2 Samuel 19 Bible study: Bringing the king back

The battle is won, but the chapter opens with the king's grief: "Behold, the king weeps and mourns for Absalom" (19:1). "The victory that day was turned into mourning among all the people" (19:2) (tap victory). "The people sneaked into the city that day, as people who are ashamed steal away when they flee in battle" (19:3), while "The king covered his face" and cried, "My son Absalom, Absalom, my son, my son!" (19:4). Then Joab, who had thrust three darts through Absalom's heart (18:14), comes in to the king: "Today you have shamed the faces of all your servants who today have saved your life" (19:5), "in that you love those who hate you and hate those who love you" (19:6). He ends with an oath: "Now therefore arise, go out and speak to comfort your servants; for I swear by the LORD, if you don’t go out, not a man will stay with you this night" (19:7). The chapter doesn't say whether Joab was right. It says what the king did: "Then the king arose and sat in the gate" (19:8). When the news of Absalom came, he had gone "up to the room over the gate" to weep (18:33); now the word goes round, "Behold, the king is sitting in the gate", and "All the people came before the king" (19:8).

2 Samuel 19:23→leads toMatthew 18:26-27

Shimei, who had cursed David (16:5-7), "fell down before the king when he had come over the Jordan" (19:18) and said, "Don’t let my lord impute iniquity to me" (19:19), "For your servant knows that I have sinned" (19:20). Abishai asked for his death (19:21), but the king said, "You will not die" (19:23), and "The king swore to him" (19:23). When Peter asked Jesus, "how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him?" (Matthew 18:21), Jesus told of "a certain king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants" (Matthew 18:23). The servant who could not pay "fell down and knelt before him" (Matthew 18:26), and "The lord of that servant, being moved with compassion, released him and forgave him the debt" (Matthew 18:27). No New Testament passage cites 2 Samuel 19, and Matthew doesn't name it, so setting the two side by side is a reading, and it rests on what happens in both, a man in the wrong falling down before a king and being let go, not on a shared word. Some see the same thing in both: the one who falls down asks for mercy and the king grants it. Others read each on its own terms: Jesus told the parable about forgiving "your brother from your hearts" (Matthew 18:35), while David gave his own reason, tied to that day: "For don’t I know that I am king over Israel today?" (19:22), and at the end of his life he told Solomon, "don’t hold him guiltless" (1 Kings 2:9).

שׁוּבshuvsay SHOOV

Brown-Driver-Briggs: "turn back, return", and in the causative form, "cause to return, bring back". The chapter uses it eight times, and most are about the king. The tribes ask, "why don’t you speak a word of bringing the king back?" (19:10). David asks the elders of Judah, "Why are you the last to bring the king back to his house" (19:11), and again, "Why then are you the last to bring back the king?" (19:12). Judah sends him word, "Return, you and all your servants" (19:14), and "the king returned" (19:15). Barzillai uses it of himself: "Please let your servant turn back again" (19:37), and after the king kissed and blessed him, "he returned to his own place" (19:39). And the men of Israel end the chapter complaining that their advice was not first had "in bringing back our king" (19:43). In Hebrew each of these is shuv. It was David's own word as he left Jerusalem: "If I find favor in the LORD’s eyes, he will bring me again" (15:25).