Commentari biblici

2Sa 19:1-8.

JOAB CAUSES THE KING TO CEASE MOURNING.

3. the people gat them by stealth . . . to the city--The rumor of the king's disconsolate condition spread a universal and unseasonable gloom. His troops, instead of being welcomed back (as a victorious army always was) with music and other demonstrations of public joy, slunk secretly and silently into the city, as if ashamed after the commission of some crime.

4. the king covered his face--one of the usual signs of mourning (see on

2Sa 15:30).

5. Thou hast shamed . . . the faces of all thy servants--by withdrawing thyself to indulge in grief, as if their services were disagreeable and their devotion irksome to thee. Instead of hailing their return with joy and gratitude, thou hast refused them the small gratification of seeing thee. Joab's remonstrance was right and necessary, but it was made with harshness. He was one of those persons who spoil their important services by the insolence of their manners, and who always awaken a feeling of obligation in those to whom they render any services. He spoke to David in a tone of hauteur that ill became a subject to show towards his king.

7. Now . . . arise, go forth, and speak comfortably unto thy servants--The king felt the truth of Joab's reprimand; but the threat by which it was enforced, grounded as it was on the general'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.

8. the king arose, and sat in the gate--He appeared daily in the usual place for the hearing of causes.

all the people came before the king--that is, the loyal natives who had been faithful to his government, and fought in his cause.

Israel had fled--that is, the adherents of Absalom, who, on his defeat, had dispersed and saved themselves by flight.

2Sa 19:9-43.

THE ISRAELITES BRING THE KING BACK.

9-11. all the people were at strife throughout all the tribes of Israel--The kingdom was completely disorganized. The sentiments of three different parties are represented in

2Sa 19:9, 10:

the royalists, the adherents of Absalom who had been very numerous, and those who were indifferent to the Davidic dynasty. In these circumstances the king was right in not hastening back, as a conqueror, to reascend his throne. A re-election was, in some measure, necessary. He remained for some time on the other side of Jordan, in expectation of being invited back. That invitation was given without, however, the concurrence of Judah. David, disappointed and vexed by his own tribe's apparent lukewarmness, despatched the two high priests to rouse the Judahites to take a prominent interest in his cause. It was the act of a skilful politician. Hebron having been the seat of the rebellion, it was graceful on his part to encourage their return to allegiance and duty; it was an appeal to their honor not to be the last of the tribes. But this separate message, and the preference given to them, occasioned an outburst of jealousy among the other tribes that was nearly followed by fatal consequences [see

2Sa 19:40-43].

13. And say ye to Amasa, &c.--This also was a dextrous stroke of policy. David was fully alive to the importance, for extinguishing the rebellion, of withdrawing from that cause the only leader who could keep it alive; and he, therefore, secretly intimated his intention to raise Amasa to the command of the army in the place of Joab, whose overbearing haughtiness had become intolerable. The king justly reckoned, that from natural temper as well as gratitude for the royal pardon, he would prove a more tractable servant; and David, doubtless, intended in all sincerity to fulfil this promise. But Joab managed to retain his high position (see on

2Sa 20:4-10).