📖 2 Samuel 19 : 💎 David returns to the palace.. and the chapter that records what people were really like

 

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📖 2 Samuel 19 : 💎

David returns to the palace.. and the chapter that
records what people were really like

Chapter 18 was :

• The chapter in which Absalom dies in the war and David's grief is recorded.
• Within that record, Joab is shown disobeying King David's order and acting on his own.

👉 David, who restrains his grief under Joab's threat and stands before the people

Someone tells Joab that the king is weeping and mourning for Absalom. That grief reaches the people as well, so the victory of that day turns into sorrow, and the people slip quietly into the city.

Seeing this, Joab goes to the king and rebukes him: the king is shaming all his servants, who saved the lives of the king and his family.. and if Absalom were alive and all of us dead, the king would have been pleased.

➡️ He then adds that if the king does not go out and present himself to the people, not one man will stay with him tonight, and that the evil will be worse than all that has come upon him until now. Joab threatens him.

➔  Joab's words were not honest counsel. ❌ (They seemed right, but they were not right words)

➔  The reason: David is grieving over Absalom's death, and that came about because Joab disobeyed the order. 💎

➔  Before that, we must not forget that it was also Joab who brought Absalom back from Geshur, for no good reason. 💎

➔  What Joab should actually have done was go before the king, ask forgiveness, make him understand, and only then have him stand before the people, but in his own way, he threatens David.

✔️ David answers nothing, shows his face to the people, and all the people come before the king.

👉 David, who reaches out on his own initiative to return to the palace

The tribes of Israel, who had stood with Absalom against David, begin to argue their case.

• The king delivered us from the hand of our enemies and from the hand of the Philistines, but he fled the land because of Absalom,
• and Absalom, whom we anointed, has died in battle...

So why are you silent about bringing the king back? — that is what they say.

✔️ These were people who had tried to kill David.. and now they must bring him back; it could not have been an easy situation.

📌 King David sends his message to the elders of Judah through Zadok and Abiathar.

1All Israel is already speaking of bringing the king back to his palace; why are you of Judah the last to do so?

• You are my brothers, my bone and my flesh...

2And to Amasa, who had commanded Absalom's army: are you not also my bone and my flesh?

• May God do so to me, and more also, if you do not become commander of the army before me in place of Joab.
• This goes beyond embracing Amasa: it is a promise to raise his position.

➔ In this way David turns the hearts of all the men of Judah

➔ and they send word to the king: "Return, you and all your servants."

👉 David reaches the Jordan, and several people enter the scene

1

Before the king crosses the Jordan, the house of Judah appears to meet him. (v. 15)

2

Shimei, the Benjamite, hurries down with the men of Judah, and a thousand men of Benjamin come with him

• Shimei begs the king not to hold his sin against him, not to remember it, not to take it to heart. (The most shameless of all)
• Knowing he has sinned, he says he is the first of all the house of Joseph to come down and meet the king haha
• David swears that he will not die.

3

Ziba, the servant of Saul's house, with his sons and servants, comes to King David

4

Saul's grandson Mephibosheth comes down and meets the king. (v. 25, he met the king in Jerusalem)

• v. 24: Mephibosheth's appearance is described: he had not cared for his feet, trimmed his beard, or washed his clothes
• He says that although he is lame, he had wanted to go with the king, but his servant deceived him and slandered him.

✔️ Only Mephibosheth was met in Jerusalem, not at the Jordan. It seems that Mephibosheth's story was added to the scene where Ziba, the servant of Saul's house, appears.

✔️ "Came down" suggests the act of someone who had been in the palace and came down to meet the king...

5

Barzillai the Gileadite and his son Chimham appear

• Barzillai the Gileadite, who had served David with great devotion after he left the palace, declines the invitation to go along and asks instead that his son Chimham be taken.

👉 The conflict between Israel and the tribes of Judah

After David crosses the Jordan.. the men of Israel come to the king and tell him:

Why did our brothers, the men of Judah, steal the king away and bring the king, his household, and all his men across the Jordan?

• That is, the tribes of Judah had not worked together with them in bringing the king back..

➔ The men of Judah answer that the king is their close kinsman, and ask why they are angry about this (v. 42)

➔ To this the men of Israel reply that they have ten shares in the king, and so a stronger claim on David. (the ten tribes of Israel = ten shares / Judah and Levi excluded)

v. 43, the last verse of chapter 19, says: the words of the men of Judah were fiercer than the words of the men of Israel.

Closing thoughts

Within a single chapter of the Bible, two similar situations or events are often placed side by side.

In chapter 19 :

1Joab spoke harshly. — It was not fitting speech; it was coercion.

• David said nothing, but surely he kept this in his heart.

2It is recorded that the words of the men of Judah were fiercer than the words of the men of Israel.

• Both the men of Judah and the men of Israel were people who had joined Absalom and stood against King David.
• And now, as the king returns to the palace, they quarrel over who is closer to him haha

✔️ A man like Barzillai, who provided for the king, is the one who does not go with him but chooses to return home..

✔️ Is this not a record of shameless people exposing their own shamelessness?

• Shimei, the men of Judah, the men of Israel.. all of them, forgetting what they had done before.

** AI critiques ** and point deductions

Critique 1

📌 Not all the men of Judah and Israel — that was the point raised. haha

😄 Of course it is not all of Judah and Israel, but....
I read the men of Judah and Israel who appear in chapter 19 as people who were on this side of the Jordan, under Absalom. (not the whole body, of course)

In the previous chapter it was already said that within the same family, among relatives, people fought against one another.
Joab and Amasa.. both are of the tribe of Judah, but one was on David's side and the other on Absalom's.
So I had to make it understood that the men of Judah and Israel in chapter 19 were written about from the situation that they had been on Absalom's side, and had come to meet David.

➔ This was the reason the AI deducted points from my summary, but after hearing the explanation it said: "Given the limited scope, the inference from context is sufficient."

Critique 2

📌 There are grounds to call Joab's words a "threat," but saying Joab should have asked forgiveness first is not a procedure stated in the text; it is the author's judgment.

😄 My answer : after the war, what should Joab have done first when he went before King David?

• As commander-in-chief, what fell to him was to report on the war...
• But before that, in the war, he disobeyed the king's order...
• He is responsible for Absalom's death (think about what he should have done first, and the answer appears)

➔ The AI's later answer : "The author's logic is sound. To have assessed Joab's words simply as honest counsel the king needed was a judgment that did not sufficiently take into account the prior fact that he was the one who killed Absalom."

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