CRITICAL AND EXPOSITORY NOTES.—
2 Samuel 19:1. Comp. 2 Samuel 18:33. The purpose of the informant was, “it seems, to explain to Joab and the army why the king did not come forth to greet his returning victorious warriors.” (Erdmann.)
2 Samuel 19:2-3. “These men’s hearty participation in the sorrow of their beloved king, for whom they had perilled their lives, soon changed into gloomy dissatisfaction at the fact that the king, absorbed in his private grief, did not deign to bestow a look upon them. The description of the manner in which the troops, thus dissatisfied, returned to the city, is pyschologically very fine.” (Erdmann.)
2 Samuel 19:4. “Covered his face.” See on 2 Samuel 15:20. “A loud voice.” According to the open and violent mode of expressing grief common in the East (and so also the heroes of the Illiad); there are striking illustrations of this in the Arabian Nights. (Translator of Lange’s Commentary.)
2 Samuel 19:5. “Thou hast shamed,” etc. “By deceiving their hopes that thou wouldest rejoice in the victory.” (Keil.)
2 Samuel 19:6 “I perceive,” etc. Joab dissects David’s words of lamentation with inexorable cruelty, and draws thence with his intellectual acuteness and the grim bitterness of his rude nature, consequences that are seemingly logical, yet lay far from David’s nature, though his conduct looked like what he was reproached with.” (Erdmann.)
2 Samuel 19:7. “Speak comfortably.” Lit., Speak to the heart. “There will not tarry one.” “This threat, grounded as it was on Joab’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.” (Jamieson.)
2 Samuel 19:8. “The people came,” etc., i.e., “the troops marched before the king, who (as we may supply from the context) manifested his good will both in looks and words” (Keil). “Israel.” “It is the other tribes, excepting Judah, that are meant.” (Erdmann.) “To his tent,” i.e., gone home. It has been remarked that the use of this expression must have been handed down from the days of the wilderness-journeyings, when Israel did actually dwell in tents.
2 Samuel 19:9. “At strife,” etc. “The kingdom was completely disorganised. The sentiments of the three different parties are represented in this and the following verse—the royalists, the adherents of Absalom, who had been very numerous, and those who were indifferent to the Davidio dynasty.” (Jamieson.)
2 Samuel 19:10. “Why speak ye not?” “The people are re-assembled after their dispersion; their representatives consult zealously together about the restoration to the throne, to which they had raised the insurgent Absalom by the act of anointing. They reproach one another for doing nothing to restore the king. In their hearts, therefore, they feel the grievous wrong they have done an anointed of the Lord, as is shown indirectly by their words, in which David’s great deeds and the terrible misfortunes of the time just past are mentioned.” (Erdmann.)
2 Samuel 19:11. “Why are ye the last?” “The backwardness of Judah in the movement is explained by the fact that the insurrection started in Judah, and Absalom was first recognised as king in Jerusalem.” (Erdmann.) “Conscious that they had offended David, and fearing Absalom’s garrison in Zion, they did not dare to recall him.” (Cornelius or Lapide.)
2 Samuel 19:13. “Captain of the host,” etc. Very different opinions are held concerning this action of David. Ewald considers that it “was not only a wise and politic act, but strictly considered no injustice to Joab, who, long notorious by his military roughness had now shown such disobedience to the royal command in the case of Absalom as could not be pardoned without offence to the royal dignity.” On the other hand Keil says, “It was not only unwise, but unjust, to give to Amasa, the traitor-general of the rebels, a promise on oath that he should be commander-in-chief in the place of Joab; for even if the promise was only given privately at first, the fact that it had been given could not remain a secret from Joab very long, and would be sure to stir up his ambition, and lead him to the commission of fresh crimes.… For however Joab might have excited David’s anger by slaying Absalom, and by the offensive manner in which he had reproved the king, David ought to have suppressed his anger in existing circumstances.”
2 Samuel 19:14. “The partial severance of the kingdom which David apprehended from the coldness and inaction of Judah, was nearly produced by the sudden impetuosity of their zeal in the cause of royalty.” (Jamieson.) “Throughout this narrative the tribal feeling which never wholly disappeared, is apparent, see 12, 2 Samuel 20:4; 2 Samuel 16:8.” (Translator of Lange’s Commentary.)
2 Samuel 19:15. “To Jordan.” From Mahanaim to the eastern bank of the river. Gilgal, west of the Jordan below Jericho. “The place consecrated by the historical associations of Joshua and of Samuel, Joshua 5:9; Joshua 9:6; Joshua 10:6; 1 Samuel 7:16; 1 Samuel 15:33.” (Wordsworth.)
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— 2 Samuel 19:1-15
DAVID’S RESTORATION
I. A good man must beware lest sorrow make him forgetful of duty. David’s deep grief at the death of Absalom made him insensible for a time to the claims of both God and man. He has now an abundant answer to his prayer, “O Lord, turn the counsel of Ahithophel into foolishness,” yet his distress at the means by which his desire is accomplished is so great as to banish from his soul all sense of gratitude to God. The death of the rebel leader was the only way by which peace could be restored to the nation and the throne to the king, and was therefore an event which David should have regarded from other points of view beside the parental one. But, omitting to do this, his natural grief over an unworthy child is allowed to swallow up other emotions which should also have had a place in his soul, and which would have made him more alive to his duty to others. David’s fault here is one of which all in similar circumstances should beware. If we allow our thoughts to dwell entirely upon a personal loss, we shall forget both our gains and the gratitude and service we owe to God and our fellow-creatures, and thus show ourselves both self-willed and selfish. Immoderate and absorbing sorrow is a reflection upon the dealings of God, and no private sorrow can absolve a man from his obligations to others, especially when he has received from them much sympathy and devotion.
II. An ungodly man may sometimes administer needed rebuke to a servant of God. Only men of very high spiritual attainments and well-balanced character behave themselves at all times in such a manner as to deserve no reproach from the ungodly. David was perhaps the most godly man of his age, yet he well-merited the reproof which he now received from the unprincipled Joab. Although exception may be taken to the spirit of Joab’s words, none can gainsay their truth. It was altogether unworthy of David to ignore, as he did at this time, the obligations which lay upon him as the anointed king of Israel and the object of so much loyal devotion. A great crisis in the history of the nation had now arrived, and if Joab had not roused him to action the consequences might have been most disastrous. David showed himself a true man by not refusing to listen to truth when spoken in anger; but, having brought Joab’s accusations to the bar of conscience, and found himself guilty, he ‘forthwith obeyed the call of duty, although it came to him by so unwelcome a messenger. Herein he manifested the true spirit of a child of God, who should ever be willing to acknowledge himself wrong even when the admission is felt to be very humiliating. But let us bear in mind it should be his aim to be so watchful as not to lay himself open to such reproof as David here merited and received from Joab. It was good neither for David nor for Joab, that the latter should be able more than once to convict the better man of wrong, and it is probably never for the interests of righteousness when a man of God and an unspiritual man stand in such a relation to each other.
III. A policy founded on injustice may have a short-lived success. It can hardly be doubted that David’s motive in promoting Amasa was a political one,—that he ventured upon so unjust a measure out of no regard for his late enemy, but in the hope of reconciling those who had lately followed him in the rebellion. It certainly can be regarded in no other light than as an act of gross injustice to Joab, who had just won the victory which restored David to his throne. But, though it bore bitter fruit later on, for the moment it succeeded in bringing back the men of Judah who had revolted. It seems, however, impossible that those who had been faithful to him through all his trial could have seen the promotion of Amasa without a feeling of disappointment and mistrust. Yet the immediate result did not justify that most certain truth that what is morally wrong can never be politically right. The real and permanent results of any action may be long in manifesting themselves, and may often seem at first to be far different from what they really are, which shows how unsafe it is to make the apparent success or failure of a deed the standard by which to judge of its morality.
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS
2 Samuel 19:1-8. The sinfulness of unmeasured grief. I. Wherein it consists and manifests itself.
1. As regards the Lord, in ignoring the gracious gifts which He sends us along with and amid our sufferings, and in frustrating His gracious design to purify us by suffering from all selfishness.
2. As regards our neighbour, in slighting and violating the duties of love that we owe Him.
3. As regards our own heart and conscience, in reckoning the powers of spirit and will by exhausting emotion and enervating inactivity. II. How it must be overcome.
1. Through the word of earnest admonition, which gives pain.
2. By energetically rising up to new life and faithful discharge of the duties of our calling.
3. By accepting the consolation and strength which come from above through the spirit of God.—Lange’s Commentary.
2 Samuel 19:11-15. Could not David himself go back with the victorious army he had with him in Gilead? He could, no doubt; but—
1. He would go back as a prince, with the consent and unanimous approbation of the people, and not as a conqueror forcing his way. He would restore their liberties and not take occasion to seize them or encroach upon them.
2. He would go back in peace and safety, and be sure that he should meet with no difficulty or opposition on his return, and therefore would be well satisfied that the people were well affected to him before he would stir.
3. He would go back in honour and like himself, and therefore would go back, not at the head of his forces, but in the arms of his subjects, for the prince that has wisdom and goodness enough to make himself his people’s darling, without doubt makes a much better figure than the prince that has strength enough to make himself his people’s terror … Our Lord Jesus will rule in those that invite Him to the throne in their hearts and not till He is invited. He first bows the heart and makes it willing in the day of His power, and then rules in the midst of his enemies (Psalms 110:2-3).—Henry.
One of the best proofs, it seems to me, that David’s schooling was effectual, is this, that all his family griefs, his experience of his own evil, the desertion of his subjects, did not lead him to fancy that he should be following a course acceptable to God, if he retired to the deserts, or ceased to be a shepherd of Israel, instead of doing the work which was appointed for him. It shows how healthy and true his repentance and faith were that he again set himself to organise the people and to fight their battles, to feed them and rule them with all his power; when a religious prudence or self-interest might have whispered, “Do thy best to make amends by services to God for the ills thou hast done; save thyself whatever become of thy people Israel.” These ungodly suggestions, the like of which came as angels of light to so many Christian monarchs in the middle ages, and sent them to do penance for their evils and to seek a crown of glory in monasteries, may have presented themselves to the man after God’s own heart. If they did, he proved his title to the name by rejecting them. He showed that he could trust God to put him in the position that was best for him, that he knew God did not put him into the world to provide either for his body or his soul, but to glorify His name and to bless His creatures.—Maurice.
2 Samuel 19:14. So it will one day be with the Jewish nation, which is now serving an Absalom of their own will, but will then greet the return of their true king, and say, “Blessed be the kingdom of our father David that cometh in the name of the Lord.” (Mark 11:9-10).—Wordsworth.