2 Samuel15chapter 15

2 Samuel 15:7-9

after forty years, that Absalom: The Hebrew and the King James both read forty years, a span that fits nothing else in David's reign. Barnes calls it a very old copying error for four years, counted either from Absalom's return from Geshur or from the start of his scheme at the gate, and the Syriac, the Arabic and Josephus all read four. Whichever the number, Absalom picks Hebron for his vow, David's own former capital and Absalom's birthplace, ground already friendly to a rival throne.

Absalom claims a vow from his years in Geshur of Aram: worship of the LORD in Hebron once he was back in Jerusalem. Adam Clarke suspects Aram is a copyist's slip for Edom, as the two Hebrew letters look alike. John Gill doubts the vow was ever made.

Go in peace: These are the last words David is recorded speaking to Absalom. John Gill takes them as a full blessing on an errand the king believed was worship. Jamieson, Fausset & Brown note that Hebron passed as a fitting place of sacrifice before the temple stood, which hid its use as a rallying point.

2 Samuel 15:10-12

sent spies throughout all the tribes: Absalom arranges a single signal, the sound of the trumpet, so that revolt breaks out across all the tribes at once rather than in Jerusalem alone. Two hundred men go with him from the city in their simplicity, lending a conspiracy its numbers without knowing what they carry. Ahithophel, David's own counsellor, is sent for from Giloh, and verse 12 states plainly that the conspiracy grew strong once he had joined it, so respected a name that his defection alone doubles the danger.

Two hundred men from Jerusalem went with Absalom as invited guests and knew nothing about the matter. Their presence made the king seem to approve. Matthew Henry notes how a cause dressed in worship borrows the names of honest men.

While Absalom offered the sacrifices, he called Ahithophel the Gilonite, David's counselor, from Giloh. Albert Barnes thinks Ahithophel had turned from David over Bathsheba, whose father Eliam is named as Ahithophel's son at 23:34. So the conspiracy gained strength.

The hearts of the men of Israel are after Absalom: A single messenger collapses years of scheming into one sentence, and the report echoes verse 6's own verdict word for word: the hearts of the men of Israel are after Absalom. David hears the theft confirmed rather than merely suspected. What follows is flight, not deliberation.

2 Samuel 15:14-17

Arise, and let us flee: David's decision is instant and undefended, flight offered to spare the city rather than any counter-plot against his own son. His servants answer with plain readiness at verse 15, and the king leaves ten concubines behind to keep the house, a detail left unexplained here that returns with its full weight at 16:22. The exodus itself, king and household going out on foot while the city watches, is the moment the reigning king becomes for a season an exile among his own people again.

John Gill notes the verb means choose, so the servants leave the whole decision to David, whether to stand and fight or to leave the city. Their loyalty holds while the tribes waver. Matthew Henry remarks that the best man does not always make the best figure.

Nathan had foretold at 12:11 that another man would take David's wives in broad daylight. Leaving the concubines in the palace puts them in the path of that word. David meant only that they keep the house.

Adam Clarke thinks David waited there until all his friends were safely out of the city. John Gill adds that the repeated going forth shows the haste and fear of the departure. Verse 18 shows his people passing before him.

2 Samuel 15:18-22

the Cherethites, and all the Pelethites: David's foreign guard passes before him first, six hundred Gittites who followed him out of Gath itself years earlier. Among them Ittai refuses David's offer of release at verse 20, and his oath at verse 21, as the Lord liveth, and as my lord the king liveth, binds him to the king's fate in life or in death. A stranger and an exile of a single day outlasts the loyalty David's own son has just broken, and David lets him pass over the brook with everything he owns.

Ittai the Gittite: Adam Clarke reports a view that Ittai was a son of Achish of Gath, banished for his attachment to David, and that his men were proselytes. John Wesley notes that David already calls Absalom the king. Matthew Henry sees a generous soul unwilling to drag others into his trouble.

Albert Barnes takes yesterday loosely, meaning Ittai was a sojourner of a few years with no native stake in the quarrel. John Wesley reads the blessing of loving devotion and faithfulness as God's promises extended to faithful proselytes. Matthew Henry's image of shelter under God's wings recalls Ruth 2:12.

Matthew Henry notes that Ittai binds himself by oath so that he cannot later be tempted to break his word. His pledge echoes Ruth's at Ruth 1:16. John Wesley applies it to cleaving to the Son of David, and Charles Spurgeon preached it in a sermon titled Following Christ.

all the little ones: John Gill notes that David now bids Ittai cross the Kidron ahead of him and urges him no further to leave. The little ones show that Ittai brought his whole household into exile. He staked his family with himself.

passed over the brook Kidron: The rejected king crosses the brook Kidron weeping, and all the country weeps aloud with him. Wesley and Clarke both connect this crossing to John 18:1, where Jesus goes over the same brook on the night he enters his own sufferings, and the older writers read David's crossing here as a likeness of that greater and later rejection; the text itself draws no such line, and the parallel is theirs to draw.

2 Samuel 15:24-26

bearing the ark of the covenant of God: Zadok and the Levites carry the ark out with the fleeing king, the same box Israel once dragged into battle at Aphek to force God's hand, in 1 Samuel 4. David sends it back. His words at verse 25, if I shall find favour in the eyes of the Lord, and his surrender at verse 26, here am I, let him do to me as seemeth good unto him, refuse to treat the ark as a guarantee of his throne. Clarke reads the order as reverence for the ark joined to confidence in the God it represents rather than in the box itself.

John Wesley gives a second reason, care for the priests, since David had once exposed the priests of Nob to Saul's fury at 1 Samuel 22. Carrying the ark into flight would make them targets again. Matthew Henry notes that Zadok, as Abiathar's assistant, attended the ark most closely.

Eli used nearly the same words at 1 Samuel 3:18 when he heard judgment pronounced on his house. John Wesley draws the lesson that seeing God's hand in all events silences complaint, and seeing all events in God's hand quiets fear. David's house, too, is under judgment.

2 Samuel 15:27-29

Art not thou a seer?: David turns Zadok and Abiathar into an intelligence line rather than fellow exiles. Barnes notes the Hebrew behind seer at verse 27 is difficult enough that some read chief in its place, though the sense David intends is plain either way. The two priests' sons, Ahimaaz and Jonathan, become the couriers running news out of the city at verse 28, a plan David sets running before he has even reached the wilderness.

John Gill sets the place on the road David took after crossing the Kidron in verse 23. There David would wait for word on the truth, size and progress of the conspiracy. Hushai's warning at 17:16 names these same fords.

John Gill notes that the priests had the Kohathite Levites carry the ark back, the duty Numbers 4:15 assigns them, and stayed with it in the city. Their sons waited outside at En-rogel, according to 17:17. The spy line runs from the sanctuary itself.

wept as he went up: David climbs the ascent of Olivet weeping, his head covered and his feet bare, the marks of a mourner, and every man who follows him covers his own head and weeps the same way. The king who opened this chapter with chariots, horses and runners going before him now walks up a hill on foot with nothing before him but grief. Henry reads the shared weeping, king and people together on one road, as a household's grief rather than a display for onlookers.

Ahithophel is among the conspirators: Word reaches David that Ahithophel, his own counsellor, has gone over to Absalom, and it draws the one prayer in this whole chapter: O Lord, I pray thee, turn the counsel of Ahithophel into foolishness. No battle plan follows, only that single sentence, and the narrative answers it in full only two chapters later when Hushai's counsel is preferred over Ahithophel's. Keil and Delitzsch read David as meeting the defection of his wisest counsellor with the one resource greater than counsel.

2 Samuel 15:32-34

Hushai the Archite came to meet him: Hushai meets David at the mountaintop where David worships, dressed for mourning, coat rent and earth on his head, ready to follow his king into exile. David sends him back instead, into the very court that has just cast David out, so Hushai's presence there can defeat Ahithophel's counsel from within rather than by force. The prayer of verse 31 gets its human means the moment after it is prayed.

John Gill suggests Hushai may have been an old man, unfit for the march and another mouth on scant provisions. Adam Clarke reads him as a wise counselor, of more use in the city than on the road. Barzillai uses the same word of his own age at 19:35.

Commentators divide over the deceit David asks of Hushai. John Wesley counts it among David's sins, though God directed it to a good end. Matthew Henry cannot see how to justify it and offers only that a rebel against his father must guard against all men.

2 Samuel 15:35-37

Zadok and Abiathar the priests?: David completes the network in one breath: Hushai reports to the priests, the priests send word by their two sons, and the whole chain runs back to the king in the wilderness. It is a plan built entirely on men Absalom has not managed to turn, two priests and their sons, and a friend who has just arrived. The chapter closes with Hushai walking into Jerusalem the same hour Absalom does, one loyal man now standing inside the enemy's own gate.

John Gill notes that the two sons waited just outside the city, as 17:17 shows. Their first run ends in hiding in a well at Bahurim. Ahimaaz will also carry the news of the final battle to David at 18:19.

Hushai reached Jerusalem at the very hour Absalom was entering the city. John Gill argues that the timing hid Hushai's flight with David from Absalom. The king's friend could now serve David inside the palace.