Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Vers. 13-21..David? s flight from Jerusalem. — Vers. 13, 14. When this intelligence reached David, " The heart of the men of Israel is after Absalom" ("inK n\i? as in ch. ii. 10, to be attached to a person as king; see at 1 Sam. xii. 14), he said to his servants that were with him in Jerusalem, " A rise, let us flee, for there ivill be no escape for us from Absalom! Make speed to depart, lest he overtake us suddenly, and drive the calamity (the judgment threatened in ch. xii. 10, 11) over us, and smite the city with the edge of the sivord." David was perhaps afraid that Jerusalem might fall into Absalom's power through treachery, and therefore resolved to fly as speedily as possible, not only in order to prevent a terrible massacre, but also to give his own faithful adherents time to assemble. — Vers. 15, 16. As his servants declared themselves ready to follow him, the king went out of the city with all his family in his train (lit. at his feet, as in Judg. iv. 10, 15, etc.), but left ten concubines behind to keep the palace. — Ver. 17. When outside the city the king and all the people in his suite (i.e. the royal family and their servants) halted at "the house of the distance." P£n?r] is probably a proper name given to a house in the neighbourhood of the city and on the road to Jericho, which was called " the farthest house," viz. from the city. —

Ver. 18. And all his servants, i.e. his state officers and attendants, went along by liis side, and the whole body-guard (the Crethl and Plethi: see at ch. viii. 18); and all the Gathites, namely the six hundred men who had come in his train from Gath, went along in front of the king. David directed the fugitives to fall into rank, the servants going by his side, and the body-guard and the six hundred old companions in arms, who probably also formed a kind of body-guard, marching in front. The verb "OJJ (passed on) cannot be understood as signifying to defile past on account of its connection with IT /$ (beside him, or by his side). The expression Gittim is strange, as we cannot possibly think of actual Gathites or Philistines from Gath. The apposition (the six hundred men, etc.) shows clearly enough that the six hundred old companions in arms are intended, the men who gathered round David on his flight from Saul and eminrated with him to Gath (1 Sam. xxvii. 2, 3), who afterwards lived with him in Zikhig (1 Sam. xxvii. 8, xxix. 2, xxx. 1, 9), and eventually followed him to Hebron and Jerusalem (ch. ii. 3, v. G). In all probability they formed a separate company of well-tried veterans or a kind of body-guard in Jerusalem, and were commonly known as Gaziilles} — Ver. 19. A military commander named Ittai, who had emigrated from Gath and come over to David not long before, also accompanied the king from the city. It is evident from ch. xviii. 2. where Ittai is said to have commanded a third part of the army sent against Absalom, and to have been placed on an equality with Joab and Abishai the most experienced generals, that Ittai was a Philistian general who had entered David's service. The reason for his <xoinn; over to David is not known. According to ver. 22 of this chapter, Ittni did not come alone, but brought all his family with him ((<<jJi: the little ones). The opinion expressed by

1 Tin- Scptliagint also has ttuvt-.; oi TiOcctot, and has generally rendered the Masoretic text correctly. But V~njri>3 has been translated incorrectly, or at all events in a maimer likely to mislead, viz. vrxur-.; oi 77u1o:; avruv. Bui iii the Septuagint text, as it has come down to us, another paraphrase

; ii interpolated into the literal translation, which Thenius would adopt as an emendation of the Hebrew- text, notwithstanding the fact that ihe critical corruptni 5 of the Alexandrian text must be obvious to every one.

Thenius, that he had come to Jerusalem as a hostage, is merely founded upon a false interpretation of the last two clauses of the verse before us. David said to Ittai, " Wherefore goest thou also with us? return and stay with the king; for thou art a stranger, and also emigrating to thy place." There is no irony in the words "stay with the king," as Thenius and Clericus suppose (viz. "with the man who behaves as if he were king"); nor is there an acknowledgment of Absalom as king, which certainly could never have emanated from David. The words contain nothing more than the simple thought: Do you remain with whoever is or shall be king, since there is no necessity for you as a stranger to take sides at all. This is the explanation given by Seb. Schmidt: "It is not your place to decide this contest as to who ought to be king; but you may remain quiet and see whom God shall appoint as king, and whether it be I or Absalom, you can serve the one that God shall choose." This is the only wray in which we can explain the reason assigned for the admonition, viz. " Thou art a stranger," and not an Israelite. There is some difficulty connected with the following words (rendered in the Eng. version " and also an exile"). In the Septuagint and Vulgate they are rendered koX ore fJb€TQi)Kr)cras av eic rov tottov crov, et egressus es de loco tuo (and thou hast gone out from thine own place); but in adopting this rendering the translators have not only passed over the D3 (also), but have taken 1»1pOj> for ^OJpBO. Nevertheless Thenius proposes to bring the text into harmony with these versions for the purpose of bringing out the meaning, " and moreover thou art one carried away from his own home." But this is decidedly a mistake; for David would never have made a Philistine — who had just before been carried away from his own home, or, as Thenius understands it, who had been brought to Jerusalem as a hostage — the commander of a third of his army. The meaning is rather the following: " And thou hast still no fatherland," i.e. thou art still wandering about through the earth like an exile from his country: wherever thou findest a place, and art allowed to settle, there only canst thou dwell. — Ver. 20. " Thy coining is yesterday (from yesterday), and should I disturb thee to-day to go with us, when I am going just ivliere I go?" i.e. wherever my way may lie (I go I know not whither; Chald.: cf. 1 Sam. xxiii. 13). The

Chethib lifON* is a copyist's error. The thought requires the Hiphil lif^N (Keri), as VU in the Kal lias the intransitive meaning, to totter, sway about, or move hither and thither. " Return and take thy brethren back; grace and truth be with thee." It is evidently more in accordance with the train of thought to separate "H^y from the previous clause and connect it with npsi "ion, though this is opposed to the accents, than to adopt the adverbial interpretation, "take back thy brethren with thee in grace and truth," as Maurer proposes. (For the thought itself, see Prov. iii. 3.) The reference is to the grace and truth (faithfulness) of God, which David desired that Ittai should receive upon his way. In the Septuagint and Vulgate the passage is paraphrased thus: u Jehovah show thee grace and truth," after ch. ii. 6; but it by no means follows from this that 1W »H?£ nirv has fallen out of the Hebrew text. — Ver. 21. But Ittai replied with a solemn oath, " Assuredly at the place where my lord the king shall be (stay), whether for death or life, there will thy servant be." BK *3 means " only" as in Gen. xl. 14, Job xlii. 8; here, in a declaration on oath, it is equivalent to assuredly (yid. Ewald, § 356, b). The Chethib is therefore correct, and the erasure of DN in the Keri is a bad emendation. The *3 in the apodosis is either an emphatic declaration, yea, or like ore merely introduces a distinct assertion.— Ver. 22. After this assurance of his devotedness, David let Ittai do as he pleased. "I3|fl SJJ " go and pass on." "UV does not mean to pass by, but to go forward. Thus Ittai and his men and all his family that was with him went forward with the king. By "the little ones" (taph) we are to understand a man's whole family, as in many other instances (see at Ex. xii. 37).

Vers. 22-29. The king crosses the Kidron, and sends the priests back ivith the ark to Jerusalem. — Ver. 23. All the land (as in 1 Sam. xiv. 25) wept aloud when all the people went forward; and the king went over the brook Kidron, and all the people went over in the direction of {lit. in the face of) the way to the desert. The brook Kidron is a winter torrent, i.e.:i mountain torrent which only flows during the heavy rains of winter (xei'/jLappoi tou KeSpcov, John xviii. 1). It is 00 the eastern side of Jerusalem, between the city and the Mount of Olives, and derives its name from the appearance of the water when rendered muddy through the melting of the snow (cf. Job vi. 16). In summer it is nothing more than a dry channel in the valley of Jehoshaphat (see Robinson, Pal. i. 396, and v. Haunter, Pal. p. 309, note 81). " The wilderness" (inidbar) is the northern part of the desert of Judah, through which the road to Jericho and the Jordan lay. — Ver. 24. Zadok the priest and all the Levites (who were in Jerusalem) left the city with the fugitive king, bearing the ark of the covenant: 16 And thei/ set down the ark of God, and Abiathar came up, till all the people had come completely over from the city."?JW, aveflr), ascendit (LXX., Vulg.), may probably be accounted for from the fact that Abiathar did not come to join the fugitives till the procession halted at the Mount of Olives; so that njy, like avafiatvew, merely refers to his actually going up, and?Vl] affirms that Abiathar joined them until all the people from the city had arrived. The rendering proposed by Michaelis and Bottcher (" he offered sacrifices ") is precluded by the fact that n>y never means to sacrifice when written without '"w? or unless the context points distinctly to sacrifices, as in ch. xxiv. 22, 1 Sam. ii. 28. The ark of the covenant was put down, because those who went out with the king made a halt, to give the people who were still coming time to join the procession. — Vers. 25 sqq. Then the king said to Zadok, " Take back the ark of God into the city! If I find favour in the eyes of Jehovah, He will bring me back and let me see Him {i.e. himself: the reference is to God) and His dwelling (i.e. the ark of the covenant as the throne of the divine glory in the tent that had been set up for it). But if He thus say, I have not delight in thee; behold, here am I let Him do to me as seemeth aood to Him." Thus David put his fate in believing confidence into the hand of the Lord, because he felt that it was the Lord who was chastising him for his sins through this rebellion. — Ver. 27. He also said still further to Zadok, u Thou seer! return into the city in peace." nriK HKnn, with n interrog., does not yield any appropriate sense, as n cannot stand for KvH here, simply because it does not relate to a thing which the person addressed could not deny. Consequently the word must be pointed thus, nxin (with the article), and rendered as a vocative, as it has been by Jerome and Luther. Hip, seer, is equivalent to prophet. He applies this epithet to Zadok, as the high priest who received divine revelations by means of the Urim. The meaning is, Thou Zadok art equal to a prophet; therefore thy proper place is in Jerusalem (O. v. Gerlach). Zadok was to stand as it were upon the watch there with Abiathar, and the sons of both to observe the events that occurred, and send him word through their sons into the plain of the Jordan. " Behold, 1 will tarry by the ferries of the desert, till a word comes from you to show me" sc. what has taken place, or how the things shape themselves in Jerusalem. Instead of nfa3£3j the earlier translators as well as the Masoretes adopted the reading rri3"lJQj " in the steppes of the desert." The allusion in this case would be to the steppes of Jericho (2 Kings xxv. 5). But Bottcher has very properly defended the Chethib on the strength of ch. xvii. 16, where the Keri has nn"|j; again, though J"ri"i2y is the true reading (cf. ch. xix. 19). The "ferries of the desert" are the places where the Jordan could be crossed, the fords of the Jordan (Josh. ii. 7; Judg. iii. 28). — Ver. 29. Zadok and Abiathar then returned to the city with the ark of God.

Vers. 30-37. Ahithophel and Ilushai. — Vers. 30, 31. When David was going by the height of the olive-trees, i.e. the Mount of Olives, weeping as he went, with his head covered, and barefooted, as a sign of grief and mourning (see Esther vi. 12; Ezek. xxiv. 17), and with the people who accompanied him also mourning, he received intelligence that Ahithophel (see at ver. 12) was with Absalom, and among the conspirators. Tan IXTi gives no sense; for David cannot be the subject, because the next clause, " and David said," etc., contains most distinctly an expression of David's on receiving some information. Thenius would therefore alter Tan into the Jlophal *T|n, whilst Ewald (§ 131, a) would change it into Tan^ an unusual form of the Ilophal, a David was informed," according to the construction of the Hiphil with the accusative. But although this construction of the Hiphil is placed beyond all doubt by Job xxxi. 37, xxvi. 4, and Ezek. xliii. 10, the Hiphil is construed as a rule, as the Hophal always is, with? of the person who receives information. Consequently TO must be altered into TH?, and Tan taken as impersonal, "they announced to David." Upon receipt of this intelligence David prayed to the Lord, that Jle would u turn the counsel of Ahithophel into foolishness," make it appear as folly, i.e. frustrate it, — a prayer which God answered (cid. ch. xvii. 1 sqq.). — Vers. 32, 33. On David's arrival at the height where people were accustomed to worship, i.e. upon the top of the Mount of Olives, the Archite llushai came to meet him with his clothes rent and earth upon his head, that is to say, in the deepest mourning (see 1 Sam. iv. 12). It is evident from the words 'U1 mqnB*pKto that there was a place of worship upon the top of the Mount of Olives, probably a bamah, such as continued to exist in different places throughout the land, even after the building of the temple* According to ver. 37, ch. xvi. 16, and 1 Chron. xxvii. 33, llushai was n}H>, a friend of David, i.e. one of his privy councillors, ^"wn (the Archite), if we may judge from Josh. xvi. 2, was the name of a family whose possessions were upon the southern boundary of the tribe of Ephraim, between Bethel and Ataroth. llushai was probably a very old man, as David said to him (yers. 33, 34), " If thou goest with me, thou wilt be a burden to me. But if thou returnest to the city and offerest Absalom thy services, thou canst bring for me the counsel of Ahithophel to nought. If thou sayest to Absalom, I will be thy servant, O king; servant of thy father (i.e. as regards this) I was that of old, but now I am thy servant." The 1 before ^K introduces the apodosis both times (via1. Ewald, § 348, a). — Yers. 35, 36. David then commissioned him to communicate to the priests Zadok and Abiathar all that he should hear of the king's house, and send word to him through their sons. — Ver. 37. So llushai went into the city when Absalom came to Jerusalem. The) before the second clause, followed by the imperfect KIT, indicates contemporaneous occurrence (vid. Ewald, § 346, b).

Ch. xvi. 1-4. Zibas faithless conduct toivards Mephibosheth. — Ver. 1. When David had gone a little over the height (of the Mount of Olives: ^Nin points back to ch. xv. 32), Mephibosheth's servant Ziba came to meet him, with a couple of asses saddled, and laden with two hundred loaves, a hundred raisin-cakes, a hundred date or fig-cakes, and a skin of wine. The word Y)\> corresponds to the Greek oircopa, as the LXX. have rendered it in Jer. xl. 10, 12, and is used to signify summer fruits, both here and in Amos viii. 1 (Symm.). The early translators rendered it lumps of figs in the present passage (iraXddaL; cf. Ges. Thes. p. 1209). The Septuagint only has

£kcltov cj)oii'LKe^. The latter is certainly the more correct, as the dried lumps of figs or fig-cakes were called Dvafl (1 Sam. xxv. 18); and even at the present day ripe dates, pressed together in lumps like cakes, are used in journeys through the desert, as a satisfying and refreshing food (vid. Winer, bill. Realworterbuch, i. 253). — Ver. 2. When the king asked him, " What are these for thee?" i.e. what art thou going to do with them? Ziba replied, " The asses are for the king's family to ride upon (to ride upon in turn), the bread and summer fruits for the young men (the king's servants) to eat, and the wine for those that are faint in the desert to drink" (see at ch. xv. 23). The Chetliib Dn?n7i is evidently a copyist's error for c"^'!- — Ver. 3. To the further question put by the king, "Where is thy lord (Mephiboshcth)? Ziba replied, "Behold, he sits (is staying) in Jerusalem; for lie said, To-day will the house of Israel restore the kingship (government) of my father."' The a kingship of my father" inasmuch as the throne would have passed to Jonathan if he had outlived Saul. It is obvious enough, apart altogether from eh. xix. 25 sqq., that Ziba was calumniating his master Mephiboshcth, in the hope of getting possession of the lands that he was farming for him. A cripple like Mephiboshcth, lame in both feet, who had never put in any claim to the throne before, could not possibly have got the idea now that the people of Israel, who had just chosen Absalom as king, would give the throne of Saul to such a cripple as he was. Lt is true that Ziba's calumny was very improbable; nevertheless, in the general confusion of affairs, it was not altogether an inconceivable thing that the oppressed party of Saul might avail themselves of this opportunity to make an attempt to restore the power of that house, which many greatly preferred to that of David, under the name of Mephiboshcth. — Ver. 4. And in the excited state in which David then was, he was weak enough to give credence to Ziba's words, and to commit the injustice of promising the calumniator all that belonged to Mephiboshcth, — a promise for which he most politely thanked him. WfjW»l, " / bow myself," equivalent to, I lay myself at thy feet. u May I find favour in the eyes of my lord the king!''' i.e. may the king grant me his favour (vid. 1 Sam. i. 18).

Vers. 5-14. Shimeis curving. — Vers. 5, 6. When the king had come to JJahtu im, on the other side of the Mount of Olives, but not far off (see at cli. iii. 16), there came out of that place a man of the family of the house of Saul, i.e. a distant relation of Saul, cursing him; and he pelted David and all his servants with stones, although all the people and all the heroes (the household troops and body-guard: ch. xv. 17, 18) were (marching) on the ri<?ht and left of the kino;. The words " all the people," etc., are a circumstantial clause. — Vers. 7, 8. Shimei cursed thus: " Out, oat (away, away), thou man of blood, and worthless man! Jehovah hath repaid thee (now) for all the blood of the house of Saul, in whose stead thou hast become king, and hath given the kingdom into the hand of Absalom thy son. Behold, now thou art in thy misfortune, for thou art a man of blood." DW G^K, a man of drops of blood, i.e. one who has shed blood or committed murder. What Shimei meant by " all the blood of the house of Saul,'1 which David had shed, and because of which he was a man of blood, it is impossible to determine with certainty, lie may possibly have attributed to David the murder of Ishbosheth and Abner, notwithstanding the fact that David was innocent of the death of both (see ch. iii. 27 sqq., and 4, 6 sqq.). By " in ivhose stead thou hast reigned" he meant whose throne thou hast forcibly usurped; and by l^jnii ^3H? " it is for this that punishment hath overtaken thee now." — Vers. 9, 10. Abishai wanted to put an end to this cursing (on the expression " dead dog," see ch. ix. 8). " Let me go," said he to David, " and take away his head," i.e. chop off his head. But David replied, " What have I to do with you, ye sons of Zeruiah?" Joab probably joined with Abishai. The formula "what to me and you?" signifies that a person did not wish to have anything in common with the feelings and views of another (cf. 1 Kings xvii. 18, Josh. xxii. 24; and rl ijnol koX aol, John ii. 4. For the thing itself, comp. Luke ix. 52-56). " If he curses, and if Jehovah hath said to him, Curse David, who shall then say, Wherefore hast thou done so?" For 'IT "Ol &£ *3 (Chethib), the Masoretes give us the Keri, '^ s3 7?\>\ nb? " so let him curse, for Jehovah," etc. This thought lies at the foundation of the rendering adopted by the LXX., who have inserted, by way of explanation, /cat afare clvtov /col: so let him go, and so may he curse. The Yulgate is just the same: dimittite eum ut maledicat. This interpolation is taken from ver. 11, and, like the Keri, is nothing more than a conjecture, which was adopted simply because *3 was taken as a causal particle, and then offence was taken at ^1. But *J signifies if, quando, in this passage, and the 1 before the following *ER introduces the apodosis. — Vers. 11, 12. David said still further to Abishai and all his servants: " Behold, my own son seeketh after my life; how much more then the Benjaminite! (who belongs to a hostile race.) Let him curse, for Jehovah hath bidden him. Perhaps Jehovah will look upon my guilt, and Jehovah will requite me good for the curse which befals me this day." "TO? (Chethib) lias been altered by the Masoretes into ^3, " upon mine eye," probably in the sense of " upon my tears;" and Wfi? into fawp, — from, pure misapprehension. "Wn does not mean " upon my misery," for f\V never has this meaning, but upon the guilt which really belongs to me, in contrast with that with which Shimei charges me; and W?p is the curse that has come upon me. Although David had committed no murder upon the house of Saul, and therefore Shimei's cursing was nothing but malicious blasphemy, he felt that it came upon him because of his sins, though not for the sin imputed to him. He therefore forbade their putting the blasphemer to death, and said Jehovah had commanded him to curse; regarding the cursing as the consequence of the wrath of God that was bringing him low (comp. the remarks on 1 Sam. xxvi. 19). But this consciousness of guilt also excited the assurance that the Lord would look upon his sin. When God looks upon the guilt of a humble sinner, He will also, as a just and merciful God, avert the evil, and change the suffering into a blessing. David founded upon this the hope, that the Lord would repay him with good for the curse with which Shimei was pursuing him now. — Ver. 13. " So David went with his men on the way, whilst Shimei went on the slope of the hill opposite to him, cursing continually, and pelted with stones over against him, and with earth." \TdSSP means over against him in both instances. It is not expressly stated that Shimei threw stones and earth at David, but this is implied in the context. — Ver. 14. The king came with his train, pursued in this manner, to Ayephim, and refreshed himself there. The context requires that Ayephim should be taken as the name of a place. If it were an appellative, signifying weary, there would be no information as to the place to which

David came, and to which the word DtP (there) distinctly refers. Bahurim cannot be the place alluded to, for the simple reason that, according to ch. xvii. 18, the place where David rested was a considerable distance beyond Bahurim, towards the Jordan, as we may see from the fact that it is stated there that the priests' sons, who were sent to carry information to David of what was occurring in Jerusalem, hid themselves in a well at Bahurim from the officers who were following them, and consequently had to go still further in order to convey the news to David; so that it is out of the question to supply this name from ver. 5. It is true that we never meet with the name Ayephim again; but this applies to many other places whose existence is not called in question.1

Vers. 15-23. When Absalom and u all the people, the men of Israel," i.e. the people who had joined him out of all the tribes of Israel (ch. xv. 10), came to Jerusalem, and Ahithophel with him, Hushai the Archite also came and greeted him warmly as king, by exclaiming again and again, " Long live the king!" — Vers. 17. sqq. Absalom, apparently astonished at this, said to him, " Is this thy love to thy friend (David)? why wentest thou not with thy friend?" But Hushai replied, "No; but whom Jehovah hath chosen, and this people (i.e. the people who had entered Jerusalem with Absalom), and all the men of Israel (i.e. the whole nation), to him (K? for v, Keri) will I belong, and will remain with him. And again, wThom should I serve? Is it not before his son? As I have served thy father, so wall I be before thee" (i.e. serve thee). With great craftiness, Hushai declared at the very outset that Jehovah had chosen Absalom — at least he could not come to any other conclusion, judging from the results. And under such circum-

1 The meaning of the word, wearied or weariness, does not warrant any conjectures, even though they should be more felicitous than that of Bottcher, who proposes to alter Ayephim into Ephraim, and assumes that there was a place of this name near Mahanaim, though without reflecting that the place where David rested was on this side of the Jordan, and somewhere near to Gilgal or Jericho (ch. xvii. 16 sqq. and 22).

stances he could not have any doubt as to whom it was h duty to serve. As he had formerly served the father, so no' he would serve his son Absalom. In this way he succeeded i completely deceiving Absalom, so that he placed unbounde confidence in him. — Ver. 20. After taking possession of tli capital of the kingdom, the next thing to do was to form tr resolution to take and keep the throne. Absalom therefoi turned to Ahithophel, and said, " Give ye counsel what we ai to do." The plural ton (give ye) may be explained on tl: supposition that the other persons present were addressed i well as Ahithophel, as being capable of giving advice. — Ver. 2 Ahithophel gave the following counsel: " Go to thy father concubines, whom he hath left behind to keep the house (i. lie with them: for?K N12, compare eh. iii. 7, etc.); so will a Israel hear that thou hast made thyself stinking with tl; father, and the hands of all those who are with thee wi strengthen themselves." This advice wTas sagacious enoug! Lying with the king's concubines was an appropriation of tl royal harem, and, as such, a complete usurpation of the throi (see at ch. iii. 7), which would render any reconciliation betwec Absalom and his father utterly impossible, and therefore wool of necessity instigate the followers of Absalom to maintain h cause with all the greater firmness. This was what Ahithoph hoped to attain through his advice. For unless the breach w; too great to be healed, with the affection of David towards h sons, which might in reality be called weakness, it was alwa; a possible thing that he should forgive Absalom; and in tli case Ahithophel would be the one to suffer. But under tl superintendence of God this advice of Ahithophel was to effe the fulfilment, without any such intention on his part, of tl threat held over David in ch. xii. 8. — Ver. 22. Absalom had tent put up on the roof of the king's palace, that his going in the concubines might be done publicly in the sight of all Israt For (as the historian adds in ver. 23 by way of explanation the counsel of Ahithophel, which he counselled in those days, w; like a divine oracle both with David and with Absalom. Tl words from TOn to zr\n are placed at the commencement abs lutely: " and (as for) the counsel of Ahithophel,... as if oi inquired the word of God, so was every counsel of Ahithophel The Masoretes have supplied t^K as the Keri to W1.. This correct so far as the sense is concerned, but it is quite unnecessary, as ^KB^ may be taken impersonally. DwNfl ">?*]3 ~>N£> is to be explained from the formula BwM3?XV (see at Judg. i. 1).

Chap. xvii. 1-14. Ahithophel s advice frustrated by Hushai. — Vers. 1-3. Ahithophel said still further to Absalom, " I will choose out twelve thousand men, and arise, and pursue after David this night; and fall upon him when he is exhausted and weak, and fill him with alarm: so shall all the people that are with him flee; and I will smite the king alone (when he is alone), and will bring back all the people to thee." "?]Pi], the night, is the night following the day of David's flight and Absalom's entrance into Jerusalem, as we may see very clearly from ver. 16. This advice was sagaciously conceived; for if David had been attacked that night by a powerful army, he might possibly have been defeated. n?^'?, to bring back, may be explained on the supposition that Ahithophel regarded Absalom as king, and those who had fled with David as rebels, who were to be brought back under Absalom's sceptre. The following words, '131?3H 2VC-3, " as the return of the whole (the whole nation) is the man" i.e. the return of all is dependent upon David, for whom thou liest in wait, are somewhat difficult, though the meaning of Ahithophel is evident enough from what precedes: viz. if he is beaten, they will all come over to thee; "the whole nation will be at peace" (DW is used adverbially).1 — Vers. 4, 5. Although this advice pleased Absalom and all the elders of Israel (present), Absalom sent for Hushai the Archite to hear his opinion. ^H"D3 serves to strengthen the suffix in PB3 (cf. Ewald, § 311, a). — Vers. 6, 7. In answer to Absalom's inquiry, " Shall we do his word (i.e. follow Ahithophel's advice) or not?" Hushai said, "The advice is not good that Ahithophel hath given this time;" and then still further explained (ver. 8):

1 Consequently no conjectures are needed as to the rendering of the words in the Septuagint, viz. xkQus (al. ou rpoKov) t7narpipsi v) vvptyn Ttpog ■tov olvQpcx, ctvTvig' <7r7s/\i> \pvx,vjv dvbpog hog av £Vr&/V, such as Ewald, Thenius, and Bottcher have attempted. For *t is very obvious that «j vvptyyi irpog tou oluhpoc ocvrvig owes its origin simply to a false reading of C"Sn?3H as t^K n?3H, and that ttAjjj/ i]/v%vjv dvlpog hog has been interpolated by way of explanation from nothing but conjecture. No other of the ancient versions contains the slightest trace of a different reading from that given in the text.

" Thou knowest thy father and his men, that they are heroes, and of a ferocious disposition (like Judg. xviii. 25), like a bear in the field robbed of her young; and thy father is a man of war, and will not pass the night with the people," sc. so that it would be possible to come upon him unawares and slay him (jy with ritf, as in Job xix. 4). The idea that jyj is to be taken as a Hiphil, in the sense of " and does not let the people lodge for the night" (Bottcher), is quite untenable, since it does not tally with ver. 9, " Behold, he is hid now in one of the pits, or one of the places (Q^HS are hiding-places that are strong by nature, HbipO are places rendered strong by art); and it comes to pass that he falls upon them at the first: so will men hear it, and say a defeat has taken place among the people that follow Absalom."?pl with 2, as in Josh. xi. 7, to fall upon a person. The subject to 723 is David, but it is not mentioned as being evident enough from the context; so that there is no necessity for the emendation ^SJ, which Thenius proposes. The suffix DH2 relates to those making the attack, the hosts of Absalom.

Thenius has given the meaning correctly: " The report that David has made an attack will be sufficient to give rise to the belief that our men have sustained a severe defeat." — Ver. 10. "And even if he (the hearer, ver. 9) be a brave man, who has a lion's heart (lion-like courage), he will be thrown into despair; for all Israel knows that thy father is a hero, and brave men (are those) who are with him." — Ver. 11. " Yea (s3, profecto), I advise: let all Israel be gathered round thee from Dan to Beersheba (see at Judg. xx. 1), numerous as the sand by the sea; and thou thyself go into the war." T?2, thy person, i.e. thou thyself be marching. The plural E^>?n is used because of TJfi. For 2 sjpn, to enter into anything, see 1 Kings xix. 4, Isa. xlv. 16, xlvi. 2. 3">P, war, the earlv translators have confounded with 3")p. — Ver. 12. "And come we to him (if we come upon him) in one of the places where he is found, we let ourselves down upon him, as the dew falls upon the earth; and of him and all the men with him there will not be one left." ^'7- lnight be a contraction of ttljUK, as in Gen. xlii. 11, Ex. xvi. 7, 8, etc.: "so we upon him," equivalent to "so shall we come upon him." But if this were the meaning, we should expect Ivy Ujrn. It is more correct, therefore, to take WTO as the first pers. perf. of nu? as the early translators have done: so do we let ourselves down upon him. (For nw as applied to an army encamping, see Isa. vii. 2, 19; and as denoting the swarming of flies and grasshoppers, Isa. vii. 19 and Ex. x. 14.) In Ahithophel'.s opinion, it would be possible with a very small army to crush David and his little band, however brave his followers might be, and in fact to annihilate them altogether. — Ver. 13. "And if he draw back into a city, all Israel lays ropes to that city, and we dra<r it to the brook, till there is not even a little stone found there*"?narnp; inasmuch as fortified cities were generally built upon mountains. *u"TC signifies a little stone, according to the ancient versions. Ilushai speaks in hyperboles of the irresistible power which the whole nation would put forth when summoned together for battle, in order to make his advice appear the more plausible. — Ver. 14. And he secured his end. Absalom and all Israel thought his advice better than that of Ahithophel; for it was intended to commend itself to Absalom and his supporters. u The counsel appeared safe; at the same time it was full of a certain kind of boasting, which pleased the younger men" (Clericus). All that Ilushai had said about the bravery and heroism of David and his followers, was well founded. The deception lay in the assumption that all the people from Dan to Beersheba would crowd around Absalom as one man; whereas it might easily be foreseen, that after the first excitement of the revolution was over, and greater calmness ensued, a large part of the nation and army would gather round David. But such a possibility as this never entered the minds of Absalom and his supporters. It was in this that the divine sentence referred to in ver. 146 was seen: " The Lord had commanded (appointed) it, to defeat the good counsel of Ahithophel, that he might bring the evil (intended) upon Absalom."

Vers. 15-23. David is informed of what has occurred. — Vers. 15, 16. Ilushai communicated without delay to the priests Zadok and Abiathar the advice which had been given to Absalom both by Ahithophel and himself, and requested them to make it known to David as quickly as possible. " Stay not the night" he said, " by the ferries (J"li"njJ, as in ch. xv. 28) of the desert; but rather go over, lest the king and all the people with him be destroyed." Ml, " and indeed," or after a negative clause, " but rather." TjTQp jot is either " there will be a devouring," i.e. destruction, to the king, it will fall upon him; or if we supply the subject from the previous clause "n^BR "N3J7, as Bottcher proposes, "that it (the crossing over) may not be swallowed op or cut off from the king." There is nothing to justify Ew aid's explanation, " it (misfortune) is swallowed by him." Ilushai recommended of course an immediate crossing of the Jordan; because he did not know whether Absalom would really act upon his advice, although he had expressed his approval of it, or whether he might not change his mind and follow Ahithophei's counsel. — Ver. 17. "Jonathan and Ahimaaz (the sons of the priests: eh. xv. 27) stood at the Rogel spring (the present well of Job or Nehemiah, at the south-east corner of.Jerusalem: see at Job xv. 7), and the maid-servant (of one of the high priests) went and told them (Hushai's message), and they went and told it to king David; for they durst not let themselves be seen to come into the city." They had therefore been staying at the Kogel spring outside the city. After what had taken place publicly, according to ch. xv. 24 sqq., Absalom could not be in any doubt as to the views of the high priests. Consequently their sons could not come into the city, with the intention of leaving it again directly, to inform David of the occurrences that had taken place there as he had requested (ch. xv. 28). The clause " and they icent and told David " anticipates the course of the affair, according to the general plan adopted by Hebrew historians, of communicating the result at the very outset wherever they possibly could. — Ver. 18. a And a lad (servant) saw them, and told Absalom." Absalom had most likely set spies to watch the priests and their sons. But the two sons who had noticed the spy hurried into the house of a man at Bahurim, who had a well (or cistern that was dry at the time) in his court, and went down into the well. — Ver. 19. And the man's wife spread a covering CHD*??? the covering which she had close at hand) over the well (over the opening into the cistern), and scattered groats (niiH, peeled barley: Prov. xxvii. 22) upon it, so that nothing was noticed. The Vulgate explanation is a very good one: u quasi siccans ptisanas" (as if drying peeled barley). — Ver. 20. When Absalom's servants came and asked for the priest's sons, the woman said, They have gone over the little water-brook (D^H?^E, «tt. Xe7.), and thus led them wrong, so that they did not find them.— Vers. 21, 22. When they had gone away, the priest's sons came up out of the well and brought David the news, saying, "Go quickly over the water, for thus hath Ahithophel counselled against you;" whereupon David and all the people with him went hastily over the Jordan. " Till the mornino; dawn not one was missed who had not gone over." "ins ny? lit. even to one there was not any one missed. — Ver. 23. It is still further stated in conclusion, that when Ahithophel saw that his advice was not carried out, he saddled his ass and returned to his home, and there set his house in order and hanged himself, because he could foresee that Absalom would lose his cause through not taking his advice, and it would then be all over with himself. Thus was David's prayer (ch. xv. 31) fulfilled.

The account of the civil war, which terminated with Absalom's defeat and death, is introduced in vers. 24-26 with a description of the relative position of the two hostile parties. David had come to Mahanaim, a city, probably a fortified one, on the east of the Jordan, not far from a ford of the Jabbok (see at ch. ii. 8). Absalom had also gone over the Jordan, " he and all the men with him," i.e. all the fighting men that he had gathered together according to Hushai's advice, and encamped in the land of Gilead. — Ver. 25. Absalom had made Amasa captain over his army instead of Joab, who had remained true to David, and had gone with his king to Mahanaim. Amasa was the son of a man named Jithra, y&O^n, who had gone in to (i.e. had seduced) Abigail, the daughter of Nahash and sister of Zeruiah, Joab's mother. He was therefore an illegitimate cousin of Joab. The description given of Jithra as yfcpfe* is very striking, since there was no reason whatever why it should be stated that Amasa's father was an Israelite. The Seventy have therefore given o 'IetyarjXiTrjs, i.e. sprung from Jezreel, where David's wife Ahinoam came from (1 Sam. xxvii. 3); but they have done so apparently from mere conjecture. The true reading is evidently v&WpK^n, an Ishmaelite, according to 1 Chron. ii. 17, where the name is written Jether, a contracted form of Jithra. From the description given of Abigail as a daughter of Nahash and sister of Zeruiah, not of David, some of the earlier commentators have very justly concluded that Abigail and Zeruiah were only step-sisters of David, i.e. daughters of his mother by Nahash and not by Jesse. — Vers. 27-29. When David came to Mahanaim, some of the wealthier citizens of the land to the east of the Jordan supplied the men who were with him with provisions. This is mentioned as the first sign that the people had not all fallen away from David, but that some of the more distinguished men were still firm in their adherence. Shobi, the son of Xahash of Rabbah, the capital of the Ammonites (see ch. xi. 1), was possibly a son of Nahash the deceased king of the Ammonites, and brother of Hanun, who was defeated by David (ch. x. 1, 2), and one of those to whom David had shown favour and kindness when Kabbah was taken. At the same time, it is also quite possible that Shobi may have been an Israelite, who was merely living in the capital of the Ammonites, which had been incorporated into the kingdom of David, as it is evident from ver. 25 that Nahash was not an uncommon name among the Israelites. Machir the son of Ammiel of Lodebar (see at ch. ix. 4), and Barsillai of Roglim the Gileadite. Roglim was a town in Gilead, which is only mentioned once again, viz. in ch. xix. 32, and of which nothing further is known. They brought " bedding, basins, earthenware, and wheat, barley, meal, and parched grains, beans, lentils and parched." The position of the verb, which is not placed between the subject and the object of the sentence, but only at the close of the whole series of objects, is certainly unusual; but this does not warrant any alteration of the text. For if we were to supply a verb before 22y7p? as having fallen out of the text, it would be necessary, since VO*lt\ follows without a copula, to divide the things enumerated into two classes, so as to connect one portion of the objects with Wton, which is obviously unnatural. The early translators who interpolate a verb before tlic objects have therefore also supplied the copula 1 before ^3H. There is still less ground for supplying the number 10, as having dropped out before 33fi?D and ^BDy as the LXX. have done, since none of the translators of the other ancient versions had any such reading. 33^9, couch or bed, is used here for bedding. rttED, basins, probably field-kettles. The repetition of Vjjl is very striking; nevertheless the second must not be struck out without further ground as a supposed copyist's error. As they not only ate parched ears or grains of wheat (see at Lev. ii. 14), but were also in the habit of drying pulse, pease, and lentils before eating them (vid. Harmar, Beobachtungen, i. pp. 255- fi), the second yjj may be understood as referring to parched pulse. The air. \ey. "ljJS nisiy signifies, according to the Chaldee and the Kabbins, cheese of oxen (i.e. of cows), and according to the conjecture of Roediger (Ges. Thes, p. 1462), a peculiar kind of cheese, such as the Aeneze in the province of Nedjid still make,1 and for which the term aa(j)Q)0 jBowv retained by the LXX. was probably the technical name. Theodotus, on the other hand, has <yaXa6rjva /xoa^dpLa, milch-calves; and the Vulgate pingues vitulos, — both of them renderings which can certainly be sustained from the Arabic usage of speech, and would be more in accordance with the situation of the words, viz, after |t&. ^ipN ''S, " for they said (or thought) the people have become hungry and faint and thirsty in the desert," i.e. in their flight to Mahanaim.

Chap, xviii. 1-5. Preparation for ivar. — Vers. 1, 2. David mustered the people that were with him, and placed over them captains of thousands and hundreds, and divided them into three companies, under the generals Joab, Abishai, and Ittai the Gathite, who had given such decided proofs, according to ch. xv. 21, 22, of his fidelity to David. T3 nW, to leave to the hand of a person, i.e. to his power, is used here in the sense of placing under his direction. The people opposed in the most decided manner the wish of the king to go with them to the war, saying (ver. 3), " Thou shalt not go out: for if we flee, they will take no heed of us (i.e. attach no importance to this); and if half of us die, they will take no heed of us: for thou art as ten thousand of us (we must evidently read nntf for nny? and nriV has merely got into the text in consequence of nriyi following): and now it is good that thou be ready to give us help from the city" (the Chethib "M$, inf. Hiphil for ^Vr6, is not to be disputed). David was to stay behind in the city with a reserve,

they have taken the butter from the butter-milk, they beat the latter again till it coagulates, and then dry it till it is quite hard. It is then rubbed to pieces, and in the spring every family stores up two or three lasts of it, which they eat mixed with butter."

that he might be able to come to their relief in case of need. — 3. 4, 5. The king gave his consent to these proposals, and went to the side of the gate, whilst the people went out by hundreds and thousands; but in the hearing of all he commanded the principal generals, u Mildly for me (i.e. deal gently for my sake) with the boy Absalom." BfcO is not the imperative of USP, to cover over, which would not suit the connection, and could not be construed with?, but an adverb from BX, as in Isa. viii. 6, 1 Kings xxi. 27, Job xv. 11.

Vers. 6-18. Battle in the wood of Ephraim, and death of Absalom. — Vers. 6, 7. When the people, i.e. David's army, had advanced into the field against Israel (those who followed Absalom), a battle was fought " in the wood of Ephraim," when Israel was smitten by David's warriors and sustained a loss of 20,000 men. The question, where the u wood of Ephraim" was situated, is a disputed one. But both the name and the fact that, according to Josh. xvii. 15, 16, the tribeland of Ephraim abounded in forests, favour the idea that it was a wood in the inheritance of Ephraim, on this side of the Jordan; and this is in perfect harmony with the statement in ver. 23, that Ahimaaz took the way of the Jordan valley to bring the news of the victory to David, who wras staving behind in Mali an aim. Nevertheless the majority of commentators have supposed that the place alluded to was a woody region on the other side of the Jordan, which had received the name of " wood Ephraim" probably after the defeat of the Ephraimites in the time of Jephthah (Judg. xii. 1-5). The reasons assigned are, first, that according to ch. xvii. 26, Absalom had encamped in Gilead, and it is not stated that he had crossed the Jordan again; secondly, that ver. 3 (" that thou succour us out of the city") presupposes that the battle took place in the neighbourhood of Mahanaim (Thenius); and thirdly, that after the victory the army returned to Mahanaim; whereas if the battle had been fought on this side of the Jordan, it would evidently have been much better for it to remain there and occupy Jerusalem (Ewald, Gesck. hi. p. 237). But neither of these reasons is decisive, and there is no force in the other arguments employed by Thenius. There was no necessity for an immediate occupation of Jerusalem by David's victorious army, since all Israel fled to their tents after the fall of Absa- lorn and the defeat of his army (ver. 17 and ch. xix. 9); that is to say, such of Absalom's followers as had not fallen in or after the battle, broke up and returned home, and therefore the revolution was at an end. Consequently there was nothing left for David's army to do but to return to its king at Mahanaim, and fetch him back to Jerusalem, and reinstate him in his kingdom. The other two reasons might have some force in them, if the history before us contained a complete account of the whole course of the war. But even Ewald admits that it is restricted to a notice of the principal battle, which completely crushed the rebellion. There can be no doubt, however, that this was preceded, if not by other battles, yet by such military operations as accompany every war. This is clearly indicated in ver. 6, where it is stated that the army advanced into the field against Israel (ver. 6), which evidently refers to such an advance on the part of David's army as might compel Absalom to draw back from Gilead across the Jordan, until at length a decisive battle was fought, which ended in the complete destruction of his army and his own death. Ewald observes still further, that " it seems impossible, at any rate so far as the name is concerned, to assume that the wood of Ephraim was on the other side of the Jordan, whilst according to ch. xviii. 23, the messenger who reported the victory went from the field of battle towards the Jordan valley in order to get to David." But the way in which Ewald tries to set aside this important point, as bearing upon the conclusion that the battle took place on this side of the Jordan, — namely, by adopting this rendering of ver. 23, " he ran after the manner of Kikkar, running, and therefore overtook Kushi" — is far too unnatural to meet with acceptance. Under all these circumstances, therefore, we decide in favour of the assumption that the wood of Ephraim is to be sought for in the tribe-territory of Ephraim.

The nature of the ground contributed a great deal to the utter defeat of Absalom. — Ver. 8. The conflict extended over the surface of the whole land, i.e. the whole of that region (the Chethib HIVDJ is not the plural ntoB3, which would be quite unsuitable, but is most probably a noun, rfi¥S3, signifying bursting asunder, or wild flight; the Keri HVbj is a Niphal participle, fern, gen.); " and the wood devoured more of the people than the sword ate on the same day." The woody region was most likely full of ravines, precipices, and marshes, into which the flying foe was pursued, and where so many perished. — Ver. 9. "And Absalom was lighted upon (N?.^ = ^i?.) by the servants of David, riding upon the mule; and the mule had come under the thick branches of the great terebinth, and his head fastened itself (remained hanging) on the terebinth, so that he was held (hung) between heaven and earth, as the mule under him went away." The imperfects, K3J, Pl^% and |RJ, are only a combination of the circumstantial clause sm 'tsbfitj. With regard to the fact itself, it is not clearly stated in the words that Absalom hung only by his hair, but simply that his hair entangled him in the thick branches, and his head was fastened in the terebinth, namely, by being jammed between the strong boughs. — Ver. 10. A man (one of David's men) saw him in this situation, and told Joab. Joab replied (ver. 11), " Behold, thou hast seen it, and wherefore hast thou not smitten him there to the ground? and it was for me to give thee ten silverlings and a girdle;" i.e. if thou hadst slain him, it would have been my duty to reward thee. — Ver. 12. But the man replied, " And I... not weighing a thousand shekels in my hand... might not stretch out my hand to the king's son" i.e. I could not do it for a reward of a thousand shekels. This is the meaning of the Chethih K/i; the Masoretes, on the other hand, have substituted vl, which is the reading adopted in most of the ancient versions, and the one preferred by the majority of expositors: " if I weighed... I would not," etc. But there is no necessity for this alteration, as the Chethib is quite in accordance with the character of the words. " For before our ears the king commanded" (cf. ver. 5): *? TO#, " take care whoever (it be) of the boy Absalom." On this use of *D, see Ewald, § 104 d, a. The Keri 7 is merely a conjecture, notwithstanding the fact that all the versions follow it, and that one of the Codices in Kennicott has 7. " Or" continued the man (ver. 13), " should I have acted deceitfully towards his life {i.e. have slain him secretly, which he calls "lj?$, cheating, because it was opposed to the king's open command): and nothing remains hidden from the king;... thou wouldst have set thyself in opposition to me" i.e. have risen up against me before the king. The middle clause is a circumstantial one, as the fact that "^"^l is placed first clearly shows; so that it cannot be regarded as introducing the apodosis, which really follows in the clause commencing with

■TON]. — Ver, 14. Joab replied, u Not so will I wait before thee," i.e. I will not leave the thing to thee. He then took three staffs in his hand, and thrust them into Absalom's heart. ^L3C; is rendered by the LXX. and Vulgate, /St'X??, lanceas; and Thenius would adopt tfrw accordingly, as an emendation of the text. But in the earlier Hebrew npB> only occurs in poetical writings in the sense of a missile or dart (Job xxxiii. 18, xxxvi. 12; Joel ii. 8); and it is not till after the captivity that we find it used to denote a weapon generally. There is no necessity, however, for altering the text. Joab caught up in his hurry the first thing that he found, namely pointed staffs, and pierced Absalom with them to the heart. This explains the reason for his taking three, whereas one javelin or dart would have been sufficient, and also the fact that Absalom was not slain, notwithstanding their being thrust at his heart. The last clause of the verse belongs to what follows: " Still living (i.e. as he was still alive) in the midst of the terebinth, ten young men, JoaUs armour-bearers, surrounded him, and smote him to death." — Ver. 16. Immediately afterwards Joab stopped any further pursuit, " for Joab spared the people," i.e. he wanted to spare them. — Ver. 17. But Absalom they cast into a great pit in the wood, and threw up over him a very large heap of stones, as an ignominious monument, like those thrown up over Achan (Josh. vii. 26) and the king of Ai (Josh. viii. 29). This was the end of Absalom and his rebellion. " All Israel (that had crowded round him) had fled, every one to his tent " (i.e. home: see at Deut. xvi. 7). — Ver. 18. Absalom had erected a monument to himself in the king's valley during his lifetime; u for he said, I have no son to preserve the remembrance of my name, and he called the monument by his own name; and so it was called hand (memorial) of Absalom unto this day." The np7 before 3S?} is apparently pleonastic; but it belongs to the diffuse and circumstantial character of the antiquated Hebrew diction (as in Num. xvi. 1). ro3ft?, a memorial of stone; whether in the form of a column, or an obelisk, or a monolith, cannot be determined (vid. Gen. xxviii. 22, xxxi. 52). The king's valley, which received its name from the event narrated in Gen. xiv. 17, was two stadia from Jerusalem according to Josephus (Ant. vii. 10, 3), and therefore not " close to the

Dead Sea," or in regime tranejordanend (Ges. Thes. pp. 1045, 1377), or "in the Jordan valley in Ephraim" (Tuch and Winer). It was on the eastern side of Jerusalem, in the Kidron valhy; though Absalom's pillar, which ecclesiastical tradition has transferred thither, a monument about forty feet in height and pointed like a pyramid, is not of early Hebrew, but of Grecian origin. On the words " I have no son," see at ch.

Vers. 19-32. David is informed of the victory, and of the death of Absalom.— Vers. 19, 20. Ahimaaz, the son of Zadok, wanted to carry the news to David, that Jehovah had " procured the king justice out of the hand of his enemies" (p*& with \? is a pregnant expression signifying to procure justice and deliver out of); but Joab, knowing how David would receive the tidings of the death of Absalom, replied, " Thou art no man of go'od tidings to-day; thou shalt take the news on another day, not on this, even because (g"h> *?, see at Gen. xviii. 5) the kings son is dead." The Keri @-ty *2> is to be preferred to the Chattel Vr; and |3 has no doubt been dropt out merely because of |3 which follows. The Chethib does not give any suitable sense; for the absence of the article before no is decisive against the explanation proposed by Maurer, viz. " for (tidings have to be carried) concerning the king's son dead." If no were to be construed as an adverb with ^?1?, it would of necessity have the article. — Ver. 21. Joab therefore entrusted the Cushite with the duty of conveying to David the announcement of what had occurred. It cannot be decided with certainty whether '•Eton or Cushi is the proper name of an Israelite, or whether it signifies the " Cushite," i.e. a descendant of Cush. The form of the name rather favours the latter view, in which case it would suggest the idea of a Moorish slave in the service of Joab. — Vers. 22, 23. As Ahimaaz still expressed a wish to hasten to the king, even after Cushi had been sent, and could not be induced to relinquish his purpose by the repeated expostulations of Joab, the latter at length permitted him to run. And he ran so fast, that he o;ot before Cushi. no TO: let whatever will happen. n37i is the pronoun " to thee," as in Gen. xxvn. 37, and not the imperative of "n^n, " thou mayest go." The meaning is, "and there is no striking message for thee," no message that strikes the mark, or affects anything. We must supply

"he said" in thought before ver. 23. There was the less necessity to write it here (as in 1 Sam. i. 20), since it is perfectly obvious from the repetition of no '•rw that it is Ahimaaz who is speaking. Ahimaaz then ran by the way of the plain, i.e. the way which lies through or across the plain of the Jordan. Now he could not possibly have taken this road, if the battle had been fought in a wood on the eastern side of the Jordan, and he had wanted to hurry from the scene of battle to Mahanaim; for in that case he would have taken a circuitous route two or three times the distance of the straight road, so that it would have been utterly impossible for him to get there before the Cushite, however quickly he might run. This notice therefore furnishes a decisive proof that the battle was fought upon the mountains of Ephraim, in the land to the west of the Jordan, since the straight road thence to Mahanaim would lie through the valley of the Jordan. — Ver. 24. David was sitting between the two gates of Mahanaim waiting for tidings of the result of the battle. The two gates are the outer and inner gate of the fortified city wall, between which there was a small court, where David was sitting. The watchman then went up to the roof of the gate by the wall, probably the outer gate in the city wall, and as he looked he saw a man running alone. — Ver. 25. When he announced this to the king, he said, " If he (is or comes) alone, there is good news in his mouth," namely, because several runners would have shown themselves if it had been a flight. As the first messenger came nearer and nearer, the watchman saw another man running, and shouted this into the gate ("Wn is wrongly pointed for "WH, according to the LXX., Syr., and Vulgate); whereupon the king replied, " This is also a good messenger." — Ver. 27. When the watchman saw by the running of the first that it was Ahimaaz, recognising him probably by the swiftness of his running, and announced it to the king, he replied, " He is a good man, and cometh with good tidings," because Joab would not have selected him to bring any other than good news. — Ver. 28. Ahimaaz then called out to the king, " Shalom" i.e. Hail! and fell down before him to greet him reverentially, and said, " Blessed be Jehovah thy God, who hath given up the men that lifted up their hand against my lord the king." — Ver. 29. In answer to the king's inquiry, "Is it well with the young man Absalom?" Ahimaaz replied " I saw the great tumult (that arose) when Joab sent off the king's servant, and thy servant, and know not what" (M had occurred). Ahimaaz spoke as if he had been sent off before Absalom's fate had been decided or could be known. « TJie Urttfs servant" is the Cushite, whom Ahimaaz saw just approaching, so that he could point to him. Joab is the sublet which is sometimes written after the object in the case of an infinitive construction (vial. Gesenius, § 133, 3 Anm.); and the expression " thy servant" is a conventional one for « me (viz Ahimaaz).— Ver. 30. And the king said, " Turn, and stand here," that he might hear the further news from the Cushite, who had just arrived.— Ver. 31. The Cushite said, « Let my lord the king receive good tidings, for Jehovah hath procured thee justice to-day out of the hand of all who have risen up against thee" (cf. ver. 19).-Ver. 32. When asked about the welfare of Absalom, the Cushite replied, " May it happen to the enemies of my lord the king, and all who have risen up against thee for evil (i.e. to do thee harm), as to the Youno- man." The death of Absalom was indicated clearly enough in these words.

Ver. 33. The king understood the meaning of the words. He was agitated, and went up to the balcony of the gate (the room above the entrance) and wept, and said, walking about, " My son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! Oh that I had died for thee, Absalom, my son, my son!" To understand this passionate utterance of anguish, we must bear in mind not only the excessive tenderness, or rather weakness, of David's paternal affection towards his son, but also his anger that Joab and his generals should have paid so little regard to his command to deal gently with Absalom. With the king's excitable temperament, this entirely prevented him from taking a just and correct view of the crime of his rebel son, which merited death, and of the penal justice of God which had been manifested in his destruction.

Ill his passionate and sinful sorrow on account of Absalom's death, David not only forgot altogether what it was his duty to do, in order to recover the affections of the people, so that Joab was obliged to remind him of this duty which was binding upon him as king (vers. 1-8); but he even allowed himself to be carried away into the most inconsiderate measures (vers. 9-14), and into acts of imprudence and injustice (vers. 1G-23, 24-30), which could not contribute to the strengthening of his throne, however much the affection with which he wished to reward the old man Barzillai for his faithful services (vers. 31-40) might show that the king was anxious to promote the welfare of his subjects.

Vers. 1-8. Davitfs mourning, and JoaVs reproof. — Vers. 1-6. When Joab was told that the king was mourning and weeping for Absalom, he went to him into the house to expostulate with him. Ver. 5 introduces the continuation of ver. 1; vers. 2-4 contain parenthetical sentences, describing the impression made upon the people by the king's mourning. Through the king's deep trouble, the salvation (the victory) upon that day became mourning for all the people who had fought for David, and they went by stealth into the city (K)2b naaJT; they stole to come, came by stealth), aas people steal away who have covered themselves with shame, when they flee in battle." — Ver. 4. But the king had covered his face, and cried aloud, "My son Absalom," etc. — Ver. 5. Then Joab went into the house to the king, and said to him, " Thou hast shamed this day the faces of all thy servants who have saved thy life, and the life of thy sons and daughters, thy wives and concubines " (covered them with shame, by deceiving their hope that thou wouldest rejoice in the victory). — Ver. 6. <"9^-> "to love" (i.e. in that thou lovest) " those who hate thee, and hatest those who love thee; for thou hast given to know to-day (through thy conduct) that chiefs and servants (commanders and soldiers) are nothing (are worth nothing); for I have perceived to-day (or I perceive to-day) that if (fc6 for ^) Absalom were alive, and we had all perished, that it would be right in thine eyes." — Ver. 7. " And now rise up, go out and speak to the heart of thy servants (i.e. speak to them in a friendly manner: Gen. xxxiv. 3, 1. 21, etc.): for I swear by Jehovah, if thou go not out, verily not a man will stay with thee to-night; and this will be worse to thee than all the evil that has come upon thee from thy youth until now." Joab was certainly not only justified, but bound in David's own interests, to expostulate with him upon his conduct, and to urge him to speak in a friendly manner to the people who had exposed their lives for him, inasmuch as his present conduct would necessarily stifle the affection of the people towards their kir.j. and might be followed bv the most serious results with reference to his throne. At the same time, he did this m so heartless and lordly a manner, that the king could not fail to be deeplv hurt by his words.— Ver. 8. Nevertheless David w. obliged to vield to his representations. « The I «* the troops inarched before the king, who (as we may supply from the context) manifested his good-will in both looks and words But Israel, i.e. that portion of the people which had follow -Vbsalom, bad returned to its tents {i.e. gone home: cf. ch. xvni. 17). This sentence forms the transition to the account which

Vers. 9-14. Preliminaries to the return of Dm* k J ■- jem —Vers. 9, 10. As the rebellion was entirely crushed by Absalom's death, and the dispersion of his followers to their respective homes, there arose a movement among all the tr: in favour of David. " All the people were disputing (w\-. casting reproaches at one another) in all the tribes of Israel, saying, The kino- has saved us out of the hand of our enemies,... and now he is fled out of the land before Absalom. But Absalom, whom we anointed over us. is dead in battle: and now whv do ve keep still, to bring back the king? This movement arose from the consciousness of having done an injustice to the king, in rising up in support of Absalom.-^ t 11, 12. When these words of all Israel were reported to David, he'sent to the priests Zadok and Abiathar, saying. " Speak to the elders of Judah, why will ye be the last to bring back the kincr to his palace?... Ye are my brethren, my bones and flesh (i.e. my blood relations): why then,'* etc.? The - clauseofver.il, u the speech of all Israel is tarn toOi ex, s house? is a circumstantial clause inserted in the midst of David's words, to explain the appeal to the men of Judah not to be the last. In the LXX.. and some Codices of the Vulgate, this sentence occurs twice, viz. at the end of ver. 10, and also of ver. 11; and Thenius, Ewald, and Bottcher retard the clause at the end of ver. 10 as the original one, and the repetition of it at the close of ver. 11 as a gloss. But this is certainly a mistake: for if the clause, "and the speech of all Israel came to the king to his house (at Mahanaim)," ought to stand at the close of ver. 10, and assigns the reason for David's sending to Zadok and Abiathar, ver. 11 would certainly, or rather necessarily, commence with "Hp^n fw'l: " The word of all Israel came to the king, and then king David sent," etc. But instead of this, it commences with n?K> 1)1 Tpftm " But kincr

David sent." This construction of the sentence decidedly favours the correctness of the Hebrew text; whereas the text of the Septuagint, apart altogether from the tautological repetition of the whole of the sentence in question, shows obviously enough that it is nothing more than a conjecture, by which the attempt was made to remove the difficulty occasioned by the striking position in which the circumstantial clause occurred. — Ver. 13. u And say ye to Amasa, Art thou not my bone and flesh? so shall God do to me, and so add, if thou shalt not be prince of the army (chief captain) before me continually in the place of Joab." — Ver. 14. Thus he (David) inclined the heart of all the people as of one man, and they sent to the king, saying, " Return thou, with all thy servants." The result of David's message to the priests is given summarily here. The subject to tt!l is David, not Amasa or Zadok. So far as the fact itself is concerned, it was certainly wise of David to send to the members of his own tribe, and appeal to them not to be behind the rest of the tribes in taking part in his restoration to the kingdom, lest it should appear as though the tribe of Judah, to which David himself belonged, was dissatisfied with his victory, since it was in that tribe that the rebellion itself first broke out; and this would inevitably feed the jealousy between Judah and the rest of the tribes. But 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, and in all probability the enmity of this powerful general would become dangerous to the throne of David. For however Joab might have excited David's anger by slaying Absalom, and by the offensive manner in which he had reproved the king for giving way to his grief,

David ought to have suppressed his anger in his existing circumstances, and ought not to have rendered evil for evil, especially as he was not only about to pardon Amasa's crime, but even to reward him as one of his faithful servants.

Vers. 15-30. Return of the king; and occurrences at the crossing of the Jordan. — Vers. 15-23. Pardon of Shimei. — Vers. 15, 16. When David reached the Jordan on his return, and Judah had come to Gilgal "to meet him, to conduct the king over the Jordan," i.e. to form an escort at the crossing, Shimei the Benjaminite hastened down from Bahurim (see ch. xvi. 5 sqq.) with the men of Judah to meet David. — Vers. 17 sqq. There also came along with Shimei a thousand men of Benjamin, and Ziba the servant of the house of Saul, with his fifteen sons and twenty servants (see ch. ix. 10); and they went over the Jordan before the king, viz. through a ford, and the ferry-boat had crossed over to carry over the king's family, and to do whatever seemed good to him, i.e. to be placed at the king s sole disposal. And Shimei fell down before the king, frlJfSl, i.e. " ivhen he (David) was about to c?1oss over the Jordan" not " when Shimei had crossed over the Jordan;" for after what has just been stated, such a remark would be superfluous: moreover, it is very doubtful whether the infinitive with 2 can express the sense of the pluperfect. Shimei said, " Let not my lord impute to me any crime, and do not remember how thy servant hath sinned." — Ver. 20. " For thy servant knoweth (i.e. I know) that I have sinned, and behold I have come to-day the first of the whole house of Joseph, to go to meet my lord the king." By " the whole house of Joseph" we are to understand the rest of the tribes with the exception of Judah, who are called " all Israel" in ver. 12. There is no reason for the objection taken by Thenius and Bottcher to the expression t]DV"JVZi. The rendering of the LXX. {iravTos 'lapaifK koI oIkov 'J&)cr?J(/>) does not prove that?JO^"?3 was the original reading, but only that the translator thought it necessary to explain o'Ikov 'Icocrrjcf) by adding the gloss iravTos ^Icrpai^fK; and the assertion that it was only in the oratorical style of a later period, when the kingdom had been divided, that Joseph became the party name of all that were not included in Judah, is overthrown by 1 Kings xi. 28. The designation of the tribes that opposed Judah by the name of the leading tribe {Joseph:

Josh. xvi. 1) was as old as the jealousy between these tribes and Judah, which did not commence with the division of the kingdom, but was simply confirmed thereby into a permanent distinction. Shimei's prayer for the forgiveness of his sin was no more a proof of sincere repentance than the reason which he adduced in support of his petition, namely that he was the first of all the house of Joseph to come and meet David. Shimei's only desire was to secure impunity for himself. Abishai therefore replied (ver. 21), " Shall not Shimei be put to death for this (riKT nnni, for this, which he has just said and done), because he hath cursed the anointed of Jehovah?" (yid. ch. xvi. 5 sqq.) But David answered (ver. 22), " What have I to do with you, ye sons of Zeruiah (cf. ch. xvi. 10), for ye become opponents to me to-day? " |tpb>, an opponent, who places obstacles in the way (Num. xxii. 22); here it signifies one who would draw away to evil. " Should any one be put to death in Israel to-day? for do I not know that I am this day king over Israel f " The reason assigned by David here for not punishing the blasphemer as he had deserved, by taking away his life, would have been a very laudable one if the king had really forgiven him. But as David when upon his deathbed charged his successor to punish Shimei for this cursing (1 Kings ii. 8, 9), the favour shown him here was only a sign of David's weakness, which was not worthy of imitation, the more especially as the king swore unto him (ver. 24) that he should not die.

Vers. 24-30. David's conduct towards MepJiibosheth admits still less of justification. — Ver. 24. Mephibosheth, the son, i.e. grandson, of Saul, had also come down (from Jerusalem to the Jordan) to meet David, and had not " made his feet and his beard" i.e. had not washed his feet or arranged his beard (n'^JJ, as in Deut. xxi. 12), and had not washed his clothes — all of them signs of deep mourning (cf. Ezek. xxiv. 17) — since the day that the king had gone (i.e. had fled from Jerusalem) until the day that he came (again) in peace. — Ver. 25. " Now when Jerusalem (i.e. the inhabitants of the capital) came to meet the king" 1 David said to him (i.e. to Mephibosheth, who was

1 Dathe and Thenius propose to alter D^^Yl1' into D^&TPD (from

Jerusalem), from a simple misunderstanding of the true meaning of the words; for, as Bottcher has observed, the latter (jrom Jerusalem) would with the deputation from the capital which welcomed David at the Jordan), " Why wentest thou not icith me, MepldbosliethV David was justified in putting this question after what Ziba. had told him concerning Mephibosheth (ch. xvi. 3). — Ver. 26. Mephibosheth replied, " My lord king, my servant hath deceived me: for thy servant thought I will have the ass saddled and go to the king; for thy servant is lame." If we understand "HPSnyi as signifying that Mephibosheth had the ass saddled by a servant, and not that he saddled it with his own hands, the meaning is obvious, and there is no ground whatever for altering the text. Eton is certainlv used in this sense in Gen. xxii. 3, and it is very common for things to be said to be done by a person, even though not done with his own hands. The rendering adopted by the LXX. and Vulgate, " Thy servant said to him (the servant), Saddle me the ass," is not true to the words, though correct so far as the sense is concerned. — Vers. 27, 28. "And he (Ziba) slandered thy servant to my lord the king." Mephibosheth had not merely inferred this from David's words, and the tone in which they were spoken, but had certainly found it out long ago, since Ziba would not delay very long to put David's assurance, that all the possessions of Mephibosheth should belong to him, in force against his master, so that Mephibosheth wrould discover from that how Ziba had slandered him. "And my lord the king is as the angel of God," i.e. he sees all just as it really is (see at ch. xiv. 17); " and do what is good in thy sight: for all my father's house (the whole of my family) were but men of death against my lord the king (i.e. thou mightest have had us all put to death), and thou didst set thy servant among thy companions at table be quite superfluous, as it is already contained in the previous TV- But Hottehcr's emendation of ^3 into nX2, because Jerusalem or the population of Jerusalem is a feminine notion, is equally unnecessary, since towns and lands are frequently construed as masculines when the inhabitants are intended (rid. Ewald, § 318, a). On the other hand, the rendering adopted by the LXX., and by Luther, Miehaelis, and Maurer, in which D,JTV is taken as an accusative in the sense of "when Mephibosheth • Mine to Jerusalem to meet the king," is altogether wrong, and has been very properly given up by modem expositors, inasmuch as it is at variance not only with the word TV, but also with ch. xvi..'! and ix. L3, where

Mephibosheth is said to have lived in Jerusalem.

(see ch. ix. 7, 11); and what right or (what) more have I still to cry (for help) to the king?" The meaning is, "I cannot assert any claims, but will yield to anything you decide concerning me." It must have been very evident to David from these words of Mephibosheth, that he had been deceived by Ziba, and that he had formed an unfounded prejudice against Mephibosheth, and committed an act of injustice in handing over his property to Ziba. He therefore replied, in evident displeasure (ver. 29), "Why talkest thou still of thine affairs? I have said, thou and Ziba shall divide the field?" to which Mephibosheth answered (ver. 30), " He may take the whole, since my lord the king has returned in peace to his own house." This reply shows very clearly that an injustice had been done to Mephibosheth, even if it is not regarded as an expression of wounded feeling on the part of Mephibosheth because of David's words, but, according to the view taken by Seb. Schmidt and others, as a vindication of himself, as said not to blame the king for the opinion he had formed, but simply to defend himself. But this completely overthrows the opinion held by Thenius and O. v. Gerlach, that David's words in ver. 30 contain nothing more than a revocation of his hasty declaration in ch. xvi. 4, and a confirmation of his first decision in ch. ix. 7-10, and are to be understood as signifying, " Let everything be as I settled it at first; hold the property jointly," inasmuch as Ziba and his sons had of course obtained their living from the produce of the land. Moreover, the words " thou and Ziba divide the land " are directly at variance with the promise in ch. ix. 7, " I will restore thee all the land of Saul thy father," and the statement in ch. ix. 9, " I have given unto thy master's son all that pertained to Saul, and to all his house." By the words, " / have said, thou and Ziba divide the land" David retracted the hasty decree in ch. xvi. 4, so as to modify to some extent the wrong that he had done to Mephibosheth, but he had not courage enough to retract it altogether. He did not venture to dispute the fact that Mephibosheth had really been calumniated by Ziba, which was placed beyond all doubt by his mourning during the whole period of David's flight, as described in ver. 24. There is no ground for Winer's statement, therefore, that " it is impossible now to determine whether Mephibosheth was really innocent or not."

Vers. 31-39. Barzillai comes tc greet David. — Ver. 31. Barzillai the octogenarian " had also come down from Roglim and gone across the Jordan with the king, to escort him over the river." IT!-?"™ is ^ie portion in, or over, the Jordan. T» is the sign of the accusative, "the piece in the Jordan," and no further. This is the correct explanation as given by Bottcher, after Gesenius and Maurer; and the Keri firwi is a bad emendation.—Vers. 32, 33. As Barzillai had supplied the king with provisions during his stay in Mahanaim (nyw for nyE*, like ilKte for n«i^, and other words of the same kind), because he was very wealthy {lit. great), David would gladly have taken him with him to Jerusalem, to repay him there for his kindness; but Barzillai replied (vers. 34 sqq.), " How many days are there of the years of my life (i.e. how long shall I have yet to live), that I should go up with the king to Jerusalem? I am now eighty years old; can I (still) distinguish good and evil, or will thy servant taste what I eat and drink, or listen again to the voice of the singing men and singing women? and why should thy servant be yet a burden unto my lord the king? Thy servant would go over the Jordan with the king for a short time (i.e. could not remain long with him), and why does the kin^ wish to repay me this favour?" Xf&: "Let thy servant return, that I may die in my city (my home), at the grave of my parents; and behold thy servant Chimham (i.e. according to the explanation given by Josephus, Barzillai's son, who had come down with his father, as we may infer from 1 Kings ii. 7) may go over with my lord the king; and do to him what scemeth good to thee," i.e. show him favours at thy pleasure.— -Ver. 38. David consented to this, and said, "All that thou desirest of me I will do to him." ">nn with?P is a pregnant construction, signifying to choose and impose, " choose upon rne," i.e. the thing for me to grant thee. — Ver. 39. Thus all the people went over the Jordan; and when the king had crossed over, he kissed Barzillai (to take leave of him: rid. Ruth i. 9); and he (Barzillai) blessed him, and turned to his place (returned home). Barzillai only escorted the king over the Jordan, and the conversation (vers. 31-38) probably took place as they were crossing.

Vers. 40-43. Quarrel between Israel and Judah about the restoration of the king. — Ver. 40. David went across to Gilgal (in the plain of the Jordan: Josh. iv. 19), and Chimham (Chirnlian is a modified form for Chimham: ver. 37) had gone over with him, and all the people of Judah had brought the king over (the Keri VWIgfl is an easier reading than the Chethib W?]W, " and as for the people, they had," etc.), and also " half the people of Israel," namely, beside the thousand Benjaminites who came with Shimei (ver. 17), other Israelites who dwelt in the neighbourhood. — Ver. 41. All the men of Israel, i.e. the representatives of the other tribes of Israel, came to meet the king in Gilgal; and being annoyed at the fact that the men of Judah had anticipated them, they exclaimed, " Why have our brethren the men of Judah stolen thee away?" i.e. fetched thee thus secretly without saying a word to us. u All David's men" were all his faithful adherents who had fled with him from Jerusalem (ch. xv. 17 sqq.). — Ver. 42. The men of Judah replied against (?V) the men of Israel: " The king stands near to us" (inasmuch as he belonged to their tribe), " and wherefore then art thou angry at this matter? Have we eaten from the king (i.e. derived any advantage from our tribe-relationship to him, as the Benjaminites did from Saul, according to 1 Sam. xxii. 7), or received anything for ourselves therefrom? " n^'^ is an infinitive abs. Niph. with a feminine termination, borrowed from T\"?; literally, " or has taking been taken for us." — Ver. 43. The Israelites were annoj-ed at this answer, and retorted, " I (Israel) have ten portions in the king, and also more than thou in David; and wherefore hast thou despised me?" They considered that they had ten shares in the king, because they formed ten tribes, in opposition to the one tribe of Judah, as the Levites did not come into consideration in the matter. Although David was of the tribe of Judah, he was nevertheless king of the whole nation, so that the ten tribes had a larger share than one tribe. ^0?i?l! refers to the fact, that Judah took no notice at all of the tribes of Israel when fetching back the king. 'M njrrftp!, " and was not my speech the first to fetch back my king?" (On the fact itself, see eh. xix. 10 11.) ^ is an emphatic dot. commodi, and is to be taken in connection with 3*$$, notwithstanding the accents. " And the speech of the men of Judah became fiercer (more violent) than the speech of the men of Israel." With these words the historian sums up briefly the further progress of the dispute, for the purpose of appending the account of Sheba's rebellion, to which it gave rise.

Chap. xx. 1-22. Sheba's Rebellion.— Ver. 1. There happened to be a worthless man there, named Sheba, a Benjaminite. He blew the trumpet, and said, " We have no part in David, nor inheritance in the son of Jesse. Every man to his tents, O Israel!" " To his tents" i.e. to his home, as in ch. xix. 9, etc. Yer. 2. All the men of Israel responded to this call, and went up (to the mountains) away from David and after Sheba; but the men of Judah adhered to their king from the Jordan to Jerusalem. The construction of pTi with ^V)... ]? is a pregnant one: they adhered to and followed him. The expression "from Jordan" does not prove that Sheba's rebellion broke out at the Jordan itself, and before David's arrival in Gilgal, but may be accounted for from the fact that the men of Judah had already fetched the king back across the Jordan. — Yer. 3. As soon as David returned to his palace at Jerusalem, he brought the ten concubines whom he had left behind, and with whom Absalom had lain, into a place of safety, and took care of them, without going in unto them any more. The masculine suffixes attached to tttt, cfcfa'!, and Djv!?K are used, as they frequently are, as being the more general and indefinite, instead of the feminine, which is the more definite form. Thus were they shut up in lifelong widowhood until the day of their death. rwp^N is an adverbial accusative, and TM\ signifies " condition in life;" literally, in widowhood of life. — Yer. 4. David then ordered Amasa to call the men of Judah to pursue Sheba the rebel, and attack him within three days, and then to present himself to him again. This commission was intended as the commencement of the fulfilment of the promise which David had given to Amasa (ch. xix. 14). It was no doubt his intention to give him the command over the army that marched against Sheba, and after the defeat of the rebel to make him commander-in-chief. But this first step towards the fulfilment if the promise was a very imprudent act, like the promise itself, since Joab, who had been commander of the army for so many years, was grievously offended by it; and moreover, being a well-tried general, he had incomparably more distinction in the tribe of Judah than Amasa, who had taken part in Absalom's rebellion and even led the rebel army, could possibly have. — Vers. 5, 6. But when Amasa stayed out beyond the time fixed for the execution of the royal commission (the Chethib ",irpv) is the Piel Wp, whilst the Keri is either the Hiphil infa, or the imperfect Kal of W = ">nN, cf. Tnri? ver. 9, and is quite unnecessary), probably because the men of Judah distrusted him, and were not very ready to respond to his summons, David said to Abishai, " Now will Sheba the son of Bichri be more injurious (more dangerous) to us than Absalom. Take thou the servants (soldiers) of thy lord and pursue after him, lest he reach fortified cities, and tear out our eye" i.e. do us a serious injury. This is the correct explanation given by Bottcher, who refers to Deut. xxxii. 10 and Zech. ii. ] 2, where the apple of the eye is the figure used to signify the most valuable possession; for the general explanation, " and withdraw from our eye," cannot be grammatically sustained. — Ver. 7. Tims there went after him (Abishai) JoaUs men. (the corps commanded by Joab), and the Crethi and Plethi (see at ch. viii. 18), out of Jerusalem, to pursue Sheba. — Ver. 8. u When they were by the great stone at Gibeon, and Amasa came to meet them (there), Joab was girded with his armour-coat as his clothing, and the girdle of the sword was bound over it upon his loins in its sheath, which came out, and it fell (i.e. the sheath came out of the sword-belt in which it was fastened, and the sword fell to the ground), Joab said to Amasa," etc. The eighth verse contains only circumstantial clauses, the latter of which (from 3Nty onwards) are subordinate to the earlier ones, so that "1ENS} (ver. 9) is attached to the first clause, which describes the meeting between the advancing army and Amasa.

There is something striking, however, in the fact that Joab appears among them, and indeed, as we see from what follows, as the commander of the forces; for according to ver. 6, David had commissioned Abishai, Joab's brother, to pursue Sheba, and even in ver. 7 Joab's men only are mentioned. This difficulty can hardly be solved in any other manner than by the simple assumption that David had told Abishai to go out with Joab, and that this circumstance is passed over in the brief account in ver. 6, in which the principal facts alone are given, and consequently the name of Joab does not occur there. Clericus adopts the following explanation. "Mention," he says, " has hitherto been made simply of the command given to Abishai, but this included an order to Joab to go as well; and there is nothing to preclude the supposition that Joab's name was mentioned by the king, although this is not distinctly stated in the brief account before us."1 — Ver. 9. Joab asked Amasa how he was, and laid hold of his beard with his right hand to kiss him. And as Amasa took no heed of the sword in Joab's hand, he smote him with it in the paunch (abdomen), and shed out his bowels upon the ground, " and repeated?iot (the stroke) to him" (cf. 1 Sam. xxvi. 8). Laying hold of the beard to kiss is still customary among Arabs and Turks as a sign of friendly welcome (vid. Arvieux, Merkwurdige Xaehrichten, iv. p. 1S'2, and Ilarmar, Beobachtunnen, ii. p. 61). The reason for this assassination was Joab's jealousy of Amasa. Joab and Abishai then followed Sheba. — Ver. 11. One of Joab's attendants remained standing by him (Amasa), no doubt at Joab's command, and said to the people who came thither, i.e. to the men of Judah who were collected together by Amasa (vid. ver. 4), " He that favoureth Joab, and he that (is) for David, let him (go) after Joab," i.e. follow him to battle against Sheba. — Vers. 12, 13. Amasa lay wallowing in blood in the midst of the road; and when the man (the attendant) saw that all the

1 This difficulty cannot be removed by emendations of the text, inasmuch as all the early translators, with the exception of the Syriac, had our Hebrew text before them. Thenius does indeed propose to alter Abishai into Joab in ver. 6, after the example of Josephus and the Syriac; but. as Bottcher observes, if Joab had originally formed part of the text, it could not have been altered into Abishai either accidentally or intentionally, and the Syriac translators and Josephus have inserted Joab merely from conjecture, because they inferred from what follows that Joab's name ought to be found lure. But whilst this is perfectly true, there is no ground for Bottcher's own conjecture, that in the original text ver. G read as follows: 14 Then David said t<».hah. Behold, the three days are gone: shall we wait for Amasa?" and through the copyist's carelessness a whole line was left out. For this conjecture has no tenable support in the senseless reading of the Cod. Vat.) Tpof Xy.fjacti for ' \(hiax'i.

people stood still (by the corpse), he turned (pushed) Amasa from the road to the field, and threw a cloth over him, whereupon they all passed by and went after Joab. — Ver. 14. But Joab "went through all the tribes of Israel to Abela, and Beth- Maacah, and all Berim." Abela (ver. 15), or Abel (ver. 18), has been preserved in the large Christian village of Abil, a place with ruins, and called Abil-el-Kamh on account of its excellent wheat (Kamh), which lies to the north-west of Lake Iluleh, upon a Tell on the eastern side of the river Derddva; not in Ibl-el- Hawa, a place to the north of this, upon the ridge between Mcrj Ayun and Wady et Teim (vid. Ritter, Erdk. xv. pp. 240, 241; Robinson, Bibl. Researches, pp. 372-3; and v. de Velde, Mem. p. 280). Beth-Maacah was quite close to Abela; so that the names of the two places are connected together in ver. 15, and afterwards, as Abel-Beth-Maacah (vid. 1 Kings xv. 20, and 2 Kings xv. 29), also called Abel-Maim in 2 Chron. xvi. 4. Berim is the name of a district which is unknown to us; and even the early translators did not know how to render it. There is nothing, however, either in the iravTes iv xaPP^ °f *he LXX or the omnes viri electi of the Vulgate, to warrant an alteration of the text. The latter, in fact, rests upon a mere conjecture, which is altogether unsuitable; for the subiect to vfij3*l cannot be D*n2n-^3 0n account of the vav consec, but must be obtained from!>*nB* ^n^"bzi. The Chethib in^p^ is evidently a slip of the pen for vpP'l. — Ver. 15. They besieged him (Sheba) in Abel-Beth-Maacah, and 'piled up a rampart against the city, so that it rose up by the town-moat (?n, the moat with the low wall belonging to it); and all the people with Joab destroyed to throw down the wall.

Vers. 16 sqq. Then a wise woman of the city desired to speak to Joab, and said (from the wall) to him (ver. 18), " They were formerly accustomed to say, ask Abel; and so they brought (a thing) to pass." These words show that Abel had formerly been celebrated for the wisdom of its inhabitants. — Ver. 19. " I am of the peaceable, faithful in Israel: thou seekest to slay a city and mother in Israel; wherefore wilt thou destroy the inheritance of Jehovah?" The construing of "Six with a predicate in the plural may be explained on the simple ground that the woman spoke in the name of the city as well as in its favour, and therefore had the citizens in her mind at the time, as is very evident from the figurative expression DX (mother) for mother-city or capital.1 The woman gave Joab to understand, in the first place, that he ought to have asked the inhabitants of Abela whether they intended to fight for Sheba before commencing the siege and destruction of the town, according to the law laid down in Deut. xx. 10 sqq. with reference to the siege of foreign towns; and secondly, that he ought to have taken into consideration the peaceableness and fidelity of the citizens of Abela, and not to destroy peaceloving citizens and members of the nation of God. — Ver. 20. The woman's words made an impression upon Joab. He felt the truthfulness of her reproaches, and replied, aFar be it, far be it from me, to swallow up or destroy." DK, as in the case of oaths: " truly not." — Ver. 21. "It is not so (sc. as thou say est), but a man of the mountains of Ephraim (which extended into the tribe of Benjamin: see at 1 Sam. i. 1), Sheba the son of Bichri, hath lifted up his hand against the king David. Only give him up, and I will draw away from the city." The woman promised him this: " Behold, his head shall be thrown out to thee over the wall." — Ver. 22. She then came to all the people (i.e. the citizens of the town) " with her wisdom" i.e. with the wise counsel which she had given to Joab, and which he had accepted; whereupon the citizens cut off Sheba's head, and threw it out to Joab. Then Joab had a trumpet blown for a retreat, and the men disbanded, whilst he himself returned to Jerusalem to the king.

Vers. 23-2G. David's Ministers of State. — The second section of the history of David's reign closes, like the first (ch. viii. 1G sqq.), with a list of the leading ministers of state. The author evidently found the two lists in his sources, and included

1 The correctness of the text is not to be called in question, as Thenius and Bottcher suppose, for the simple reason that all the older translators bave followed fche Hebrew text, including even the LXX. with their iyL 'ript iicr,;iKu. ruu a~r.DtyuocTuy iv '\apetrfK\ "whereas the words « tPrj/ro o/ -tar'/i roS '\aptt^\ which some of the MSS. contain at the close of ver. 18 after ti f^fA/rov, and upon which Thenius and Bottcher have founded their conjecture. ari i vidently a <;loss or paraphrase of lEfin pi, tnd of so little value on critical grounds, that Tischendorf did not even think the reading h mentioning in his edition of the Scptuagint, them both in his work, for the simple reason that they belonged to different periods, as the difference in the names of some of the officers clearly shows, and that they supplemented one another. The list before us belongs to a later period of David's reijm than the one in ch. viii. 16-18. In addition to the officebearers mentioned in ch. viii., we find here Adoram over the tribute, and Ira the Jairite a confidential counsellor (colxen: see at ch. viii. 18), in the place of the sons of David noticed in ch. viii. 18. The others are the same in both lists. The Chethib nnn is to be read ^SH (cf. 2 Kings xi. 4, 19), from ■R3, perfodit, and is synonymous with Wan (see at ch. viii. 18). Adorarn is the same person as Adoniram, who is mentioned in 1 Kings iv. 6 and v. 28 as overseer over the tributary service in the time of Solomon; as we may see from the fact, that the latter is also called Adoram in 1 Kings xii. 18, and Iladoram in 2 Chron. x. 18. Hadoram is apparently only a contracted form of the name, and not merely a copyist's mistake for Adoniram. But when we find that, according to the passages cited, the same man filled this office under three kings, we must bear in mind that he did not enter upon it till the close of David's reign, as he is not mentioned in ch. viii. 16 sqq., and that his name only occurs in connection with liehoboam's ascent of the throne; so that there is no ground for assuming that he filled the office for any length of time under that monarch. Dttn does not mean vectigal, i.e. tribute or tributary service, but tributary labourers. The derivation of the word is uncertain, and has been disputed. The appointment of a special prefect over the tributary labourers can hardly have taken place before the closing years of David's reign, when the king organized the internal administration of the kingdom more firmly than before. On the tributary labourers, see at 1 Kings v. 27. Ira the Jairite is never mentioned again. There is no ground for altering Jairi (the Jairite) into Jithri (the Jithrite), as Thenius proposes, since the rendering given in the Syriac (" from Jathir") is merely an inference from ch. xxiii. 38; and the assumption upon which this conclusion is founded, viz. that Ira, the hero mentioned in ch. xxiii. 38, is the same person as Ira the royal cohen, is altogether unfounded.

After the suppression of the rebellion headed by Sheba, David spent the remaining years of his reign in establishing the kingdom upon a firmer basis, partly by organizing the army, the administration of justice, and the general government of the realm, and partly by making preparations for the erection of the temple, and enacting rules for the service of the Levites; that he might be able to hand over the Government in a firm and satisfactory state to his youthful son Solomon, whom the Lord had appointed as his successor. The account of these regulations and enactments fills up the whole of the last section of the history of David's reign in the first book of Chronicles. Buc in the book before us, several other things — (1) two divine punishments inflicted upon Israel, with the expiation of the sins that occasioned them (ch. xxi. 1-14, and ch. xxiv.); (2) David's psalm of praise for deliverance out of the hand of all his enemies (ch. xxii.), and his last prophetic words (ch. xxiii. 1-7); and (3) a few brief notices of victorious acts performed in the wars with the Philistines (ch. xxi. 15-22), and a longer list of David's heroes (ch. xxiii. 8-39) — form, as it were, a historical framework for these poetical and prophetic portions. Of the two divine visitations mentioned, the pestilence occasioned by the numbering of the people (ch. xxiv.) occurred undoubtedly in the closing years of David's reign; whereas the famine, and the expiation connected with it (ch. xxi. 1-14), happened most probably at an earlier period, and are merely introduced here because no fitting opportunity had presented itself before. The kernel and centre of this last section of the history of David is to be found unquestionably in the psalm of thanksgiving in ch. xxii., and the prophetic announcement of an exalted and blessed king. In the psalm of thanksgiving David looks back at the close of his life upon all the mercy and faithfulness which he had experienced throughout his reign, and praises the Lord his God for the whole. In his "last words" he looks forward into the time to come, and on the strength of the promise which he has received, of the eternal duration of the dominion of his house,