2 Samuel 19: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

Joab confronts David for mourning Absalom so openly that his troops slink home in shame, and warns that the army will desert him unless he goes out and speaks to his men. David does so, and while the tribes argue about bringing him back, he sends word to Judah and offers Amasa command of the army in place of Joab. On his return across the Jordan he spares Shimei, settles the land dispute between Mephibosheth and Ziba, and takes leave of Barzillai, who sends Chimham in his place. The chapter ends with the men of Israel and the men of Judah quarreling over who has the greater claim to the king.

Claim by Claim

1. 19:1
   • Someone told Joab that the king was weeping and mourning for Absalom.
2. 19:2
   • The victory of that day was turned into mourning for all the people.
   • The people heard that day that the king was grieving for his son.
3. 19:3
   • The people came into the city stealthily that day.
   • They acted like people who are ashamed and slip away when they flee in battle.
4. 19:4
   • The king covered his face.
   • The king cried out with a loud voice.
   • The king cried, 'O my son Absalom, O Absalom, my son, my son!'
5. 19:5
   • Joab came into the house to the king.
   • Joab said the king had that day shamed the faces of all his servants.
   • Joab said those servants had that day saved the king's life.
   • Joab said they had saved the lives of the king's sons and daughters.
   • Joab said they had saved the lives of the king's wives.
   • Joab said they had saved the lives of the king's concubines.
6. 19:6
   • Joab said the king loved those who hated him.
   • Joab said the king hated those who loved him.
   • Joab said the king had declared that day that commanders and servants meant nothing to him.
   • Joab said he perceived that if Absalom were alive and all of them had died that day, it would have pleased the king.
7. 19:7
   • Joab told the king to get up and go out.
   • Joab told the king to speak to the heart of his servants.
   • Joab swore by the LORD.
   • Joab said that if the king did not go out, not one man would remain with him that night.
   • Joab said that outcome would be worse for the king than all the evil that had befallen him from his youth until then.
8. 19:8
   • The king got up and sat in the gate.
   • They told all the people that the king was sitting in the gate.
   • All the people came before the king.
   • Israel had fled, every man to his tent.
9. 19:9
   • All the people throughout all the tribes of Israel were disputing.
   • They said the king had saved them from the hand of their enemies.
   • They said he had delivered them from the hand of the Philistines.
   • They said he had now fled out of the land because of Absalom.
10. 19:10
    • They said Absalom, whom they had anointed over themselves, was dead in battle.
    • They asked why no one spoke a word about bringing the king back.
11. 19:11
    • King David sent word to Zadok and Abiathar the priests.
    • David told them to speak to the elders of Judah.
    • David asked why the elders of Judah were the last to bring the king back to his house.
    • David said the talk of all Israel had come to the king at his house.
12. 19:12
    • David said the elders of Judah were his brothers.
    • David said they were his bone and his flesh.
    • David asked why then they were the last to bring back the king.
13. 19:13
    • David told them to say to Amasa: are you not my bone and my flesh?
    • David invoked an oath that God should do so to him and more also.
    • David swore that Amasa would be commander of the army before him continually in place of Joab.
14. 19:14
    • He swayed the heart of all the men of Judah as the heart of one man.
    • The text does not specify who did the swaying.
    • They sent word to the king: return, you and all your servants.
15. 19:15
    • The king returned and came to the Jordan.
    • Judah came to Gilgal.
    • Judah came to meet the king and bring him over the Jordan.
16. 19:16
    • Shimei son of Gera was a Benjamite.
    • Shimei was from Bahurim.
    • Shimei hurried down with the men of Judah to meet King David.
17. 19:17
    • A thousand men of Benjamin were with Shimei.
    • Ziba, the servant of the house of Saul, was there.
    • Ziba's fifteen sons and twenty servants were with him.
    • They went over the Jordan before the king.
18. 19:18
    • A ferry boat went over to carry the king's household across.
    • The Hebrew is unclear here, and can also mean that the crossing-place or ford was crossed.
    • The crossing was also to do what the king thought good.
    • Shimei son of Gera fell down before the king as the king had come over the Jordan.
19. 19:19
    • Shimei asked the king not to charge him with iniquity.
    • Shimei asked the king not to remember the wrong his servant did on the day the king went out of Jerusalem.
    • Shimei asked that the king not take it to heart.
20. 19:20
    • Shimei said he knew that he had sinned.
    • Shimei said he had come that day as the first of all the house of Joseph to go down to meet the king.
21. 19:21
    • Abishai son of Zeruiah answered.
    • Abishai asked whether Shimei should not be put to death for this.
    • Abishai said Shimei had cursed the LORD's anointed.
22. 19:22
    • David asked what he had to do with the sons of Zeruiah.
    • David asked why they should be adversaries to him that day.
    • David asked whether any man should be put to death that day in Israel.
    • David said he knew that he was that day king over Israel.
23. 19:23
    • The king said to Shimei that he would not die.
    • The king swore an oath to Shimei.
24. 19:24
    • Mephibosheth is called the son of Saul.
    • Mephibosheth came down to meet the king.
    • Mephibosheth had not tended his feet.
    • Mephibosheth had not trimmed his mustache.
    • Mephibosheth had not washed his clothes.
    • This was so from the day the king departed until the day he returned in peace.
25. 19:25
    • Mephibosheth came to Jerusalem to meet the king.
    • The Hebrew is ambiguous as to whether he came to Jerusalem or came from Jerusalem.
    • The king asked Mephibosheth why he had not gone with him.
26. 19:26
    • Mephibosheth answered the king.
    • Mephibosheth said his servant deceived him.
    • Mephibosheth said he had intended to saddle a donkey and ride on it to go to the king.
    • Mephibosheth said he was lame.
27. 19:27
    • Mephibosheth said the servant had slandered him to the king.
    • Mephibosheth said the king was like an angel of God.
    • Mephibosheth told the king to do what was good in his eyes.
28. 19:28
    • Mephibosheth said all his father's house deserved death before the king.
    • Mephibosheth said the king had set him among those who ate at the king's own table.
    • Mephibosheth asked what right he still had to cry out to the king.
29. 19:29
    • The king asked why Mephibosheth spoke any more of his affairs.
    • The king said he had decided that Mephibosheth and Ziba should divide the land.
30. 19:30
    • Mephibosheth told the king to let Ziba take it all.
    • Mephibosheth said this because the king had come again in peace to his own house.
31. 19:31
    • Barzillai the Gileadite came down from Rogelim.
    • Barzillai went over the Jordan with the king.
    • Barzillai went to send the king on his way at the Jordan.
32. 19:32
    • Barzillai was very old.
    • Barzillai was eighty years old.
    • Barzillai had provided the king with food while the king stayed at Mahanaim.
    • Barzillai was a very great man.
33. 19:33
    • The king invited Barzillai to cross over with him.
    • The king said he would provide for Barzillai with him in Jerusalem.
34. 19:34
    • Barzillai asked how many days of his life remained.
    • Barzillai asked why he should go up to Jerusalem with the king.
35. 19:35
    • Barzillai said he was that day eighty years old.
    • Barzillai asked whether he could discern between good and evil.
    • Barzillai asked whether he could taste what he ate or drank.
    • Barzillai asked whether he could still hear the voice of singing men and singing women.
    • Barzillai asked why his servant should be a burden to the king.
36. 19:36
    • Barzillai said his servant would go only a little way over the Jordan with the king.
    • Barzillai asked why the king should repay him with such a reward.
37. 19:37
    • Barzillai asked to be allowed to turn back.
    • Barzillai said he wished to die in his own city.
    • Barzillai said he wished to be buried by the grave of his father and mother.
    • Barzillai presented his servant Chimham.
    • Barzillai asked that Chimham go over with the king.
    • Barzillai told the king to do to Chimham what seemed good to him.
38. 19:38
    • The king answered that Chimham would go over with him.
    • The king said he would do to Chimham what seemed good to Barzillai.
    • The king said he would do for Barzillai whatever Barzillai required of him.
39. 19:39
    • All the people went over the Jordan.
    • The king came over.
    • The king kissed Barzillai.
    • The king blessed Barzillai.
    • Barzillai returned to his own place.
40. 19:40
    • The king went on to Gilgal.
    • Chimham went on with him.
    • All the people of Judah escorted the king.
    • Half the people of Israel also escorted the king.
41. 19:41
    • All the men of Israel came to the king.
    • They asked why their brothers the men of Judah had stolen the king away.
    • They asked why Judah had brought the king and his household over the Jordan.
    • They said all David's men were brought over with him.
42. 19:42
    • All the men of Judah answered the men of Israel.
    • The men of Judah said the king was near of kin to them.
    • The men of Judah asked why Israel was angry over this matter.
    • The men of Judah asked whether they had eaten at all at the king's expense.
    • The men of Judah asked whether the king had given them any gift.
43. 19:43
    • The men of Israel answered the men of Judah.
    • The men of Israel said they had ten parts in the king.
    • The men of Israel said they had more claim on David than Judah did.
    • The men of Israel asked why Judah despised them.
    • The men of Israel asked why their word was not first in bringing back their king.
    • The words of the men of Judah were harsher than the words of the men of Israel.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

19:1

Joab was David's army commander and nephew. In the previous chapter he had killed Absalom with his own hand, in direct defiance of David's order that the young man be spared, which is the background to the confrontation that follows.

19:3

Soldiers who won a battle normally marched home cheering. These men slipped in quietly, as if they had lost, because the king's grief made their victory feel wrong.

19:4

Covering the face was a public gesture of grief. David is not hiding his feelings but displaying them, in front of an army that has just won a battle for him.

19:5

A concubine was a recognized secondary wife of lower legal standing than a full wife; her children had weaker claims to inheritance. David had left ten of his concubines behind in Jerusalem, and Absalom had publicly taken them as a way of announcing that he had displaced his father.

19:7

"Speak comfortably" in the King James does not mean speak at ease. It translates a Hebrew phrase meaning to speak to someone's heart: to reassure them, to say the warm thing they need to hear.

19:8

The gateway of a walled town was its public square: a covered space where elders heard lawsuits, business was transacted, and a king made himself available. For David to "sit in the gate" was not merely to sit down but to resume the visible work of ruling.

19:9

The Philistines were a people settled on the coastal plain to Israel's south-west, Israel's most dangerous enemy for generations. David's early reputation was built on defeating them.

19:10

Anointing meant pouring olive oil over a man's head in a public ceremony that installed him as king. It is why the king is called "the LORD's anointed" (verse 21), the Hebrew word behind that title is *mashiach*, from which English gets "messiah."

19:11

Zadok and Abiathar were the two chief priests in Jerusalem, and had stayed in the city as David's contacts during Absalom's revolt; priests were natural go-betweens because they could move and speak publicly without arousing suspicion. The "leaders" or elders of Judah were the heads of the leading families, who governed the tribe's local affairs.

19:12

The King James says "ye are my bones and my flesh." That was the ordinary way of saying "you are my own family."

19:13

Amasa had been the commander of Absalom's rebel army, and, like Joab, a nephew of David. Offering the rebel general Joab's job was both an amnesty to the losing side and a demotion for the man who had killed Absalom. "May God punish me, and worse" translates a fixed oath formula in which the speaker calls down an unnamed disaster on himself if he fails to keep his word.

19:15

The Jordan was the river David had crossed when he fled eastward; recrossing it westward is the physical act of returning to power. Gilgal lay just west of the river near Jericho, a traditional assembly point for the tribes.

19:16

Shimei, a member of Saul's tribe of Benjamin, had walked along a ridge cursing David and throwing stones at him as he fled Jerusalem. Coming out early to meet the returning king is an attempt to get in first.

19:17

Ziba was the steward who managed the estate of Saul's family. When David fled, Ziba had brought him supplies and told him that his master Mephibosheth had stayed behind hoping to be made king, a claim that won Ziba the family's land.

19:18

The Hebrew here is uncertain. It may describe a ford, a shallow crossing point, or a ferry or raft; older translations read "ferry boat," most modern ones read a ford.

19:20

"The house of Joseph" was a standing term for the northern tribes as a bloc, from Joseph's sons Ephraim and Manasseh, the largest of them. Shimei is from Benjamin, but claims to speak as the first northerner to submit.

19:21

Zeruiah was David's sister, and her sons Joab and Abishai were his nephews; unusually for the Hebrew Bible, they are identified by their mother rather than their father. To curse the anointed king was treated as a capital offense.

19:22

Zeruiah was David's sister, so Joab and Abishai were his nephews. They were his hardest fighting men, and they often pushed him to kill his enemies when he wanted to show mercy.

19:23

An oath was a binding legal act, not a mood. By swearing it David permanently forfeits his own right to act against Shimei, whatever he privately thinks.

19:24

Mephibosheth was Jonathan's son and Saul's grandson, crippled in both feet since childhood. David had taken him into the palace and given him a permanent seat at the royal table. Leaving the feet unwashed, the mustache untrimmed and clothes unlaundered were the ordinary outward signs of mourning. Mephibosheth is presenting his own body as evidence that he had grieved throughout David's exile rather than celebrating it. (The King James reads "beard"; the Hebrew word refers specifically to the mustache.)

19:26

"Ass" is simply the older English word for a donkey, the ordinary riding animal. The point is that a man who cannot walk cannot leave the city unless someone saddles an animal for him, which is what he says Ziba failed to do.

19:27

Comparing a king to an angel, a messenger of God, was a stock piece of court flattery meaning that he sees the truth of a matter and cannot be deceived. It is a formula of deference, not a claim about David's nature.

19:28

When a dynasty fell, the surviving male relatives of the old king were usually killed to remove rival claimants; Mephibosheth is stating the fate he could normally have expected. To "eat at the king's table" was a formal status: a permanent maintenance at royal expense, which carried both honor and close supervision.

19:29

David is revising the ruling he made while fleeing, when on Ziba's word he had transferred the whole of Saul's family estate to Ziba. Splitting it leaves the conflicting testimony unresolved.

19:31

Gilead was the region east of the Jordan, where David had taken refuge during the revolt. Rogelim was Barzillai's home town there.

19:32

Mahanaim, a fortified town east of the Jordan, had served as David's base of operations in exile. Feeding a king and his army out of private means was an enormous expense, which is why the text notes Barzillai's wealth.

19:35

"Tell the difference between what is good and what is not" here is about the senses and appetites rather than about moral judgment: Barzillai is saying he can no longer tell good food from bad, or take pleasure in what he is offered. Singing men and women were professional court entertainers, one of the luxuries of palace life he is declining.

19:37

Being buried in the family tomb alongside one's parents was the expected and honorable end; to die away from it was a real deprivation. Barzillai is asking not to be taken from his own burying place.

19:39

A kiss and a blessing at parting were formal gestures between men of rank, marking an honorable dismissal rather than private affection.

19:41

"Our brethren" is being used pointedly. Judah and the northern tribes are kin, which is exactly why the north resents being cut out of the ceremony. "Stolen thee away" accuses Judah of hijacking the king's return so that the credit, and the access to him, belonged to them alone.

19:42

David was himself of the tribe of Judah, so the men of Judah are claiming him as a kinsman. Their questions about food and gifts are a denial that they gained anything by escorting him.

19:43

"Ten shares" counts the northern tribes against Judah: Israel is arguing that as ten tribes out of twelve they have the larger stake in the king. The dispute runs on into the revolt described in the next chapter.