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2 Samuel 16 of 24

2 Samuel 16

A cursing Benjaminite throws stones at a fleeing king, and David's answer reveals something about how he understands his own situation.

Summary

A little past the summit of Olivet, Ziba the servant of Mephibosheth meets David with two hundred loaves, a hundred bunches of raisins, a hundred of summer fruit, and a bottle of wine. David asks where Mephibosheth is. Ziba answers: he is abiding at Jerusalem, for he said today will the house of Israel restore the kingdom of his father to me. David immediately gives Ziba all that pertained to Mephibosheth. Shimei the son of Gera, a man of the family of the house of Saul, comes out from Bahurim cursing continually as David and his servants advance. He throws stones at David and at all his servants, calling David: come out, thou bloody man, thou man of Belial. The Lord hath returned upon thee all the blood of the house of Saul, in whose stead thou hast reigned; the Lord hath delivered the kingdom into the hand of Absalom thy son. Abishai says: let me go and take off his head. David says: leave him alone; if the Lord hath bidden him curse David, who shall say wherefore doest thou so? Perhaps the Lord will look on mine affliction, and the Lord will requite me good for his cursing this day. David and his company travel all day weary to the Jordan.

Absalom and all the men of Israel arrive in Jerusalem, and Ahithophel with him. Hushai the Archite, David's friend sent back into the city as a spy, comes to Absalom and says Long live the king. Absalom asks Hushai why he has not accompanied his friend David. Hushai says: whom the Lord and this people and all the men of Israel choose, his will I be. Absalom consults Ahithophel. Ahithophel counsels him to go in unto David's concubines who have been left to keep the house — all Israel will hear that thou art abhorred of thy father; then the hands of all that are with thee shall be strong. They pitch a tent for Absalom upon the roof and he goes in unto his father's concubines in the sight of all Israel. The narrator observes that the counsel of Ahithophel was in those days as if a man had inquired at the oracle of God — both David and Absalom so regarded it.

Appears
David Absalom
Themes
Curse and Humiliation Rebellion Divine Retribution
All 24 chapters — click to jump
  1. 2 Samuel 1Chapter 1 is the hinge between 1 Samuel and 2 Samuel.
  2. 2 Samuel 2Chapter 2 opens the period of civil war that will occupy much of the first half of the book.
  3. 2 Samuel 3Chapter 3 is one of the most politically complex chapters in the book.
  4. 2 Samuel 4Chapter 4 closes the civil war with a brief, ugly episode.
  5. 2 Samuel 5Chapter 5 is the pivotal chapter of the book's first half.
  6. 2 Samuel 6Chapter 6 is one of the most dramatically charged chapters in 2 Samuel, covering two episodes that frame the ark's arrival in Jerusalem.
  7. 2 Samuel 7Chapter 7 is the theological centre of the entire David narrative and one of the most consequential passages in the Hebrew Bible for later Jewish and Christian thought.
  8. 2 Samuel 8Chapter 8 reads differently from everything around it.
  9. 2 Samuel 9Chapter 9 is the chapter the Court History uses to establish one key dimension of David's character before the crisis arrives.
  10. 2 Samuel 10Chapter 10 establishes the military context of the Bathsheba episode.
  11. 2 Samuel 11Chapter 11 is the turning point of 2 Samuel and one of the most consequential chapters in biblical narrative.
  12. 2 Samuel 12Chapter 12 contains the most famous confrontation in the book.
  13. 2 Samuel 13Chapter 13 is the first fulfilment of Nathan's sentence in chapter 12.
  14. 2 Samuel 14Chapter 14 covers the three years in which David longs for Absalom but will not recall him, and Joab's intervention to change that.
  15. 2 Samuel 15Chapter 15 is the emotional nadir of the first movement of the Absalom crisis.
  16. 2 Samuel 16Chapter 16 covers three encounters as David makes his way out of Jerusalem.
  17. 2 Samuel 17Chapter 17 is the intelligence chapter of the Absalom revolt and turns on a moment of competitive counsel.
  18. 2 Samuel 18Chapter 18 is the emotional climax of 2 Samuel.
  19. 2 Samuel 19Chapter 19 covers David's return to Jerusalem and the political settlements it requires.
  20. 2 Samuel 20Chapter 20 is the coda to the Absalom crisis.
  21. 2 Samuel 21Chapter 21 opens the appendix section of 2 Samuel — chapters 21-24 are not chronological narrative but supplementary materials: two episodes of famine and plague bracketing two poems and two hero lists.
  22. 2 Samuel 22Chapter 22 is an extended psalm, found also as Psalm 18 in the Psalter, which the editors of 2 Samuel have placed near the end of the book as David's retrospective meditation on his life.
  23. 2 Samuel 23Chapter 23 contains two distinct sections.
  24. 2 Samuel 24Chapter 24 is the second appendix episode bracketing the poems of chapters 22-23, and it closes the book on an unexpected note.
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2 Samuel 15
Next · Chapter 17 →
2 Samuel 17
The book itself
Summary & story
What 2 Samuel is, why it matters.
Analysis
Themes
Power, consequence, grief, the dynastic promise, and the realism of the prose.
Who's who
David's court
The household of a king who has everything and gives most of it away.

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