STUDIES IN SAMUEL No. 59

2 Samuel 19:15-20:2

February 24, 2002

Remember where we are. We are in the middle of the narrative of Absalom's revolt which will take us to 20:26. The decisive battle of the civil war has been fought and won by David's forces. Absalom has been killed and the rebellion smashed. Now we are going to read about the reconciliation of the tribes of Judah to their king and the full restoration of David's rule over Israel. But first, we have a sequence of conversations that David has while he is at the Jordan. We could entitled this next section, up to the end of chapter 19: "David's Conversations at the Jordan." [Waltke, Notes, 27] What is particularly interesting is that these conversations mirror, in reverse order, the conversations that David had on his way out of Jerusalem, fleeing from Absalom. Then he spoke to Hushai (15:32-37), Ziba (16:1-4), and, after a fashion, Shimei (16:5-13). Now he will speak to Shimei (16:16-23), Mephibosheth, about whom Ziba had spoken falsely (19:24-30), and, finally, to Barzillai (19:31-40) an old man, too old to return to the capital, just as Hushai was too old to leave it. [Gordon, Com., 289]

v.15 No one knows for sure where Gilgal was, but it was very near the Jordan river.

v.16 Shimei, remember, was the aggrieved member of Saul's family who had cursed David and pelted David and his entourage with stones and dirt as they left Jerusalem in flight from Absalom.

v.17 Ziba is introduced here, but will be taken up later in the chapter. Benjamin was Saul's tribe, so still at this point, it is worth noting what the Benjamites do.

v.18 That they don't wait for David to cross, cross themselves and help David cross back to the other side reveals how anxious they are to prove that now they are loyal to David.

v.20 Shimei, of course, had calculated that Absalom would prevail in the civil war. When he did not he realized that he was a marked man and that his only chance of survival lay in groveling before David. "House of Joseph" literally would mean the two tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh, but sometimes it is extended to refer to the northern tribes, either the ten minus Benjamin and Judah or, as apparently here, the eleven tribes minus Judah.

Like Saul, his ancestor, Shimei says he sinned (though he does not say he sinned against God) but there is no evidence that what we see here was true repentance.

v.23 The sons of Zeruiah, true to form, want blood; David, however, does not give them what they wish.

v.25 Remember, Ziba, Mephibosheth's servant had lied to David as he was fleeing Jerusalem and had said that Mephibosheth was hoping to profit from David's misfortune. As a matter of fact, Mephibosheth's behavior throughout the civil war had demonstrated his loyalty to David.

v.30 We have already considered this material when, some weeks ago, we treated the Ziba/Mephibosheth material as a unit. And we said that it revealed a David who had lost his sure touch as a king. He here allows an innocent man to be defrauded of half of his property and a guilty man to profit from his perfidy. He knows Mephibosheth is innocent but does not see to his vindication. He puts the unrighteous Ziba on the same level as the righteous Mephibosheth and that is bad behavior for the Lord's king! The narrator gives Mephibosheth the last word to indicate that he judges Mephibosheth the righteous man here.

v.31 Barzillai, remember, had come to David's aid when the king took refuge from Absalom in the Transjordan. We read about that at the end of chapter 17.

v.38 David promised Barzillai that he would be maintained as an honored guest at court. Barzillai, however, is past caring about the luxuries of court life and just wants to live out his days at home. Kimham was one of Barzillai's sons, as we read in the LXX. There is a reference in Jeremiah 41:7 to "Kimham's holding," suggesting that David had given him a grant of land in the Bethlehem area.

v.40 "Half the troops of Israel" indicates, as suggested before in vv. 9-10, that opinion was divided in Israel as to what to do regarding David, some apparently preferring to continue the rebellion. Judah steals a march on the other tribes by turning up en masse to escort David across the Jordan. [Gordon, Com., 292]

v.43 In this short scene we are given a window into the tribal tensions that would eventually spill over into the division of the kingdom after the reign of Solomon. A very strong king was able to hold these tensions in check; lesser kings were not. There is also, already in evidence a lack of spiritual principles directing the thinking of these men. Israel can claim 10 shares in David in v. 43 and, in 20:1 many of the same men apparently claim to have "no share in David." Their loyalties shift as if nothing more than whims.

20:1 "there" means at the national assembly at Gilgal where the tribes had just quarreled. The new threat to David's throne arose directly out of that squabble.

v.2 The fact that some parts of Israel continued the rebellion is a demonstration of the continuing weakness of David's reign and the fragility of the union of the tribes of Israel. e pluribus unum, "out of many, one" was never, from the very beginning, the heartfelt motto of Israel's national life. Sheba was a Benjamite, perhaps a kinsman of Saul, and, it is clear that he thought of himself and so did many Israelites as a true successor, Saul's heir, and not a rebel as Absalom. However, it seems clear that "all the men of Israel" is a generalization and that it would be the failure of Israel to back Sheba with its full military might that would lead to the failure of his effort to divide Israel at this point. It would be another 50 years before the schism took place.

We have been witnessing a great man's character fading in his later years, weakened by great sins and their catastrophic aftermath. It is a sad story that takes up most of the second half of 2 Samuel. And, without a doubt, it is a cautionary tale. We are forced to take warning about the effect of sin upon ourselves as well as upon others. Over these chapters we have been made to watch as David grows weary of well-doing, consumed with himself and his private troubles, and distracted to the point of being easily manipulated by others. Without a doubt, this descending spiral of faith and morals began the moment David sent for Bathsheba whom he had seen bathing. How little he saw of what was to become of him as a consequence of that terrible crime and how carefully we must see the lesson lest we sin without regard to possible consequences. The Lord will not be mocked, we are told in both the OT and the NT, and whatever a man sows, he shall reap. This is a principle here illustrated even in the world of grace; for there is no question that David is a man of faith, a forgiven man, and even a godly man.

But we get more of the same here in this piece of this longer narrative and if we will honor the Word of God in our hearts and take it to heart, we must face this solemnizing teaching one more time.

Look at what has become of David! We have already spoken of his failure with Ziba and Mephibosheth. He was no king in that instant. He didn't care enough to do what was right and just. But, the same failure of character is revealed in his treatment of Shimei.

When we break down vv. 21-23 we see less magnanimity on David's part and more personal spite and political cunning. What we also fail to see is any God-ward direction to David's thinking.

Abishai, second in command of David's army, and so one of the men who gave David his throne back, proposes, naturally enough, the execution of Shimei, whose disloyalty to King David had been spectacularly proved during the Absalom revolt. He took full advantage of the opportunity to kick David while he was down. Ahithophel, David's former advisor, who had gone over to Absalom, knew he would be executed for his role in the plot and killed himself. Absalom had been killed and rightly so, even though David couldn't seem to accept the fact that he could not preserve his kingdom entire if he did not eliminate Absalom, the charismatic pretender.

David's reply seems magnanimous, generous to a defeated enemy. However, it appears that it is not really so.

1. First, though it is Abishai who speaks and proposes the execution of Shimei, David's reply takes the form: "What do you and I have in common, you sons of Zeruiah?" In other words, by using the plural "sons" David is indicating that when he looks at Abishai, he is also seeing Joab, whom he has not forgiven for killing Absalom. It is his anger toward those two men, not his benevolence toward Shimei that is motivating David. He has already, in v. 13, which we read last week, taken command of the army from Joab and given it to the rebel commander, and now he gives them another slap in the face. He isn't going to give Abishai what he wants no matter what it is. Out of his anger for Joab's role in killing Absalom, David is willing to reject loyal commanders and to favor disloyal ones, to punish those who gave him victory and to reward those who hoped for his defeat. It is certainly to be wondered whether the rebellion led by Sheba, another Benjamite, would have got off the ground if David had been more peremptory in punishing the leaders of the plot against him. Instead he showed himself weak and barely interested in reestablishing his power over the nation.

2. Second, when David says, in v. 22, "Should anyone be put to death in Israel today?" he is quoting Saul, from 1 Sam. 11:13. Saul had said the same thing after the Lord had given him a great early victory over the Ammonites in defense of Jabesh Gilead. But there is a difference. Even Saul was careful to credit the Lord with the victory. But here and throughout this section David does not praise the Lord, he does not credit the Lord with saving his throne. David, bemoaning the loss of his rebellious son, does not seem grateful to the Lord that his forces prevailed in the civil war. David does not seem to be reckoning with God, only with men.

3. Third, and perhaps most telling, David is insincere in his promise to Shimei. He swore an oath that he would not kill Shimei, as we read in v. 23, but David did not forget what this man had done. He did not kill him, but he left explicit instructions with Solomon to make sure that this man went down to his grave in blood. You can read those instructions in 1 Kgs. 2:8-9. It may be that David saw this as a way of mollifying the Benjamites. If he did, it didn't work. But, I suspect, it had more to do with getting back at Joab and Abishai than it had with consolidating his government over all the tribes of Israel.

4. Fourth and finally, the narrator allows us to hear Abishai say that Shimei had cursed the Lord's anointed. He is the only one who seems to realize the larger issues that swirl around this man Shimei. David doesn't seem to have a care for the anointing of the Lord or for the nation of Israel. He has lost sight of his calling, absorbed as he is in his own private grief and distraction. He surfaces sufficiently to have conversation with these various people, but he doesn't distinguish himself with any of them, Shimei, Mephibosheth, or Barzillai, and, to be honest, Mephibosheth and Barzillai look better than David does. Where is the Lord in this great man's conversation? He seems spiritually exhausted. Mephibosheth is humble and grateful in comparison to David who is distracted and unconcerned.

And all of this seems to be confirmed by the fact that right in front of David the northern tribes and southern tribes quarrel ominously and play out their jealousies. David seems to have lost his regal grip. [Fokkelman in Alter, Com., 319] The fact that the new rebellion begins right there, as we read in v. 1 of chapter 20, indicates that David was virtually witness to the disintegration of his newly reacquired country and did nothing about it.

How different this David from the man we knew before, from the days of his contest with Goliath, through the struggle against Saul, to the conquests of the early years of his reign. There he was a man of faith, wisdom, and decisive leadership. Here he is a man at sea, small-minded, forgetful of his responsibilities, and, worse, seemingly forgetful of God.

This would simply be an interesting story, except for the fact that we have all seen it with our own eyes play out in the lives of people and of churches that we have known.

Brethren, a church of our Presbytery, people like us, has simply disintegrated over the past few months. There was a civil war in that church. I have my own opinions about who was right and who was wrong, I have my own opinion about what sins were the sins that sent this church spiraling downward in every sense: moral, spiritual, and physical. But, no one can doubt that sin has gutted that church, it is now a shadow of its former self and may well not survive at all, and those people, who had no expectation of anything like this happening at all, have found themselves swept up in a maelstrom of evil consequences.

It is this whirlpool effect of actual sins that is so powerfully displayed in the second half of the David history. And the Spirit of God who wrote this dismal story in such punishing detail intends for you and me to go away from it shaking our heads, trembling with fear of our own capacity for such sins, determined never to forget what sin can do even in a Christian life, and vowing often and earnestly to live in the fear of the Lord, when we sin to repent furiously and to practice new obedience as if our life depended upon it, and to go to our graves conscious every day of our absolute need to keep our hand firmly in his! Unlike David, let us be always thanking the Lord for his grace and mercy to us and looking to him, trusting him, counting on him every single day for the grace we need to think and speak and behave in that manner which he approves, that manner that builds his blessing into our lives, and that manner that faithfully fulfills our calling. As a believer you can end your life with a whimper or a shout. David ended his with a whimper, the Apostle Paul with a shout.

The difference was that one afternoon on the roof when he should have been with his army in the field. The difference, the sole difference was Bathsheba. If only he could have seen his future unrolling before his eyes as he looked at her bathing. If only he could have seen the death and destruction and shame to come in the beautiful woman he was watching. Faith should have seen it. You and I will have still less excuse, for we have read David's story. Let us promise the Lord, right now, that we will never forget the destructive and the corrupting power of sin and honor the Lord, right now, by telling him that we fully understand that, even our Father in heaven, will make us, and should make us taste the bitter fruit of our sins.

I feel like turning to consider the Lord's grace, but that is not in our text. Would it not be right for me to leave you with that encouragement? Would you not all feel better if I left you with thoughts of the kindness of the Lord and his willingness to forgive even our most egregious sins? "Behold the goodness and severity of God," Paul says. True enough, but the goodness of the Lord is not much here in our text and, lest we run away from the hard lesson here, we will do well to ponder God's severity all by itself. There is much to come on the Lord's grace and forgiveness. The fact is, and I say this as your pastor, I have seen among us recently a failure to reckon with God's promise to punish the misdeeds of his children, even while forgiving their sins. I have even had someone admit to me a lack of fear of the consequences of sin. No, brethren, look at David in this material, the pathetic shadow of his former self, and learn that sin is nothing to toy with and that any pain, any sacrifice is worth enduring in order to avoid committing sin.