, yet he well-merited the reproof which he now received from the unprincipled Joab. Although exception may be taken to the spirit of Joab’s words, none can gainsay their truth. It was altogether unworthy of David to ignore, as he did at this time, the obligations which lay upon him as the anointed king of Israel and the object of so much loyal devotion. A great crisis in the history of the nation had now arrived, and if Joab had not roused him to action the consequences might have been most disastrous. David showed himself a true man by not refusing to listen to truth when spoken in anger; but, having brought Joab’s accusations to the bar of conscience, and found himself guilty, he ‘forthwith obeyed the call of duty, although it came to him by so unwelcome a messenger. Herein he manifested the true spirit of a child of God, who should ever be willing to acknowledge himself wrong even when the admission is felt to be very humiliating. But let us bear in mind it should be his aim to be so watchful as not to lay himself open to such reproof as David here merited and received from Joab. It was good neither for David nor for Joab, that the latter should be able more than once to convict the better man of wrong, and it is probably never for the interests of righteousness when a man of God and an unspiritual man stand in such a relation to each other.
III. A policy founded on injustice may have a short-lived success. It can hardly be doubted that David’s motive in promoting Amasa was a political one,—that he ventured upon so unjust a measure out of no regard for his late enemy, but in the hope of reconciling those who had lately followed him in the rebellion. It certainly can be regarded in no other light than as an act of gross injustice to Joab, who had just won the victory which restored David to his throne. But, though it bore bitter fruit later on, for the moment it succeeded in bringing back the men of Judah who had revolted. It seems, however, impossible that those who had been faithful to him through all his trial could have seen the promotion of Amasa without a feeling of disappointment and mistrust. Yet the immediate result did not justify that most certain truth that what is morally wrong can never be politically right. The real and permanent results of any action may be long in manifesting themselves, and may often seem at first to be far different from what they really are, which shows how unsafe it is to make the apparent success or failure of a deed the standard by which to judge of its morality.
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS
2Sa_19:1-8. The sinfulness of unmeasured grief. I. Wherein it consists and manifests itself.
1. As regards the Lord, in ignoring the gracious gifts which He sends us along with and amid our sufferings, and in frustrating His gracious design to purify us by suffering from all selfishness.
2. As regards our neighbour, in slighting and violating the duties of love that we owe Him.
3. As regards our own heart and conscience, in reckoning the powers of spirit and will by exhausting emotion and enervating inactivity. II. How it must be overcome.
1. Through the word of earnest admonition, which gives pain.
2. By energetically rising up to new life and faithful discharge of the duties of our calling.
3. By accepting the consolation and strength which come from above through the spirit of God.—Lange’s Commentary.
2Sa_19:11-15. Could not David himself go back with the victorious army he had with him in Gilead? He could, no doubt; but—
1. He would go back as a prince, with the consent and unanimous approbation of the people, and not as a conqueror forcing his way. He would restore their liberties and not take occasion to seize them or encroach upon them.
2. He would go back in peace and safety, and be sure that he should meet with no difficulty or opposition on his return, and therefore would be well satisfied that the people were well affected to him before he would stir.
3. He would go back in honour and like himself, and therefore would go back, not at the head of his forces, but in the arms of his subjects, for the prince that has wisdom and goodness enough to make himself his people’s darling, without doubt makes a much better figure than the prince that has strength enough to make himself his people’s terror … Our Lord Jesus will rule in those that invite Him to the throne in their hearts and not till He is invited. He first bows the heart and makes it willing in the day of His power, and then rules in the midst of his enemies (Psa_110:2-3).—Henry.
One of the best proofs, it seems to me, that David’s schooling was effectual, is this, that all his family griefs, his experience of his own evil, the desertion of his subjects, did not lead him to fancy that he should be following a course acceptable to God, if he retired to the deserts, or ceased to be a shepherd of Israel, instead of doing the work which was appointed for him. It shows how healthy and true his repentance and faith were that he again set himself to organise the people and to fight their battles, to feed them and rule them with all his power; when a religious prudence or self-interest might have whispered, “Do thy best to make amends by services to God for the ills thou hast done; save thyself whatever become of thy people Israel.” These ungodly suggestions, the like of which came as angels of light to so many Christian monarchs in the middle ages, and sent them to do penance for their evils and to seek a crown of glory in monasteries, may have presented themselves to the man after God’s own heart. If they did, he proved his title to the name by rejecting them. He showed that he could trust God to put him in the position that was best for him, that he knew God did not put him into the world to provide either for his body or his soul, but to glorify His name and to bless His creatures.—Maurice.
2Sa_19:14. So it will one day be with the Jewish nation, which is now serving an Absalom of their own will, but will then greet the return of their true king, and say, “Blessed be the kingdom of our father David that cometh in the name of the Lord.” (Mar_11:9-10).—Wordsworth.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Sermon Bible 1900 · Public Domain On v1 2Sa 19:18
2Sa 19:18
According to old heathen mythology, there was a fabled river called Acheron, which the souls of the dead must cross. Its waters were muddy and bitter, and old Charon, who ferried them over, obliged each one to pay a sum of money for the passage. In this fable there is a remnant of sound belief in the existence of the soul, after it has left the body, in another state of being. The very river which the dead are represented as crossing has its counterpart in the language which Christians often use. Our notions of a ferry embrace convenient landing-places, boats for the conveyance of passengers, the payment of tolls, etc. It would not require much imagination to conjure up some of these in connection with the text.
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There will come a moment in the life of each one of us when work, pleasure, folly, and wickedness will all be done with, and when we shall find ourselves on the shores of the river of death, with its dark, cold waters separating us from the better land. The golden city is on the other side, but the river must first be crossed. How are we to cross? The text will help us to understand. "There went over a ferry-boat to carry over the king’s household." The ark of Christ’s Church is only a safe "ferry-boat" because it is preserved and guided by our Divine Lord. As long as we remain in His holy keeping no harm can come to us.
J. N. Norton, The King’s Ferry-boat, and Other Sermons for Children, p. 1.
Reference: 2Sa 19:31-37.—J. R. Macduff, Sunsets on the Hebrew Mountains, p. 100.
2Sa 19:31-40
(see also 2Sa 17:27-29; 1Ki 2:7; Jer 41:17; Ezr 2:61)
I. We have here a man who knows that he is old, but who is not distressed by the thought of it. There are old men who do not know that they are old, or who seek to suppress their knowledge of it. Few things in the world are so pleasant as the sight of such a conscious, cheerful, hopeful old age as that of Barzillai, certain that it has not long to stay, but interested to the last in the best things of life, in the cause of God and man and country and Church. We must prepare for such an old age as this: (1) by taking God with us early in the journey of life; (2) by providing beforehand the compensations which God is willing to give for everything that may be taken away by the changes of life.
II. We have here a man who is rich, but who is satisfied with his natural position. It is at the stage of prosperity that the dissatisfaction of many men begins. If Barzillai had been of the mind of many, he would have made his wealth buy wings for his vanity, and, old as he was, would have tried to flutter in the sunshine of the court. But he was a wiser man, and a happier, and stands in higher honour this day than if he had wronged his nature and finished his life with an act of folly.
III. We have a man of long experience, who has kept up his love of simple pleasures. We can infer this from the tone in which he speaks. He had reached an age when the love of sensational things fails in all but the most frivolous, yet the way in which he speaks of them puts them quietly aside, as not to his taste and never likely to have been so.
It is not a dream that man can keep the love of natural things in his heart and can call them up in fancy as he reads. If a man will but read his Bible with a fresh heart, he may walk with patriarchs in the world when it was young and green, may rest with Abraham under the shade of the oak of Mamre, and see the upspringing of the well to which the princes of Israel sang. He may sit on the mountain-top with Christ, among the lilies and the birds, to understand what they say and sing, and he may listen till he hears far off the final hymn which shall be a concert of nature round regenerated man.
IV. We have a man who is attached to the past, but who does not distrust the future. For himself he has grown up in the old way, and cannot change, but he thinks, "The new has its rights, and the world will be on. My son is here; the future is beaming in his face and beating in his heart; I give him into hands I can trust for leading him in the way of truth, of righteousness." If the old can thus pass over into the new, there is security in all changes.
J. Ker, Sermons, 2nd series, p. 67.
References: 2Sa 19:33.—S. Baring-Gould, One Hundred Sermon Sketches, p. 150. 2Sa 19:33-35.—F. W. Hook. Parish Sermons, p. 119. 2Sa 19:34.—J. Van Oosterzee, Year of Salvation, vol. ii., p. 486; J. R. Macduff, Good Words, 1861, p. 523; Bishop Thorold, Ibid., 1885, p. 67; Homiletic Magazine, vol. xiv., p. 237; New Manual of Sunday-school Addresses, p. 72. 2Sa 19:34, 2Sa 19:35.—D. Moore, Penny Pulpit, No. 3456. 2Sa 19:35.—G. Brooks, Outlines of Sermons, p. 416. 2Sa 19:41 with 2Sa 20:1.—F. W. Krummacher, David the King of Israel, p. 457. 2Sam 19—W. M. Taylor, David King of Israel, pp. 238, 252. 2Sa 20:9.—J. N. Norton, Golden Truths, p. 119. 2Sa 20:16-22.—Homiletic Magazine, vol. ix., p. 337. 2Sa 20:21, 2Sa 20:22.—Scotch Sermons, p. 99. 2Sam 20—W. M. Taylor, David King of Israel, p. 252; Parker, vol. vii., p. 202. 2Sa 21:1.—F. W. Krummacher, David the King of Israel, p. 457; Bishop Armstrong, Parochial Sermons, p. 210. 2Sa 21:1-14.—W. Hanna, Christian Press, Jan. 10th, 1878; Homiletic Magazine, vol. ix., p. 82. 2Sa 21:8-10.—W. H. Jellett, The Elder Son, and Other Sermons, p. 90. 2Sa 21:9.—R. D. B. Rawnsley, Sermons in Country Churches, 3rd series, p. 168.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain On v1 David's Return to Jerusalem
David's Return to Jerusalem
David's excessive grief for Absalom is rebuked by Joab. He punishes Joab for Absalom's death by making Amasa commander of the army. The details of his return to Jerusalem are given, with the strife it caused between the men of Israel and the men of Judah.
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David has often been accused of ingratitude on account of his treatment of Joab. It has been urged that he would never have been secure with Absalom at liberty, and Joab knew how uncertain was his master's mind. On the other hand, it was a serious matter to murder the heir to the throne, for which deposition was probably a lenient punishment.
8. Then the king arose] He recognised the truth of Joab's statements. Sat in the gate] where kings were wont to give audiences (2Sa_15:2).
11. The talk of the people of Israel about David's return had come to the king's knowledge, but so far the elders of Judah had not approached him, on the subject.
16, 17. Shimei tries to make his peace with David (see 2Sa_16:5.) by bringing the tribe of Benjamin back to their allegiance.
20. The house of Joseph] here stands for northern Israel. Ephraim was the most powerful tribe in the northern and central tribes, as Judah was in the south.
23. Sware unto him] At first sight it appears as if David broke his oath by his last directions to Solomon (1Ki_2:8-9). But the way in which Solomon acted on those instructions suggests that he understood his father to be merely putting him on his guard against a dangerous man. He put Joab to death at once, but merely placed Shimei where he could do no mischief.
26. I will saddle] better, with LXX, 'saddle.' The command was given to Ziba, but, instead of obeying it, he drove off the asses to meet David.
29. I have said] RV 'I say,' i.e. I declare that this is my intention. Thou and Ziba] see 2Sa_16:4.
41. Here again we may notice the jealousy between the powerful tribes of Judah and Ephraim: see on 2Sa_19:20.
42. Hath he given us any gift?] This was probably a hit at the Benjamites, who seem to have profited by their connection with Saul (1Sa_22:7).
43. That our advice should not first be had] cp. the conduct of the men of Ephraim, narrated in Jdg_8:1; Jdg_12:1, although they had more excuse (see on Jdg_8:1).
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain On v1 9. The Return of the King
9. The Return of the King
CHAPTER 19
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1. The continued grief of the king (2Sa 19:1-8)
2. The return of the king (2Sa 19:9-16)
3. Mercy shown to Shimei (2Sa 19:17-23)
4. Mephibosheth’s joy (2Sa 19:24-30)
5. Barzillai and Chimham (2Sa 19:31-40)
6. Strife between Judah and Israel (2Sa 19:41-43)
What grief must have been David’s that “the victory of that day was turned into mourning”? And the people went about on tip-toe, like people ashamed after defeat. A great stillness pervaded everything, only broken by the loud and wailing voice of David: “O, my son Absalom, O, Absalom my son, my son!” All mourned with him. But what a man must this David have been to endear himself to his men, that his personal grief became so completely theirs?
Then Joab acted. He speaks as a wise statesman. It was a bold rebuke, but well deserved, for David’s continued mourning was more than weakness; it was selfishness. That he greatly resented the words of condemnation of Joab may be learned from the fact that immediately after he appointed Amasa as commander in chief of his army instead of Joab. The word was also spoken to bring the king back to Jerusalem from exile and he returned.
Once more Shimei appears upon the scene; he brings with him a thousand men of Benjamin and Ziba also. Shimei fell down before the King and implored his forgiveness. Though Abishai suggested his death, the mercy Shimei craved was readily granted and the King sware unto him. But the mercy shown was at the expense of righteousness. The ultimate fate of Shimei we shall find recorded in 1 Kings 2.
Mephibosheth appears next with undressed feet, untrimmed hair and unwashed clothes; he had been thus since the flight of the King. Ziba’s deception practised on the King is now discovered. But David’s conduct towards lame Mephibosheth cannot be justified. The impatience David showed when Mephibosheth speaks is proof that he felt guilty at the rash word he spoke to Ziba. Then he tells Mephibosheth that he and Ziba should divide the land. This was injustice. The deception of Ziba had deserved punishment. Beautiful is Mephibosheth’s answer. It shows a love and devotion which is almost unsurpassed in the Bible. “Yea, let him take all, forasmuch as my lord the King is come again in peace to his own house.” It was a sweet echo of Jonathan’s love for David. It hardly needs to be pointed out that in all this David still acts as a natural man and not as guided by Jehovah and His Spirit. His object was to make himself still more attractive with the people and conciliate the different factions. If he had acted in faith, remembering that the Lord had called him into the kingdom and that He was able to keep him, he would not have tried to gain his end by such means. The bright picture in this chapter is aged and unselfish Barzillai. And the strife between Judah and Israel on account of the King is the first indication of the great division and the internal strifes, which many years later broke out among the people. Thus failure is seen on all sides.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On v1 David Reinstated in his Royal Power
David Reinstated in his Royal Power
v. 1. And it was told Joab, Behold, the king weepeth and mourneth for Absalom. He was immersed in his immoderate and sinful grief for Absalom, and did not even take time to greet his victorious army upon its return.
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v. 2. And the victory, the deliverance or salvation from the hands of the murderous rebels under the leadership of Absalom, was turned into mourning unto all the people; for the people heard say that day how the king was grieved for his son. But while they respected his fatherly grief and, in a measure, shared his sorrow, they were gradually filled with dissatisfaction over the fact that the king did not seem to have one word of cheer or appreciation for them.
v. 3. And the people, the soldiers of the army, infected with the gloom which hung over the entire city and its vicinity, gat them by stealth that day into the city, instead of entering in military order and with shouts of victory, they stole away in small groups and crept into the city as unobtrusively as possible, as people being ashamed steal away when they flee in battle, like disgraced fugitives who find it impossible to face their friends and relatives.
v. 4. But the king covered his face, in unrestrained grief and shame, and the king cried with a loud voice. O my son Absalom, O Absalom, my son, my son! He had almost worked himself into a hysteria over the loss of his worthless son, the rebel against the entire kingdom.
v. 5. And Joab came into the house to the king and said, in a stern reproof, which was intended to restore the king to his senses, Thou hast shamed this day the faces of all thy servants, behaved in a shameful manner toward them, which this day have saved thy life, and the lives of thy sons and of thy daughters, and the lives of thy wives, and the lives of thy concubines, for, according to Oriental custom, Absalom, if he had been victorious, might have slain the entire royal household;
v. 6. in that thou lovest thine enemies, those that hate thee, as his excessive lamenting for Absalom showed, and hatest thy friends, for that would be the logical conclusion. For thou hast declared this day, by his behavior, that thou regardest neither princes nor servants, for David acted as if they simply did not exist, paying no attention to them; for this day I perceive that, if Absalom had lived and all we had died this day, then it had pleased thee well. It was a rude reproof; with deductions which went too far; but it was intended to jolt David severely, to rouse him from his strange behavior.
v. 7. Now, therefore, arise, go forth, and speak comfortably unto, literally, "to the heart of," thy servants, showing them some measure of appreciation, satisfying and refreshing their minds; for I swear by the Lord, if thou go not forth, there will not tarry one with thee this night, not that he himself would lead the army away, but that the dissatisfaction had reached a stage where this result was inevitable; and that will be worse unto thee than all the evil that befell thee from thy youth until now.
v. 8. Then the king, accepting the reproof in the spirit in which it was given, arose and sat in the gate. And they told unto all the people, saying, Behold, the king doth sit in the gate. This news worked a joyful reaction in the hearts of the people. And all the people came before the king, apparently passing before him in review, in order to receive the expressions of his appreciation and gratitude; for Israel had fled every man to his tent, 2Sa 18:17.
v. 9. And all the people, those who had been adherents of Absalom, were at strife throughout all the tribes of Israel, they began to discuss the matter, to argue, to reproach one another, saying, the king saved us out of the hands of our enemies, and he delivered us out of the hand of the Philistines, all these deeds of David now being recalled; and now he is fled out of the land for Absalom, a fugitive before his rebellious son.
v. 10. And Absalom, whom we anointed over us, is dead in battle. Now, therefore, why speak ye not a word of bringing the king back? So the representatives of the people consulted with one another about restoring the throne to David and declaring to him their renewed loyalty.
v. 11. And King David sent to Zadok and to Abiathar, the priests, saying, Speak unto the elders of Judah, saying, Why are ye the last to bring the king back to his house? seeing the speech of all Israel is come to the king, even to his house. So David had information concerning the movement in the other parts of the kingdom, and expressed surprise that the men in the capital and in the tribe of Judah were not taking similar steps.
v. 12. Ye are my brethren, ye are my bones and my flesh, they were of his tribe and of his kindred; wherefore, then, are ye the last to bring back the king? "Conscious that they had offended David, and fearing Absalom’s garrison in Zion, they did not dare to recall him. "
v. 13. And say ye to Amasa, who had been the commander of Absalom’s forces, 2Sa 17:25, Art thou not of my bone and of my flesh? He was David’s nephew. God do so to me, and more also, if thou be not captain of the host, before me continually in the room of Joab. He was to supersede Joab, who OR account of his rudeness and his plain disregard for the royal command had forfeited his post.
v. 14. And he, David, bowed the heart of all the men of Judah, even as the heart of one man, completely winning them for his side, so that they sent this word unto the king, return thou and all thy servants. David had been shrewd enough to see that it would have been poor policy to force himself upon his tribe, just as it would have been foolish to wait for a spontaneous, general invitation on their part. By assuring them of his favor, however, and by reminding them of the relationship between him and them, he removed all difficulties.
v. 15. So the king returned and came to Jordan. And Judah, the representatives of the entire tribe, came to Gilgal, in the valley of Jordan, to go to meet the king, to conduct the king over Jordan. All was ready for a solemn and joyous reception.
v. 16. And Shimei, the son of Gera, a Benjamite, which was of Bahurim, the man who had behaved himself in such a vile manner during David’s flight, 2Sa 16:7-14. hasted and came down with the men of Judah to meet King David. He wanted to undo his evil, if possible, before he would be called to account.
v. 17. And there were a thousand men of Benjamin with him and Ziba, the servant of the house of Saul, he who had slandered his master when he met David by the way, 2Sa 16:3, and his fifteen sons and his twenty servants with him; and they went over Jordan before the king, fording the river in order to meet him on the east side.
v. 18. And there went over a ferry-boat to carry over the king’s household, and to do what he thought good, to be placed at the disposal of the king. And Shimei, the son of Gera, fell down before the king, as he was come over Jordan, as soon as he had crossed by the ford;
v. 19. and said unto the king, let not my lord impute iniquity unto me, charge up the guilt to him, neither do thou remember that which thy servant did perversely the day that my lord the king went out of Jerusalem, that the king should take it to his heart, bear him a grudge on account of it.
v. 20. For thy servant doth know that I have sinned; therefore, behold, I am come the first this day of all the house of Joseph, representing all the tribes of Israel outside of Judah, to go down to meet my lord the king.
v. 21. But Abishai, the son of Zeruiah, who, apparently with good reason, doubted the sincerity of Shimei, especially since the latter was moved to confess his sin only when David had returned to power, answered and said, Shall not Shimei be put to death for this, because he cursed the Lord’s anointed? Cf Exo 22:27; Lev 24:14-15.
v. 22. And David, rejecting the proposal as once before, 2Sa 16:10-11, said, What have I to do with you, ye sons of Zeruiah, that ye should this day be adversaries unto me? The measure suggested by them was altogether out of harmony with his own inclination on this happy occasion. Shall there any man be put to death this day in Israel? For do not I know that I am this day king over Israel? He felt that his restoration to the kingdom really was a proof of his being accepted into the divine favor once more, and he wanted to show his appreciation by being merciful.
v. 23. Therefore the king, without further discussion of the matter, said unto Shimei, Thou shalt not die. And the king sware unto him. The pardon was granted evidently chiefly for political reasons. Evidences of special assistance and favor of God so influence the hearts of the believers that they are glad to forgive their enemies.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 3, 5 Joab was told
Joab was told
This can be stated in active form. AT: "Someone told Joab" (See: Active or Passive)
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Look, the king is weeping
The word "Look" is used here to draw someone's attention to what is said next. AT: "Listen, the king is weeping"
So the victory that day was turned into mourning for all the army
This means that the whole army mourned instead of celebrating. AT "So instead of celebrating victory that day, the whole army mourned" (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)
translationWords
Joab
king
mourn
Absalom
turn
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On v5 19:5-7 These verses provide the only recorded instance of…
19:5-7 These verses provide the only recorded instance of Joab openly rebuking the king (cp. 24:3).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.