Immerse: Kingdoms Full Volume - Flipbook - Page 171
2S
| 15:34–16:13
S am u el – K I N G S
159
told him, “If you go with me, you will only be a burden. Return to Jeru
salem and tell Absalom, ‘I will now be your adviser, O king, just as I was
your father’s adviser in the past.’ Then you can frustrate and counter Ahith
ophel’s advice. Zadok and Abiathar, the priests, will be there. Tell them
about the plans being made in the king’s palace, and they will send their
sons Ahimaaz and Jonathan to tell me what is going on.”
So David’s friend Hushai returned to Jerusalem, getting there just as
Absalom arrived.
When David had gone a little beyond the summit of the Mount of O
lives,
Ziba, the servant of Mephibosheth, was waiting there for him. He had
two donkeys loaded with 200 loaves of bread, 100 clusters of raisins,
100 bunches of summer fruit, and a wineskin full of wine.
“What are these for?” the king asked Ziba.
Ziba replied, “The donkeys are for the king’s people to ride on, and the
bread and summer fruit are for the young men to eat. The wine is for those
who become exhausted in the wilderness.”
“And where is Mephibosheth, Saul’s grandson?” the king asked him.
“He stayed in Jerusalem,” Ziba replied. “He said, ‘Today I will get back
the kingdom of my grandfather Saul.’”
“In that case,” the king told Ziba, “I give you everything Mephibosheth
owns.”
“I bow before you,” Ziba replied. “May I always be pleasing to you, my
lord the king.”
As King David came to Bahurim, a man came out of the village cursing
them. It was Shimei son of Gera, from the same clan as Saul’s family. He
threw stones at the king and the king’s officers and all the mighty warriors
who surrounded him. “Get out of here, you murderer, you scoundrel!” he
shouted at David. “The Lord is paying you back for all the bloodshed in
Saul’s clan. You stole his throne, and now the Lord has given it to your
son Absalom. At last you will taste some of your own medicine, for you
are a murderer!”
“Why should this dead dog curse my lord the king?” Abishai son of Zer
uiah demanded. “Let me go over and cut off his head!”
“No!” the king said. “Who asked your opinion, you sons of Zerui ah! If
the Lord has told him to curse me, who are you to stop him?”
Then David said to Abishai and to all his servants, “My own son is trying to kill me. Doesn’t this relative of Saul have even more reason to do
so? Leave him alone and let him curse, for the Lord has told him to do it.
And perhaps the Lord will see that I am being wronged and will bless me
because of these curses today.” So David and his men continued down the