Gifts, Curses, and Counsel on a Conquered Roof

“A little past the top of the hill” places Ziba just beyond the summit of the Mount of Olives, where David had worshipped in 15:32. The load resembles Abigail’s gift in 1 Samuel 25:18, with loaves by the hundred and clusters of raisins; “summer fruits” are most likely figs, and the “bottle” is a skin.

Ziba has already assigned every item: animals for the royal household, bread and fruit for the young fighting men, wine for anyone who collapses on the way. The answer is a quartermaster’s answer, prepared in advance, and it makes him sound like the only competent man on the road.

Mephibosheth was Saul’s grandson, so “thy master’s son” uses son in the broad sense of descendant. The claim asks David to believe that a lame man living on the king’s bounty expected Israel, in the middle of Absalom’s revolt, to hand the throne back to Saul’s line.

The grant reverses 9:9, where David gave Mephibosheth “all that pertained to Saul” and made Ziba his steward. One sentence now moves the estate the other way. “I humbly beseech thee” translates a single Hebrew verb, “I bow down”, the gesture rather than a request.

Bahurim lay on the road down from Olivet toward the Jordan, in Benjamite country. It was the place where Paltiel, weeping, had been turned back from following Michal in 3:16. Gera is an old Benjamite clan name, borne also by the father of Ehud the judge.

The picture is nearly absurd: one man on a slope throwing stones at a king walled in on both sides by his mighty men. Shimei can only do it because the ravine between them keeps him out of reach, and because David will not let anyone cross it.

“Come out, come out” is better rendered “get out, get out”, the words used to drive someone off. “Man of Belial” means a worthless man; 1 Samuel used it of Eli’s sons and of Nabal. Shimei gives the king the label David’s own history had pinned on others.

Shimei claims David reigned “in whose stead”, as though he displaced Saul by violence. Some interpreters think the charge reaches for the seven sons of Saul handed to the Gibeonites in chapter 21, which may have happened before this revolt; that is an inference from a chronology the book leaves open.

“Dead dog” was a phrase of self-abasement in David’s own mouth before Saul (1 Samuel 24:14) and in Mephibosheth’s before David (9:8). Abishai turns it into a verdict. He is the same man who asked to pin Saul to the ground with a spear in 1 Samuel 26:8.

“What have I to do with you” renders a Hebrew idiom, literally “what to me and to you”, which distances the speaker from what the other proposes. David used the sons of Zeruiah as a byword for hardness in 3:39, and he will use this identical phrase to Abishai again in 19:22.

“Which came forth of my bowels” is the phrase of the promise in 7:12, where the LORD speaks of David’s seed “which shall proceed out of thy bowels”. The son born of that line is now hunting his father. “This Benjamite” pins Shimei to Saul’s tribe in one word.

The Hebrew consonants read “look on my iniquity”, while the scribal reading and the ancient versions give “my affliction” or “my eye”, which the King James follows. Either way David hopes for exchange: that cursing received without retaliation might be answered with good.

Shimei walks a parallel ridge, “over against him”, keeping pace across the gully. The last clause is literally “and dusted with dust”, flinging handfuls of earth as well as stones, the gesture of someone who wants to be seen as much as to hurt.

“Weary” is ayephim in Hebrew, and the sentence then says they refreshed themselves “there” without naming anywhere. Several scholars read ayephim as a place name, or suspect that “at the Jordan” dropped out of the text. The verse ends the day either way: breath, rest, water.

The camera cuts from the tired company to the entry into the capital. Ahithophel is named alone beside Absalom. His son Eliam appears among David’s mighty men (23:34), and a man of that name was Bathsheba’s father (11:3); if they are the same, the counselor was her grandfather, a link often drawn but never stated.

“God save the king” is literally “let the king live”, said twice, and Hushai never says which king. The title “David’s friend” may be an office as much as an affection; 1 Kings 4:5 lists Zabud as “the king’s friend” among Solomon’s officials.

“Kindness” is chesed, the covenant word for loyal love, the very thing David showed Mephibosheth in chapter 9. Absalom says “thy friend” twice and never “my father”, keeping the man he has driven out at arm’s length even in his own sentence.

The LORD, the people and the men of Israel had in fact chosen David; Hushai leaves the name blank and lets Absalom fill it in. “With him will I abide” uses the verb for staying put, which is exactly Hushai’s assignment from 15:34.

To “serve in the presence” is court language for standing before a king as his attendant. Hushai offers Absalom the same service he gave David, which is true in a way Absalom does not suspect: the service to David continues.

The verb is plural, “give ye counsel”, addressed to the whole council, but only Ahithophel answers. Absalom has taken the city without a fight and now has to decide what a king does next; he does not seem to know.

Taking a king’s women was a claim to his throne; Ishbosheth read Abner’s act with Rizpah that way (3:7), and Solomon will read Adonijah’s request for Abishag the same (1 Kings 2:22). “Abhorred” is literally “made thyself stink”, the word Jacob used of his sons’ massacre at Shechem (Genesis 34:30).

“Spread” is the verb for pitching a tent, the one used when David pitched a tent for the ark in his city (6:17). A tent went up for the ark in David’s triumph; a tent goes up on his roof in his defeat.

“The oracle of God” is simply “the word of God” in Hebrew, and the verb “enquired” is the one used when David asked the LORD through the priest and ephod (1 Samuel 23:2). Ahithophel’s advice was received as though it came by that channel.