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his reign, and realized that, now Absalom had fallen, there was virtually an
interregnum equally unsatisfactory to all parties. It certainly was neither politic nor
right on the part of David under such circumstances to employ the priests in secret
negotiations with the tribe of Judah for his restoration to the throne. Indeed, all David's
acts now seem like the outcome of that fatal moral paralysis into which he had
apparently once more lapsed. Such, notably, was the secret appointment of Amasa as
commander-in-chief in the room of Joab, a measure warranted neither by moral nor by
military considerations, and certainly, to say the least, a great political mistake,
whatever provocation Joab might have given. We regard in the same light David's
conduct in returning to Jerusalem on the invitation of the tribe of Judah only (2 Samuel
19:14). Preparations for this were made in true Oriental fashion. The men of Judah
went as far as Gilgal, where they had in readiness a ferry-boat, in which the king and
his household might cross the river. Meantime, those who had cause to dread David's
return had also taken their measures. Both Shimei, who had cursed David on his flight,
and Ziba, who had so shamefully deceived him about Mephibosheth, went over Jordan
"to meet the king."^30 As David was "crossing,"^31 or, rather, about to embark, Shimei,
who had wisely brought with him a thousand men of his own tribe, Benjamin - the
most hostile to David - entreated forgiveness, appealing, as evidence of his repentance,
to his own appearance with a thousand of his clansmen, as the first in Israel to
welcome their king.
In these circumstances it would have been almost impossible not to pardon Shimei,
though David's rebuff to Abishai, read in the light of the king's dying injunctions to
Solomon (1 Kings 2:8, 9), sounds somewhat like a magniloquent public rebuke of the
sons of Zeruiah, or an attempt to turn popular feeling against them. At the same time, it
is evident that Shimei's plea would have lost its force, if David had not entered into
separate secret negotiations with the tribe of Judah.
Ziba's motives in going to meet David need no comment. There can be little doubt that,
well-informed as David must have been of all that had passed in Jerusalem, he could
not but have known that the bearing and feelings of Mephibosheth had been the reverse
of what his hypocritical servant had represented them (comp. 2 Samuel 19:24). All the
more unjustifiable was his conduct towards the son of Jonathan.^32
Both the language of irritation which he used towards him, and the compromise which
he attempted (19:29), show that David felt. though he would not own, himself in the
wrong. Indeed, throughout, David's main object now seemed to be to conciliate favor
and to gain adherents - in short, to compass his own ends by his own means, which
were those of the natural, not of the spiritual man; of the Oriental, though under the
influence of religion, rather than of the man after God's own heart. For, at the risk of
uttering a truism, we must insist that there are only two courses possible - either to
yield ourselves wholly to the guidance of the Holy Spirit, or else to follow our natural
(^)