2 Samuel 15
VERY soon after this, things moved swiftly. The unpunished slayer of his brother aspired to his father’s throne, and would take it by craft and by force. With his chariots and horses and fifty men to run before him, and yet more by his cunning treatment of those who came to see the king with their complaints, Absalom won the people to himself—stole their hearts from David his father. Spies were sent through all the land to prepare the nation for the proclamation of Absalom as king in Hebron.
Ahithophel, who seems to have been Bathsheba’s grandfather (see chapter 11.:3, and chapter 23:34), a very wise man and David’s counselor (chapter 16:23). joined Absalom, and presently the news of what his favored son had been doing came to the king. David, the conqueror of the Philistines, must flee before the face of his own son, so the king and all his household left Jerusalem.
Now was shown who were true to David and who were not. The Cherethites and Pelethites, David’s personal guard, and the Gittites, the high priest and the Levites, and Hushai the Archite were attached to the king and were ready to share his exile. Ittai the Gittite was told to go back to Jerusalem with his men, all of them no doubt Philistines, but answered nobly.
“As the Lord liveth, and as my lord the king liveth, surely in what place my lord the king shall be, whether in death or life, even there also will thy servant be.”
This was true devotedness to David, and without doubt the more appreciated on account of coming from a stranger who had no interest by nature in Israel or Israel’s king. He and his men foreshadowed the believing Gentiles who are attached to the Lord Jesus in the present time of His rejection, and will share His glory.
The brook Kidron (verse 23) is the little stream, now generally dry, that traverses the valley between the east of Jerusalem and the west of the Mount of Olives. Crossing it, David ascended the mountain, as did the Lord on the night of His betrayal (John 18:11When Jesus had spoken these words, he went forth with his disciples over the brook Cedron, where was a garden, into the which he entered, and his disciples. (John 18:1)).
David when in trial almost without exception recognized God’s hand in it (verses 25, 26), and here, while feeling the sharpness of that “sword” which he had been told should not depart from his house (chapter 12:10), leaves himself in His keeping. “Whom the Lord loveth, He chasteneth,” and David was learning in these deep exercises; his heart was with God, and his sorrows taught him godliness. The tokens of God’s dwelling place must be maintained in Jerusalem, the place which He had chosen to set His name there, and the weeping king ascends the Mount of Olives with his weeping retinue, to meet Hushai the Archite, and send him back also into the city.
David’s sins had brought this grief upon him, but the loving heart of God was concerned with him, and his return to the throne was not far away.
ML 02/06/1927