2 Samuel Lesson 72

Disunity in the Kingdom – 2 Samuel 19:8-43

Turn to 2 Samuel 19 and continue our study of David. David could have been a tremendous believer in his old age, but something happened to David; he was never the same after the Bathsheba incident. We found how David, in this series of events, the Absalom incident that extends from chapters 15-19, for seven years, was a time when there was chaos and confusion; David wasn’t in control of the situation, none of his associates were in control of the situation, no wise men were in control of the situation, only God was acting through the covenants.

Now David, it’s true, is a type of Jesus Christ; David is the kind of individual that the Bible points to to show something about Jesus Christ, but I’ve noticed that as we’ve proceeded into these chapters that some of you have kind of a reaction to all this when you begin to see that the Holy Scripture paints David, as a seminary professor put it, “warts and all.” And you see the failings of David, and you say gosh, how can God the Holy Spirit pick out that kind of a man to be a type of Christ? Because He’s gracious, that’s why, and what you are seeing that so frustrates you when you see David fall down time and time again is the way God sees us time and time again, so don’t look down your long spiritual nose at David. David has his problems but God is gracious, and in spite of David’s problems, David is still God’s man.

In verse 8 we find David just at the time when Joab had chewed him out for his behavior toward Absalom. You recall David, one of his –R learned behavior patterns was a maudlin sentimentality towards his son; he never could seem to get his sons squared away in the Word, always it was his sons first and then God’s kingdom, never the other way around, and this always precipitated problems and difficulties. Now the thing about David is that he is developing chaos in the heart during this time in his life; it isn’t compound carnality as such, though if it lasted it would be, but he has some strong negative volition that is a learned behavior pattern, it is habitual with him, that precipitates a certain form of darkness in the soul. This means David is not perceptive, he does not see issues now as clearly as he used to in the earlier days. This is not due to his physical old age; this is due to his spiritual decline. Don’t ever say that the person of an older age isn’t discerning; God saves the heaviest trials and the biggest changes in life until the later years, and the reason is because a younger person can’t handle it, hasn’t got enough experience yet.

In verse 8, “Then the king arose, and sat in the gate.” Geographically he is still east of Jordan, he is at his command post, he has stopped his crybaby operation over his son, he finally arrives, he gets in the gate, and now the people who had filed in the city earlier in a state of disarray… the victorious army had marched with all three units, with their three commanders, A, B, C, and they marched up to the gate and David was not there to receive them. This was considered an insult. Incidentally, on this tripartite structure we have a former marine sergeant in our midst and he pointed out that the United States Marines are still grounded on the tripartite concept; everything is broken down so that one man only has three men under him at any point in the chain of command, and it obviously is an ancient custom that has perpetuated itself, simply because it works. And you see David using the same tripartite structure; the Greeks used it, Home records it in the Iliad. So it’s a very, very old system. And these three units, we can’t describe what they were in terms of present day numbers but they marched up to the city gates and they were not received; David was in bellyaching about Absalom. So you recall Joab broke rank, went in and very eloquently told off David, and you have one of the great confrontations in the previous verses of this chapter; it is one of the classic passage of someone telling someone else off. So if you ever have need to do so, that’ll be an area you will read five times before you do it.

In verse 8 it says, “And they told unto all the people, saying, Behold, the king now is sitting in the gate,” present participle, he’s seated and now they’re going to pass in review. “And all the people came before the king; for Israel had fled every man to his tent.” “Israel” is the name for all the people who are on the west bank who have fled away from the site of the battle which was on the east side of the bank. “The people” described here is the remnant of Israel that was faithful to David.

In verse 9 it says, “And 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 Absalom. [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?” Now verses 9-10 describe an event, and we’re going to have a series of these events in this chapter, so as I go through working verse by verse, I’m going to do it by groups of verses and when I start into a new group I’ll give you the first and last verse of each one of these groups. The passage is grouped into sections; each one of these groups deals with a specific event and continues the Holy Spirit’s argument of this chapter. When we get down to the end the argument will be clear, but you’re not going to notice the details of these events if I don’t tell you the argument ahead of time.

So what is the issue of chapter 19; the issue is the unity of the nation. In other words, on what principle does the kingdom of God unify? Throughout Scripture the kingdom of God has as its unity one thing, and only one thing. And this unity can’t be counterfeited by superficial politics; this unity can’t be made up by human gimmicks. The unity centers on one thing: you shall love Jehovah with all your heart, in every area of your life, and in practice what that means is that you will be in obedience to God’s Word in every area of your life. So the unity of the nation is not primarily a political unity, not like Egypt. That was a political unity, hanging completely on the one political figure, Pharaoh; he was a theocratic figure but he was also political. So the political and the theological were united. Now the political and the theological will be united when Christ comes again, but until Christ comes the political is never the real issue for unity, it is the theological, the spiritual, the allegiance to the Word of God. That is the issue of unity.

This is why, if you turn back to get some history on this, to Joshua 22, you’ll see why Israel, more than any other nation in the ancient world, was so sensitive about what we call its cultist, or about the place of worship. Over and over again we have instances in the Old Testament where it seems like to our American minds, the political dimension seems just a little odd, it just doesn’t seem to fit what we’re used to. There are these strange theories of events that occur, and when we get to see them, they’re not strange at all, because what these events are teaching us is that Israel’s unity was not dependent upon the political office, it was dependent upon the common allegiance of people throughout the nation to the Word of God, grassroots allegiance to God’s Word was the issue. So in Joshua 22:11 we read about the children of Israel heard a rumor, and they said look, “the children of Reuben and the children of Gad and the half tribe of Manasseh have built an altar over against the land of Canaan, in the borders of the Jordan,” geographically we have the tribes on the east bank setting up a cultist, or a center of worship. One authorized center was west of Jordan. Verse 12, “And when the children of Israel heard of it, the whole congregation of the children of Israel gathered themselves together at Shiloh, to go to war against them.”

Now why all of a sudden do you have a massive national unification over simply building what amounts to a church building east of Jordan? Why is this tremendous, nation wide, grass roots immediate war begun? Because they recognized that creating another cultist or a meeting place for God is going to divide the nation spiritually. They don’t mind it being divided politically but they will have no part of the division spiritually, whether it’s north kingdom, south kingdom, eastern of Jordan, west of Jordan, it doesn’t matter as long as all the tribes adhere to the Word, and the Word in that day was you worshiped at the tabernacle. And it goes on to describe what happened, they almost start the war, then the diplomats come out and realize it was a mistake, it was a sincere mistake on the part of the tribes east of Jordan.

Another incident, 1 Kings 12, here we have an opposite thing. In 1 Kings 12 we have a political division, and not only is the political division tolerated, but the political division is okayed by God. Verse 15, the king here is Solomon’s son, Rehoboam, who was one of the greatest idiots who ever sat on the throne. And one of his weaknesses was that he had all young men around him; young men who were not experienced, did not have background and he threw out the old men from his father’s cabinet, relied completely on these young men, and it was a problem. “Wherefore the king hearkened not unto the people; for the cause was from the LORD, that he might perform his saying, which the LORD spoke,” “hearkened not” means he did not listen to advice by people who were clued into the Word of God and says here the Lord just went ahead and let it happen, and let the kingdom divide, and the division was the division between, not east and west this time, but it was between north and south. You have on tribe, Judah, that remains in the south, and all the other tribes go to the north. And this fracture was never healed. They were two kingdoms from this point forward in history, no matter who did what or how they did it, they were two political kingdoms. However, that was ordained of God, except the political division eventually led to a theological division.

And so verse 25, “Then Jeroboam,” he’s the king of the north, Rehoboam is king of the south, “Jeroboam built in Shechem in Mount Ephraim, and dwelt there, and went out from there, and built Penuel. [26] And Jeroboam said in his heart, Now shall the kingdom return to the house of David. [27] If this people go up to do sacrificed in the house of the LORD at Jerusalem, then shall the heart of this people turn again unto their lord, unto Rehoboam,” see the problem was that the place that was the theological center was in the tribe of Judah, and so the king of the north, Jeroboam argued this way, look, I’ve got to, three times a year according to the Law, my people have to come cross the border and go down here and worship at this place; now they’ve got to by the Mosaic Law. So every time these people cross the border and come down to this place they are going to develop an allegiance politically to Judah instead of to me, so what I’m going to do, I’m going to set up two sanctuaries, one in the north up in Dan, and one in the south in Ephraim, and those two places will be the sanctuaries for my people. So what he did is that he divided the nation theologically. Now the political division was okay with God, but not the theological division, and throughout the rest of this book, verse 30 as it says, “And this thing became a sin; for the people went to worship before the one, even unto Dan. [31] And he made an house of high places, and made priests of the lowest of the people, which were not of the sons of Levi.”

And throughout the rest of this book this is called the sin of Jeroboam, the sin of Jeroboam, the sin of Jeroboam, you read it over and over and over. What is the sin of Jeroboam? It is splitting and fragmenting the theological unity of the people. God does not mind organizational differences; He does not mind political differences, but He does mind when you have allegiance to other than the Word of God.

Now with that history in mind, let’s go to 2 Samuel 19 and see what it’s all about. In 2 Samuel 19 David faces disunity, and the disunity has two levels; on one level, which is the ground level, the foundation level, the basic level, this is a spiritual disunity. Why is it a spiritual disunity? Because the people never have gotten over the Judges period, they are still out of it as a nation. They have had minor revivals under Samuel, minor revivals in Saul’s era, minor revivals in David’s era, but never a national revival to get the nation back to the Word of God in all areas, all tribes throughout the grass roots. That has not taken place, with the result that you have a spiritual disunity in the nation, a disunity between the faithful remnant who adhere to the Word of God, and those who are the majority who do not care beans for the Word of God, they’re not listening to the Word of God, they’re not being trained in the Word of God, and those who know the Word of God are not applying it, so as far as they’re concerned the Word of God is nothing. And you have a superficial political disunity.

The theme of 2 Samuel 19 is David tries to heal the political disunity but he never touches the spiritual disunity, with the result that the chapter is going to end in disaster. So there’s a series of events that give you… there probably were hundreds of these events that happened in 2 Samuel on the riverbank, or shortly thereafter when he went up to Jerusalem to resume his administration; there were probably hundreds of these but the Holy Spirit has selected out to put into the Scriptures only four or five. Why? Because He’s used these four or five before, they represent themes through the book, and so this way the Holy Spirit can draw our attention to something that is not happening; this is all just superficial unity here. You see political acumen, you see skill raised to the level of the highest art, you have excellent diplomacy in this chapter but the diplomacy in the end breaks down as all that kind of diplomacy breaks down because it doesn’t go deep enough back to the Word of God.

Now let’s look at some of the events. In verses 9-10 we have the first event, remember each of these events is to show David tries to heal the political disunity without healing the spiritual disunity. So the first event, summarized in two verses, gives a quick picture of national sentiment; this is kind of the Holy Spirit’s Gallop Poll, and here is what the people think. In the middle of verse 9, see “And all the people were at strife” it means tremendous political discussions are being held, “throughout all the tribes of Israel,” in the gates the elders would be discussing this very heatedly, it is going on, it is a participle which means that for the rest of this chapter this political discussion is going on and on and on. Verses 9-10 go on through the whole chapter; don’t think of verses 9-10 as just one event that stops, then you go to the next event, then you go to the next event, you’re reading it wrongly. Verses 9-10 extend through the whole chapter and they’re still going on at the end of the chapter. So the strife is a continuous strife that goes on and on and on.

Now watch the reasoning, you’ll see there’s something missing, beginning with the words “The king saved us” in the middle of verse 9, and ending with “bring the king back” in verse 10 you have the Holy Spirit’s summary of the national public opinion. But there’s something very wrong with what they’re doing; notice what they do. “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 Absalom. [10] And Absalom, whom we anointed over us, is dead in battle. Now why don’t we bring the king back?” Nowhere in verses 9-10 do you ever read such things as: Jehovah, being the real king of the nation, that He worked through David and delivered the people. That’s not there, not once in verses 9-10 is there a public acknowledgement of the work of Jehovah. It’s totally missing from all those verses. All through the land the political discussions function as though God is not there, as though God is up above a brass ceiling, and we have the political process downstairs and God never interferes with the political process.

There’s no vertical communication going on between Jehovah and the political process. They treat the whole political process autonomously, it depends completely on men. Their sole concern here isn’t even who is in the office. Notice how they start out, “the king saved us,” it’s not whether it’s right in the eyes of God, it’s the benefit, the political benefit in particular that they obtained from David; that’s all they’re interested in. Not the Psalms that David wrote, not the tremendous devotional literature, you don’t read of anything about that in verse 9, nothing about David’s spiritual contribution is at all present, it’s just “he saved us,” he gave us military victory, we were blessed politically and that’s all we are interested in at the present hour.

“And Absalom, whom we anointed,” right there you have a complete cutting away of the Word, who is supposed to be anointing the king? The prophets, the king-maker, so the prophets are just systematically dismissed, Gad and Nathan are never referred to, they might as well just not exist; he’s dead so why don’t we bring the king back. Now between the first part of verse 10 and the last part of verse 10, if you’re thinking, there ought to be something in between there, at least even if you’re thinking politically. If the nation really thought Absalom was the better king, why all of a sudden are they so fickle to change back to David. Simply because these people are spiritually ruthless. It’s like the people in California, who before Bobby Kennedy was shot, they were all chasing after Bobby Kennedy; within a year they were chasing after George Wallace, now you don’t have to be a political expert to know there was a slight difference of opinion between Robert Kennedy and George Wallace. How can you explain this, of thousands and thousands of people suddenly switch? Why?

So verses 9-10 deal with the political benefits, solely political, that sets the tone for the rest of the chapter. Now verse 11, we start dealing with some personal instances in David’s life. Now here it’s going to be very discouraging and maybe disappointing for you to see the great hero of the Old Testament and how he performs. He performs in the most petty, trivial passage that I have yet studied in David’s life. Here is where David’s pettiness reaches his climax.

Verse 11, “And king David sent to Zadok and to Abiathar the priests, saying,” keep in mind, verses 9-10 are still going on; the nation is in complete turmoil, and now this incident, verses 11-15, this is going to be a political arrangement, that’s the only way we can describe it, a political arrangement with Judah. So David comes across Jordan, he knows that the tribe of Judah, being his kinfolk, are the ones that he wants to manipulate in the situation around to his side, all the tribes are arrayed against him, because the people are just a remnant out here, this is just a faithful remnant made up of pieces of all the tribes, so if he comes across Jordan, really what he should be dealing with is God’s will, getting Gad active, getting Nathan active, and saying now look, the Word of God says something here about us all getting together. But none of that, instead of approaching the tribes as even before God, which he should have done, he begins to favor, have favoritism, and so he starts in with his own kinfolk, Judah. This is going to be a mistake and we’ll see what happens at the end of the chapter.

“David sent to Zadok and to Abiathar the priests, saying, Speak unto the elders of Judah,” don’t go to the elders of all the tribes, just go to the elders of our kinfolk in 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. [12] Ye are my brethren, ye are my bones and my flesh: wherefore then are ye the last to bring back the king?” In other words, what we’re having here is a ceremony of crossing Jordan. This is a very, very serious ceremony; it’s not just the king or somebody getting in a canoe and plopping in and rowing across. That’s not the deal. This is going to have to be an official welcoming within the borders of the Promised Land, and at this point the border cuts right through the Jordan River. And as his feet physically cross the Jordan River he is walking onto the land of the kingdom of God. And when he walks onto this land of the kingdom of God, then he must be received officially by the tribes as king; his prophetic anointing must be verified by public acceptance.

So this is his campaign, he’s sending his “PR” boys out to Judah to get them down at the bank first. And to do so he makes a deal with them in verse 13, and this is one of the most under-handed deals, wheeling and dealing of David, that you’ll see in Scripture. “And say ye to Amasa, Art thou not of my bone, and of my flesh? God do so to me, and more also, if thou be not captain of the host before me continually in the place of Joab.” Now Joab has just saved David’s life, and because of the political situation David sees no future politically for Joab as the chief of staff, so he’s going to can the man, just toss him out, and replace him with who? The commander of Absalom’s army. Amasa was the man who commanded all Israel, the army of Israel; Amasa is such a clod that when he went over there he got caught in bad territory, it shows you what a great general was, he should never have taken green troops across, and of all places get caught up in this land. Joab beat Amasa thoroughly, and demonstrated his superior military skill.

We have just seen in this chapter how Joab had a passion for the kingdom; Joab had his rough points but he also had his loyalty, that he was not afraid, when it came to the health of the kingdom of God to tell even the king off if that was necessary. Joab was a passionate man but he was a man who perceived issues. He was a tremendous patriot. Probably the best way to describe Joab in his carnality but yet in those great moments that we’ve seen him; he has these points, and mix it all together and the one word that would describe him is, he is a super-patriot. He was a man who would never commit treason against his country. He is a superior military commander, he has proven himself time and time again, outmoded forces and he would win, he would take the battle through superior military wisdom. And because the political situation doesn’t favor it, Joab is simply fired, that’s all, because it is more impressive to the other tribes to have Amasa, that way we won’t have to change commanders so we just had a war, it ends, and David is getting the general of the opposing army, that’s what David is doing here for political expediency.

Now David had some reason to do this and we’re going to have to trace back in a chain of verses David’s attitude toward Joab. In fact, David’s attitude to the whole clan of Joab, there were several brothers involved. Turn back to 2 Samuel 3:39. You’re going to see, and as I said, don’t be disappointed in this side of David that you’re seeing tonight; God knew David was going to be like this when God anointed him so look at it that way; God anointed David in spite of this. In 2 Samuel 3:39 remember that Joab slaughtered Abner. Abner was the man who was the commander in chief of the aborted revolution under Saul. Abner was the old chief of staff under Saul, and in the early part of Samuel when Joab was David’s chief of staff, Joab decided he was going to arrange an assassination. He wiped Abner out, and in verse 39 David said, “I am this day weak, though anointed king; and these men, the sons of Zeruiah, are too hard for me,” or too severe for me. Now notice that because these are the brothers, there’s three brothers, one of them is eventually killed, and then there are two left. So you see this slogan, “oh these sons of Zeruiah.”

Turn to 14:1, remember when Amnon was killed by Absalom, Absalom fled and David was in panic palace about that in 13:39, remember how he fell apart is his maudlin sentimentality over his son. Remember who straightened him up? It was Joab, Joab was the man who had the perception to see, if this king doesn’t do something and do something quick we’re going to have some problems. So, “Joab, the son of Zeruiah,” see, there’s the title again, “perceived that the king’s heart was toward Absalom.” So he sends the wise woman of Tekoa, he gets this woman who is real shrewd, he figures David can’t be manipulated by a man but he can be manipulated by a woman, and David was a victim of this in several places. And the wise woman of Tekoa was Joab’s agent.

Let’s continue, verse 19, David spots it as Joab’s plot, “and the king said [to the woman], Is not the hand of Joab with thee in all this?” He recognized that this man Joab was quite an instigator. In verse 33, “So Joab came to the king, and told him; and when he had called for Absalom, he came to the king,” and the king went through all the motions, but it was just motions you recall, because he really didn’t forgive Absalom.

Continuing, in 16:9, Abishai was the other brother of Joab and when they were marching out of the city, they were in rank and they were marching down the road, and this jerk, Shimei would pick up rocks and start throwing them at them, and these guys were in rank and it’s not very pleasurable to be marching with your eyes straight ahead and try to keep in step and have some jerk throwing rocks at you off on a high plank some place. So Joab apparently is the head of one column, Abishai is in back, and so Abishai at this point happened to be marching next to David, so he moves over and he says, “Why should this dead dog curse my lord, the king? Let me go over, I pray thee, and take off his head.” Now that’s the attitude of Abishai and Joab, these guy are just killers, and it didn’t bother them too much who they killed as long as it was for patriotic reasons. This was their crudity, there is a crude and cruel strain to both Joab and his brothers. That’s why this gets complicated as we go on.

In 18:11, this is the incident with Absalom, remember they found Absalom, a guy comes up and says sir, we just got Absalom hanging in the tree. And Joab says good, did you kill him? No, obviously in spite of David’s orders. “And Joab said unto the man who told him, And, behold, you saw him, and why didn’t you kill him there? I would have given you ten shekels of silver,” payoff to get rid of the guy, he’s a troublemaker. Those of you who have studied or read about Patton and how he would often countermand orders, he’d get an order down and he’s redefine the order, conveniently, and move on, now Joab was that kind of a man. So while you’re looking at this theme of Joab and his brothers, notice several things. Notice one, they are super-patriots. But notice number two that they are men that you can’t control. They are basically dangerous in that if they see there’s going to be something done, they don’t care whether David is with it or not, they’re going to do it. They will violate law and command if they so feel that’s necessary. And thirdly you’ll notice an intense cruelty about these men; they’re just brutal men, there’s no other word to describe them.

Continuing in 19:1, you recall that incident, Joab sees David, and he again seizes the initiative from David and does something. You can argue that it was good, but you can also see it was a problem of MacArthur/Truman, Patton/Eisenhower, the problem of what do you do when you have one of these men, they’re right but yet at the same time they violate structure and command to do it. This is the same situation.

In 2 Samuel 20:23, ahead of where we are, “Now Joab was over all the army of Israel,” that clues you that something must have happened since we’re in chapter 19, David’s appointing a new commander. And what happened was that in verse 9, “And Joab said to Amasa, Are you in health, my brother? And Joab took Amasa by the beard with the right hand to kill him. [10] But Amasa took no heed to the sword that was in Joab’s hand; so he” did an extended tracheotomy, and that was how he took care of Amasa. So you can obviously see that he was a dangerous person if you replaced him; he’d come visit you. Joab was a very dangerous individual.

And finally in 2 Kings 2 in a very course and cruel insight into David’s character, when he is dying, his last words to Solomon, you think the Watergate tapes are bad, wait till you hear 1 Kings 2. Verses 5-6, he’s talking to Solomon, he’s giving Solomon deathbed advice on how to handle the kingdom. He says, “Moreover, you know also what Joab, the son of Zeruiah, did to me, and what he did to the two captains of the hosts of Israel, unto Abner, the son of Ner, and unto Amasa, the son of Jether, whom he slew, and shed the blood of war in peace, and put the blood of war upon his belt that was about his loins, and in his shoes that were on his feet. [6] Do, therefore, according to thy wisdom, and let not his gray head go down to the grave in peace.” So you’ll find in verse 28 and following of this chapter, Solomon arranges the assassination of Joab, and he’s simply eliminated from the scene under the direct orders of David, get rid of that man, he’s dangerous. So this is the ruthless political character of David, when he wants to be he can be a very ruthless man. He was dealing with ruthless men and he dealt ruthlessly with them. So that’s the story of the feud between David and Joab.

Now back to 2 Samuel 19; so he makes the deal in verse 13 to go to replace Joab with a new commander, and verse 14, it works. It shows you that people are about as loyal as David is here, “And he bowed the heart of all 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.” They were taken in by a simplistic pragmatic political solution that did not go deep, it was only a superficial trivial attempt to buy off allegiance in a critical hour. Verse 15, “So the king returned, and came to Jordan.” In other words, he has successfully manipulated exactly what he wanted, Judah, the tribe of Judah will come down to the bank first, and he’s going to be sorry this ever happened. But he’s got Judah coming down first through the deal of canning his favorite and most loyal general, and as he approaches the Jordan River the tribe of Judah comes across the river. “And Judah came to Gilgal, to go to meet the king, to conduct the king over Jordan.”

And there are going to be some other people with him, and that leads to the next incident, described in verses 16-23, they are now walking through the waters of Jordan and the second incident of the chapter occurs, and we can entitle verses 16-23, two funny reconciliations because here two men that we have met in the past are going to attain a political superficial and very trivial reconciliation of differences, which is going to break apart eventually. Shimei was the character that was throwing rocks, “And Shimei the son of Gera, a Benjamite, which was of Bahurim, hasted and came down with the men of Judah to meet king David. [17] And there were a thousand men of Benjamin with him,” remember, he was the man who came out with all the goodies for David, whining about what his master, Mephibosheth, had done.

Let’s get this all together so you can see the political structure of this. Saul’s son, he had several sons, they were all killed, except this one lame son, Mephibosheth. So you have this son, Mephibosheth, he has a servant, Ziba. Now Shimei is also of the house of Saul, we don’t know exactly what the relationship is but politically that’s what we’re looking at. We’re looking at two representatives out of the tribe of Benjamin which was Saul’s home tribe, and they come down with a thousand people. Now this is an attempt to buy off David; see David buys off Judah, now Benjamin comes down and tries to buy off David. And here’s the gimmick. The gimmick is that Shimei is leading a thousand witnesses, and as he walks down he knows something; David is not going to kill Shimei. He knows he’s got to do something first of all, because he knows when David gets back he’s going to be hunting out the guy that was throwing rocks, at least it’s possible, that’s a plausible fear. So to heal the breech he goes down immediately as David starts to come across the river, and he goes down with a thousand witnesses out of the tribe because he knows that the temptation is going to be, David’s going to kill him there. But if he has a thousand Benjamites in back of him, though they can’t stop David from killing him, they will testify David killed Shimei and run and tell all the other tribes. So he recognizes he’s got a little political leverage going for him. This is a chapter where the politicians are meeting the politicians and you have to be acquainted with how it works.

In verse 17, “And 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 Jordan before the king.” Now he’s bringing people with him, but not for the same purpose. Shimei is bringing a thousand men to act as his political representatives but Ziba has another deal on his mind, because he knows when David comes back he’s going to find out that Ziba double-crossed Mephibosheth, so he’s got to kind of work around that somehow, so his thing is he’s going to go down there with fifteen sons and twenty servants, and they’re going to be good little boy scouts and help David over, carry all his bags, if David has a suitcase, here, I’ll carry your suitcase for you. And this is his operation to ingratiate himself with David, because he’s afraid what’s going to happen when David finds out about him. So we have two men that are going to manipulate; now David is going to manipulate them as we’ll see in a moment.

Verse 18, “And there went over a ferry boat to carry over the king’s household, and to do what he thought good,” and the word “went over” is a Hebrew verb that indicates it went back and forth, so this thing went back and forth, and it was apparently run by the twenty servants of Ziba, they set themselves up in the ferry business, they decided that would be a lucrative thing for the hour and so they started back and forth carrying David’s suitcases across the river, making sure of course that David saw who it was that was carrying his suitcases.

And the last part of verse 18, “And Shimei the son of Gera fell down before the king, as he was come over Jordan; [19] And said unto the king, Let not my lord impute iniquity unto me, 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. [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 to go down to meet my lord the king.” Now you see, he’s rubbing it in here, this is just a phony confession because in verse 20 if he was really confessing his sin he would have cited David’s prophetic anointing, and said I have sinned against God’s man. But you don’t read anything about he’s sinning against God’s man, this is just David, I know I’ve offended you. It’s that kind of a confession, it’s just superficial political. And then he says “I am come the first … of the house of Joseph,” see, that’s just to rub it in a little bit further, so David catches the warning signs; in other words, David, don’t play too rough be because in back of me there are a thousand men who can carry whatever you do to me all over the nation. So if you’re smart you’ll play my little game.

Verse 21, here we go with Abishai again, he’s Joab’s brother, acting as we have seen him, “But Abishai the son of Zeruiah answered and said, Shall not Shimei be put to death for this, because he cursed the LORD’s anointed?” Let me kill him, I haven’t killed anybody for the last couple of hours. And David again reacts to it. [22] “And David said, What have I to do with you, ye sons of Zeruiah, that ye should this day be Satan” literally, “[adversaries] unto me?” Now the word in the Hebrew is satan, it is singular, not plural, like it reads in the King James; it is the word for Satan. Now it doesn’t mean Satan is the [can’t understand word] though he is obviously manipulating, what the word here means, it’s original Hebrew connotation is adversary; in a court system Satan was the adversary. But in normal discourse satan would be an obstacle to your [can’t understand word, may be: cherished] path. A similar thing happened in Christ’s life when He was telling about the disciples, He was going to the cross, Peter said oh no, you’re not going to go to the cross, and Jesus said “Get thee behind me Satan.” In other words it was Satan influencing Peter at that point but what the real issue was is that Satan was acting as satan, that is, an adversary to doing the will of God.

Now at this point it sounds very spiritual for David to say that, except if you get the context all David is really saying is, I can’t have you guys going around killing here, you’re going to disturb the political water, we don’t make waves and you guys don’t know how to do anything except make waves; now just cool it. That’s the attitude that’s behind the verse. “Shall there any man be put to death this day in Israel?” and then he adds this, and this gives you a clue as to why David intensely dislikes Joab and Abishai at this point, “for do not I know that I am this day king over Israel?” Apparently by this time it’s getting to David that Joab is taking things into his own hands. So David decides this guy cannot be restrained any longer so I’m just going to can him. This gives you a hint what goes on in David’s mind.

Verse [23] “Therefore the king said unto Shimei, Thou shalt not die.” And then it says, “And the king swore unto him.” Now at this point we know this is totally phony. If you’ll turn to 1 Kings 2, that famous discourse on the last words to Solomon, he told him hey, when you get in office, see if you can bump off Joab. The same thing is given for Shimei, which shows David had no intention whatever of forgiving Shimei, he broke an oath unto the Lord; he swore before God that this man would not die, and he technically got out of it because he didn’t die under David. But David arranged his death. And it’s recorded in 1 Kings 2:8, “And, behold, thou hast with thee Shimei, the son of Gera, a Benjamite of Bahurim,” see the same historical background, “who cursed me with a grievous curse in the day when I went to Mahanaim. But he came down to meet me at the Jordan, and I swore to him by the LORD, saying I will not put thee to death with the sword.” Now he didn’t swear that, in 2 Samuel it says you will not die, that’s what he said to Shimei, but what he’s saying to Saul is really, Solomon, you see what I said was that I won’t kill him but that doesn’t mean you can’t. So, he says, verse 9, “Now, therefore, hold him not guiltless; for thou art a wise man, and know what you ought to do to him, and don’t let his white head go down to the grave, bring it down with blood,” get rid of that man too, bump him off. So obviously David in his ruthlessness had no intention whatsoever of dealing in mercy with these men, it’s all a political show on the river Jordan.

In verse 24 we see another incident. Now this should cure some of you of this inane remark “can a Christian do that?” Yes he can, you’re watching one right in the text. It’s so stupid, “Christians can’t do that!” What are Christians made of? Sin natures, like everybody else, the only difference is Christians talk about Christ. And in verse 24 we have Mephibosheth and David’s out of it here too. “And Mephibosheth the son of Saul 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 until the day he came again in peace.” Now the Holy Spirit put that in there deliberately to show us that this man is genuine. At this time, actually the seed of Saul, incarnated in Mephibosheth, has it all over David spiritually. Mephibosheth is a very gracious and gallant man in all of this.

Verse 25, “And it came to pass, when he was come to Jerusalem to meet the king, that the king said unto him, Wherefore went not thou with me, Mephibosheth?” Now that is legitimate because all David heard was this bad scoop from Ziba, remember Mephibosheth’s servant double-crossed him and went and tattled on the guy, made up this big long song and dance so Ziba could get Mephibosheth’s property. And David was weak and gave it to him. Now in we hear the true story of what really happened that day.

Verse 26, “And he answered, My lord, O king, my servant deceived me: for thy servant said, I will saddle me an ass, that I may ride thereon, and go to the king; because thy servant is lame.” Now when it says “thy servant” in verse 26, that is not Ziba, that is Mephibosheth talking to David, and he says David, thy servant, that is Mephibosheth; so if you confuse “thy servant” in verse 26, “thy servant” is not Ziba, it’s Mephibosheth, and he said, “I will saddle me an ass,” now what he meant was he’d go out in the garage and get the car started, I’m going to drive over to see David today. And so Ziba goes out the door and starts the car and drives off and leaves Mephibosheth standing in the door. That’s what happened, he saddled the ass all right, and he took off.

So verse 27, “And he hath slandered thy servant unto my lord the king; but my lord the king is as an angel of God: do therefore what is good in thine eyes.” He turns himself completely under David’s authority. This man is just totally genuine. There’s no guile about this man at all. [28] “For all of my father’s house were but dead men before my lord the king: yet didst thou set thy servant among them that did eat at thine own table. What right therefore have I yet to cry any more unto the king?” He is so tremendous in his grace attitude at this point, he doesn’t even whine about his property, and David recognizes it and says don’t speak t me any more of these matters, you and Ziba divide the land. [29] And the king said unto him, Why speakest thou any more of thy matters? I have said, Thou and Ziba divide the land.”

Now just to show you how complicated this thing has gotten, hold the place and go back to 2 Samuel 9:9, the first pronouncement David gave. At stake is Saul’s estate; here’s the problem. Mephibosheth, being the lone heir to the estate, inherits the estate. It is a tremendous amount of land, wealth in the form of land. Ziba, who is his ranch foreman, if you want to use that as a modern analog, he decides he’s going to get that land himself. Now in 9:9 you have the original designation of the estate. “Then the king called to Ziba, Saul’s servant, and said unto him, I have given unto your master’s son all that pertained to Saul and to all his house.” And then he tells Ziba to serve Saul faithfully. So clearly the king had decreed, because the king, at this point, was acting as the highest law officer of the land, he was acting as the judge, and he decreed the estate go into the hands of Mephibosheth.

Now turn to 16:4, this is when Ziba comes out. In 9:9 all to Mephibosheth. In 16:4, this is after he got the bad scoop, Ziba had maligned Mephibosheth, “Then said the king to Ziba, Behold, thine are all that pertained unto Mephibosheth.” Verses 3-4 describes how that all that pertained unto Mephibosheth is thine.” So now look what we’ve got; in 16:4 all goes to Ziba. Now we come to 19, the passage we are studying now, 19:29 and David says well, it’ll be 50/50, see, there’s this vacillation going back and forth, and Mephibosheth is the kind of man that is not petty, he’s not trivial, and he could care less about all this political garbage, and he tells him so in verse 30, “And Mephibosheth said unto the king, Yea, let him take all, forasmuch as my lord the king is come again in peace unto his own house.” In other words, he says I’m satisfied, you’re back, and we can get this thing rolling again, the Lord’s man is on the throne, that’s enough for me. If this guy, Ziba, wants the property, let him take the property. He’s tired of hassling with it. So this is a man who’s just not petty. Now he’s the one that stands out.

There’s another man who’s going to stand out and that’s the next incident, verses 31-40. In verses 31-40 we have a man, a very pathetic case, a very old man who may be a Gentile unbeliever, and David had the most fantastic opportunity to witness about Jesus Christ to this old man, and watch what happens. Verse 31, “And Barzillai,” he’s the man who supplied David with all the supplies, you recall, “And Barzillai the Gileadite came down from Rogelim, and went over Jordan with the king, to conduct him over Jordan. [32] Now Barzillai was a very aged man, even fourscore years old:” eighty years old, “and he had provided the king of sustenance while he lay at Mahanaim; for he was a very great man”. Now I want you to notice, to get the text and the force of this, watch that little notice at the end of verse 32, the word in the Hebrew can mean great in size but in this kind of context it means great in wealth. So you have to catch the whole picture as this incident unrolls. Barzillai is a man 80 years old and lacks nothing materially, that’s why he could provide for David and his army. So this guy has made it, he doesn’t have to sweat his retirement, he’s got thousands and thousands of acres of land, income producing property, no problem, he is a very great man.

Now watch; at this point David is talking about going back into his kingdom. Barzillai’s over on the east side of Jordan, he is an old man who has everything on the superficial level in life, he has all that money can buy. Now you would think in this kind of a situation that a believer, facing an unbeliever would say look, you’re an old man, you’ve got everything materially that you could ever want, but I’ve got one thing that you don’t have, and that is a personal relationship with God through Jehovah. But does David do that? Watch what happens.

Verse 33, “And the king said unto Barzillai, Come thou over with me, and I will feed thee with me in Jerusalem.” Now that is absolutely asinine, because Barzillai has enough money, he doesn’t need somebody to feed him, he’s an old man who’s about to die and he needs somebody to teach him the Word of God, not somebody to put food in his mouth, he’s got plenty of that. Verse 34, “And Barzillai said unto the king, How long have I to live, that I should go up with the king unto Jerusalem? [35] I am this day fourscore years old: and can I discern between good and evil?” this is an idiom for getting old, it doesn’t mean lack of discernment, “can thy servant taste what I eat or what I drink? can I hear any more the voice of singing men and singing women? wherefore then should thy servant be yet a burden unto my lord the king? [36] Thy servant will go a little way over Jordan with the king: and why should the king recompense it me with such a reward? [37] Let thy servant, I pray thee, turn back again, that I may die in mine own city, and be buried by the grave of my father and of my mother.”

This old man, he comes down, he has befriended David, David had an opportunity to bring him into the kingdom, to take him into the temple of God, and show this man the typology of the gospel of Jesus Christ as it’s presented in that temple, so show him the holy place, to show him the arrangement of the furniture; David knows this, we know this from the way he wrote the Psalms. He would meditate in that place, he could say come on over and enjoy the spiritual blessings in our kingdom. No, come on over and enjoy, we’ve got good T-bone steaks. See the trivialness, the triteness, this is all superficial, this whole chapter is just superficial. David blew it and this again is an opportunity… believers can never out-world the world. So don’t try it. What we have the world doesn’t have and that’s the Word of God and that’s the only place where we can compete and win. Yet we have people building great tremendous structures and monuments and the next generation will take them over as apostates; we have basketball teams and everything else, and this is all right but when you put all your emphasis in basketball and the rest of these things without the Word of God, what have you got? You haven’t got Christian fellowship, your fellowship in those kind of areas doesn’t differ five cents from non-Christians in that same kind of situation. That’s not Christian fellowship. Christian fellowship is when you get around and discuss and share the Word of God with one another; and I don’t mean hand-holding, I mean discussing the content of the Word of God, the historical objective, doctrine. That’s Christian fellowship.

But instead of doing that, he tries to sell an old man, who is wealthy, on more wealth, he says come on over, because Barzillai is very polite at the end of verse 35, this is just a polite oriental way of saying no thanks, that’s what he’s saying. He’s saying to David, even if David can’t get the point, look David, there’s nothing over in Jerusalem that you can give me that I don’t already have; do you think you’re going to take me on the nightclub circuit of Jerusalem; we’ve got some good ones over here, it doesn’t impress me. Show me all your pretty girls, we’ve got pretty girls over here too; show me all your restaurants, we’ve got those here too. In fact they had better ones because all the steak was raised east of Jordan at that time. So they had a lot better restaurants, fresh meat over there. So Barzillai wasn’t losing out at all and he knows it, so he just says no thanks. And the sad thing about the whole chapter, verse 37, I’m going to go and I’m going to die, and never do you get a response from David. You’d think David would say hey, before you die there’s a few things we ought to talk about. Nothing, just silence. The king says take my son, Chimham, that’s apparently his son, we can deduce that from Scripture. “But behold thy servant Chimham; let him go over with my lord the king; and do to him what shall seem good unto thee.”

Verse 38, “And the king answered, 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. [39] And all the people went over Jordan. And when the king was come over, the king kissed Barzillai, and blessed him; and he returned unto his own place. [40] Then the king went on to Gilgal, and Chimham went on with him: and all the people of Judah conducted the king, and also half the people of Israel.” Barzillai exits into the darkness, never having had a witness to the Word of God in his life. So David continues operation trivia.

Verse 41-43, the final note of the chapter. This is deliberately put in by the Holy Spirit to show you that all during these instances, nothing has been solved. The chapter began with chaos and the chapter ends with a very ominous sinister note. “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?” now they didn’t steal him away did they; remember what happened? Instead of sending invitations to all the tribes, what did David do? He pulled off a deal with Amasa to get Judah to come down first. So Judah’s down, David’s across the river now, and now the emissaries of the other tribes show up, and they say wait a minute, we wanted a part of this too. And this was a rebuff that those tribes would never forget, that when David crossed Jordan he never invited them to receive them. And this creates a psychological trait in the nation Israel that’s going to break loose in 930 BC in a tremendous civil war. [42, “And all the men of Judah answered the men of Israel, Because the king is near of kin to us: wherefore then be ye angry for this matter? have we eaten at all of the king’s cost? or hath he given us any gift? [43] And the men of Israel answered the men of Judah, and said, We have ten parts in the king, and we have also more right in David than ye: why then did ye despise us, that our advice should not be first had in bringing back our king? And the words of the men of Judah were fiercer than the words of the men of Israel.]

And the way the chapter ends in verse 43, they get into a big argument and it concludes, and it’s just a fitting way to end the whole thing, nothing solved, the only way it was solved was that the “words of the men of Judah were fiercer than the words of the men of Israel.” So that’s the way it’s left; David apparently has political unity; David apparently has healed all the breeches but underneath it’s a boiling pot of political intrigue that can’t be stopped by Solomon, it’s going to blow up in Solomon’s face, and really blow up in his son’s face. That nation has only 80 years to a disastrous civil war. David could have done something about it at this point by calling the nation back to the standard and getting the unity root deep with the Word, but instead of that he chose the expedient quick, and in the long run useless line or way of political gimmicks.

Now that’s a warning for all of us. When we get out of fellowship our tendency is always to try to gloss over things trivially. Don’t bring the Word of God up, for example; don’t solve the thing on the basis of the Word of God; this goes to personalize, in counseling you’ll see this time and time again, you’ll have some Christian with a bunch of trouble, they’re out of it; instead of solving that problem drastically, getting down to the roots of the problem by the Word of God and seeing that that problem comes about because of a rebellion against God, and that’s what it is, what do we do? Band aid, and a lot of trivial action, and you can get across a crisis fro a while, just like David got the nation across the crisis, but that’s what you’ve got at the end, you’ve just got one argument against another. This is a fitting end to a most political chapter of God’s Word. With our heads bowed…