- 16-
Twice more David's progress was interrupted before he and his men reached
Ayephim.^22
First it was Ziba, who, deeming this a good opportunity for securing to himself the
covered property of his master, came on pretext of bringing provisions for the
fugitives, but really to falsely represent Mephibosheth as engaged in schemes for
recovering the throne of Israel amidst the general confusion. The story was so
manifestly improbable, that we can only wonder at David's haste in giving it credence,
and according to Ziba what he desired. Another and sadder interruption was the
appearance of Shimei, a distant kinsman of Saul. As David, surrounded by his soldiers
and the people, passed Bahurim, on the farther side of the Mount of Olives, Shimei
followed on the opposite slope of the hill, casting earth and stones at the king, and
cursing him with such words as these: "Get away! get away! thou man of blood! thou
wicked man!" thus charging him, by implication, with the death, if not of Saul and
Jonathan, yet of Abner and Ishbosheth. Never more truly than on this occasion did
David act and speak like his old self, and, therefore, also as a type of the Lord Jesus
Christ in similar circumstances (comp. Luke 9:52- 56). At that moment, when he
realized that all which had come upon him was from God, and when the only hope he
wished to cherish was not in human deliverance, but in God's mercy, he would feel
more than ever how little he had in common with the sons of Zeruiah, and how
different were the motives and views which animated them (2 Samuel 16:10). Would
that he had ever retained the same spirit as in this the hour of his deepest humiliation,
and had not, after his success, relapsed into his former weakness! But should not all
this teach us, that, however necessary a deep and true sense of guilt and sin may be, yet
if sin pardoned continueth sin brooded over, it becomes a source, not of sanctification,
but of moral weakness and hindrance? Let the dead bury their dead, but let us arise and
follow Christ and, "forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto
those things which are before," let us "press toward the mark for the prize of the high
calling of God in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 3:13, 14).
(^)