First of all, I would like to Welcome all of the New Subscriber's to our weekly
Bible Study. Please know that God is well pleased that you care enough
to study His Letter To Us, the Holy Bible.
These messages are taught for those who have their Spiritual eyes and ears
open. However if yours are not open yet, they will be before we finish these
Lessons. So please sharpen up, and with full attention study these Lessons.
Before we begin today remember that when things hard to be understood come in
our way in studying Scripture let us pray, and wait patiently God's own time
for revealing the meaning. It would not be a revelation if there were not some
things therein which are beyond our comprehension now, and which form tests
of faith whether we will bow our reason before the Word of God, and humbly
confess our ignorance, and adore God's infinite wisdom in the mighty scheme
of redemption. Blessed be His Holy Name, if there be deep waters in which an
elephant may swim, there are the healing waters of salvation in which the
Lamb may wade. Our salvation does not depend on clearing up the abstruse parts
of the Bible: all that is necessary for salvation is so plain that "the
wayfaring men," however simple, ["shall not err therein"] (Isaiah 35:8).
Now O. Addison, we will continue our study of the life and times of David,
so let us begin.
2 Samuel, Chapter 17
17:1 Moreover Ahithophel said to Absalom, "Now let me choose twelve thousand
men, and I will arise and pursue David tonight.
[Let me now choose out twelve thousand men] Had this counsel been followed,
David and his little troop would soon have been destroyed; nothing but the
miraculous interposition of God could have saved them. Twelve thousand chosen
troops coming against him, in his totally unprepared state, would have soon
settled the business of the kingdom. Ahithophel well saw that, with this advice
neglected, all was lost.
2 I will come upon him while he is weary and weak, and make him afraid. And all
the people who are with him will flee, and I will strike only the king.
3 Then I will bring back all the people to you. When all return except the man
whom you seek, all the people will be at peace."
[The man whom thou seekest is as if all returned] Only secure David and all
Israel will be on your side. He is the leader of the whole group; destroy him,
and all the rest will submit.
4 And the saying pleased Absalom and all the elders of Israel.
5 Then Absalom said, "Now call Hushai the Archite also, and let us hear what he
says too."
6 And when Hushai came to Absalom, Absalom spoke to him, saying, "Ahithophel
has spoken in this manner. Shall we do as he says? If not, speak up."
7 So Hushai said to Absalom: "The advice that Ahithophel has given is not good
at this time.
8 For," said Hushai, "you know your father and his men, that they are mighty
men, and they are enraged in their minds, like a bear robbed of her cubs in
the field; and your father is a man of war, and will not camp with the people.
[As a bear robbed of her cubs] All wild beasts are very furious when robbed of
their young; but we have some remarkable instances of the maternal affection
of the bear in such circumstances; see one at the end of the chapter.
9 Surely by now he is hidden in some pit, or in some other place. And it will
be, when some of them are overthrown at the first, that whoever hears it
will say, 'There is a slaughter among the people who follow Absalom.'
10 And even he who is valiant, whose heart is like the heart of a lion, will
melt completely. For all Israel knows that your father is a mighty man, and
those who are with him are valiant men.
11 Therefore I advise that all Israel be fully gathered to you, from Dan to
Beersheba, like the sand that is by the sea for multitude, and that you go
to battle in person.
12 So we will come upon him in some place where he may be found, and we will
fall on him as the dew falls on the ground. And of him and all the men who
are with him there shall not be left so much as one.
[We will light upon him as the dew falls on the ground.] No image could have
symbolized the sudden onset of an enemy so graphically to an Oriental mind
as the silent, irresistible, and rapid descent of this natural moisture on
every field and blade of grass.
13 Moreover, if he has withdrawn into a city, then all Israel shall bring ropes
to that city; and we will pull it into the river, until there is not one
small stone found there."
[Shall all Israel bring ropes to that city] The original word chabaaliym, which
signifies ropes, and from which we have our word "cable", may have some
peculiarity of meaning here; for it is not likely that any city could be pulled
down with ropes. The Chaldee, which should be best judge in this case,
translates the original word by mashreyan, towers: this makes more sence.
14 So Absalom and all the men of Israel said, "The advice of Hushai the Archite
is better than the advice of Ahithophel." For the LORD had purposed to
defeat the good advice of Ahithophel, to the intent that the LORD might bring
disaster on Absalom.
15 Then Hushai said to Zadok and Abiathar the priests, "Thus and so Ahithophel
advised Absalom and the elders of Israel, and thus and so I have advised.
The counsel of Hushai ... is better than the counsel of Ahithophel. The reasons
specified being extremely plausible, and expressed in the strong hyperbolical
language suited to dazzle an Oriental imagination, the council declared in
favor of Hushai's advice; and their resolution was the immediate cause of the
discomfiting of the rebellion, although the counsel itself was only a link in
the chain of events held by the controlling hand of the Lord.
16 Now therefore, send quickly and tell David, saying, 'Do not spend this night
in the plains of the wilderness, but speedily cross over, lest the king
and all the people who are with him be swallowed up.'"
Send quickly, and tell David. Apparently doubting that his advice would be
followed, Hushai ordered secret intelligence to be conveyed to David of all
that transpired, with an urgent recommendation to cross the Jordan without a
moment's delay, lest Ahithophel's address and influence might produce a change
on the prince's mind, and an immediate pursuit be determined.
17 Now Jonathan and Ahimaaz stayed at En Rogel, for they dared not be seen
coming into the city; so a female servant would come and tell them, and they
would go and tell King David.
[En-rogel] The fullers' well; the place where they were accustomed to tread the
clothes with their feet; hence, the name `ayin, a well, and regel, the
foot, because of the treading above mentioned.
[And a wench went and told them] The word "wench" occurs nowhere else in the
Holy Scriptures: and, indeed, has no business here; as the Hebrew word
shipchaah,
should have been translated "girl, maid, maid-servant." The word either comes
from the Anglo-Saxon "wencle," a maid, or the Belgic wunch, desire, a thing
wished for: multum enim ut plurimum Puellae a Juvenibus desiderantur, seu
appetuntur.. In every other place where the word occurs, the translators render
it "handmaid, bondmaid, maiden, womanservant, maidservant, and servant". Such
is the latitude with which they translate the same Hebrew term in almost
innumerable instances.
18 Nevertheless a lad saw them, and told Absalom. But both of them went away
quickly and came to a man's house in Bahurim, who had a well in his court;
and they went down into it.
19 Then the woman took and spread a covering over the well's mouth, and spread
ground grain on it; and the thing was not known.
The woman ... spread a covering over the well's mouth [hamaacaak] - the
covering. It is used specially for the veil or curtain before the entrance of
the
tabernacle and of the court (Exodus 26:36, etc.; 35:17; 39:40) - generally for
a door hanging curtain. The meaning of the clause therefore is, 'the woman
took the mesek, the door hanging, which, as the most convenient at the moment,
she had taken down, and spread it upon the mouth of the well; and to give
a greater air of naturalness to the appearance of the place, she threw upon the
covering a heap of grain.' Josephus says, 'she laid fleeces of wool over
them' ('Antiquities,' b. vii., ch. ix., sec. 7). Thus the kind providence of
God, who watched so wondrously over the interests of David, protected the
endangered lives of the two messengers until they carried Hushai's important
message to the fugitive king. Following the counsel given him, not to stop
all night in the wilderness, he went down the steep mountain pass by which the
Israelites first penetrated into the interior of Palestine (Joshua 7) to
Jericho and Gilgal, then hastened to cross the river (the mode of transit is
not described), and by dawn of the following day the whole party had gotten
safely over. The circumstances of that distressing flight, aggravated by the
hour of midnight, and the roar of the numerous rapids of the Jordan, are
graphically
depicted in Psalms 42-43, which, although bearing the name of the sons of
Korah, represent vividly and fully the feelings of the pious monarch. The
spreading
of a covering over the well's mouth for the drying of grain is a common practice
20 And when Absalom's servants came to the woman at the house, they said,
"Where are Ahimaaz and Jonathan?"
So the woman said to them, "They have gone over the water brook."
And when they had searched and could not find them, they returned to Jerusalem.
21 Now it came to pass, after they had departed, that they came up out of the
well and went and told King David, and said to David," Arise and cross over
the water quickly. For thus has Ahithophel advised against you."
22 So David and all the people who were with him arose and crossed over the
Jordan. By morning light not one of them was left who had not gone over the
Jordan.
23 Now when Ahithophel saw that his advice was not followed, he saddled a
donkey, and arose and went home to his house, to his city. Then he put his
household
in order, and hanged himself, and died; and he was buried in his father's tomb.
[Put his household in order] This self-murder could not be called lunacy, since
every step was deliberate. He foresaw Absalom's ruin; and he did not choose
to witness it, and share in the disgrace: and he could expect no mercy at the
hands of David. He was a very bad man, and died an unprepared and accursed
death.
24 Then David went to Mahanaim. And Absalom crossed over the Jordan, he and all
the men of Israel with him.
Then David came to Mahanaim - in the high Eastern country of Gilead, the seat
of Ish-bosheth's government.
Absalom passed over Jordan. It is not said how long an interval elapsed; but
there must have been sufficient time to make the intended levy throughout
the kingdom.
25 And Absalom made Amasa captain of the army instead of Joab. This Amasa was
the son of a man whose name was Jithra, an Israelite, who had gone in to
Abigail the daughter of Nahash, sister of Zeruiah, Joab's mother.
[Amasa captain of the host] From the account in this verse, it appears that
Joab and Amasa were sisters' children, and both nephews to David.
26 So Israel and Absalom encamped in the land of Gilead.
27 Now it happened, when David had come to Mahanaim, that Shobi the son of
Nahash from Rabbah of the people of Ammon, Machir the son of Ammiel from Lo
Debar, and Barzillai the Gileadite from Rogelim,
[When David had come to Mahanaim.] The necessities of the king and his
followers were hospitably ministered to by three chiefs, whose generous loyalty
is recorded with honor in the sacred narrative. That three persons should be in
circumstances, at their own expense, to furnish adequate supplies of food
and other necessaries to the royal fugitives can be no matter of surprise, when
it is considered that the owners of so immense flocks as are reared on
the extensive pasture lands of the East are far wealthier than the cultivators
of land.
Shobi - must have been brother of Hanun. Disapproving, probably, of that young
king's outrage upon the Israelite ambassadors, he had been made governor
of Ammon by David, on the conquest of that country. [See Josephus,
'Antiquities,' b. vii., ch. ix., sec. 8, where he is called Siphar:
Machir - This chief is supposed by some to have been brother of Bath-sheba, but
without foundation (cf. 1 Chronicles 3:5 with 2 Samuel 11:3 of this book).
His locale cannot be exactly determined, in our ignorance of the site of
Lo-deber, which is known only to have been in the nomad region east of the
Jordan.
Barzillai - a wealthy old man, whose great age and infirmities made his loyal
devotion to the distressed monarch peculiarly affecting. The supplies they
brought, which, besides beds for the weary, consisted of the staple produce of
their rich lands and pastures, may be classified as follows:-Edibles: wheat,
barley [sª`oriym, plural, barley in grains after threshing], flour, parched
grain (see Ruth 2:14 1 Sam 17:17 1 Sam 25:18)], beans, lentiles, sheep, and
cheese], slices of coagulated milk..
28 brought beds and basins, earthen vessels and wheat, barley and flour,
parched grain and beans, lentils and parched seeds,
[Brought beds] These no doubt consisted in skins of beasts, mats, carpets, and
such things.
Probably wooden bowls, such as the Arabs still use to eat out of, and to knead
their bread in.
[And earthen vessels] Probably clay vessels, baked in the sun. These were
perhaps used for lifting water, and boiling those articles which required to
be cooked.
[Wheat, and barley, and flour, and parched corn, and beans, and parched pulse,]
There is no direct mention of flesh-meat here; little meat was eaten in
that country, because it would not keep. Whether the sheep mentioned were
brought for their flesh or their milk, is not known.
29 honey and curds, sheep and cheese of the herd, for David and the people who
were with him to eat. For they said, "The people are hungry and weary and
thirsty in the wilderness."
In the wilderness - spread out beyond the cultivated table-lands into the
steppes of Hauran
_______________________________
Well, O. Addison, that ends Chapter 17, and our study for today.
See you next week with another exciting Chapter of God's Holy Word.
Have a great week on God's green Earth! Amen.
With All My Love & Prayers,
Pastor Allen
O. Addison Gethers
e-mail address : [EMAIL PROTECTED] or [EMAIL PROTECTED]
window live messenger: [EMAIL PROTECTED] aim: durangoadd64 skype: cowboys62
yahoo messenger: OADDISONGETHERS
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