And David said to Ittai, Go and pass over. And Ittai the Gittite passed over, and all his men, and all the little ones that were with him.

And all the country wept with a loud voice, and all the people passed over the king also himself passed over the brook Kidron,* and all the people passed over, toward the way of the wilderness.

And lo Zadok also, and all the Levites were with him, bearing the ark of the covenant of God: and they set down the ark of God; and Abiathar went up, until all the people had done passing out of the city.

And the king said unto Zadok, Carry back the ark of God into the city : if I shall find favour in the eyes of the LORD, he will bring me again, and shew me both it and his habitation :

But if he thus say, I have no delight in thee; behold, here am I, let him do to me as seemeth good unto him.

The king said also unto Zadok the priest, Art not thou a seer? return into the city in peace, and your two sons with you, Ahimaaz thy son, and Jonathan the son of Abiathar.

See, I will tarry in the plain of the wilderness, until there come word from you to certify me.

Zadok therefore and Abiathar carried the ark of God again to Jerusalem : and they tarried there.

COMMENT.-When the time seemed to Absalom ripe for his schemes, he asked permission of his unsuspecting father to go and pay his Nazarite vow at Hebron, which for Abraham's sake was then a sacred place, and where he had been born. It is said to have been "after forty years,” and there is a question whether this be an error in the writing for four years, or whether the forty can be reckoned from David's first anointing by Samuel at Bethlehem in 1065. Two hundred men of Jerusalem he invited to his feast, and they went in ignorance of his design; but he had warned the men "whose hearts he had stolen" by his blandishments, to rise and join him when they should hear the sound of the trumpet at Hebron; and he seems also to have before taken counsel with one of David's chief advisers, namely, Ahithophel, of the city of Giloh, in the hill country of Judah. His son was Eliam, or Ammiel, who was the father of Bathsheba; unless indeed her father were another Eliam, not the son of Ahithophel. Some have thought that it was Bathsheba's disgrace and the murder of Uriah that embittered Ahithophel against the king, but it hardly seems likely that such a time-server as Ahithophel evidently was would join a rebellion so perilous to his granddaughter's children. It is plain, however,

*The Dark.

that his desertion was a very great surprise to David, since he mourns over it in two Psalms :

Yea, mine own familiar friend, in whom I trusted,

Which did eat of my bread, hath lifted up his heel against me.

Again

For it was not an enemy that reached me;

Then I could have borne it:

PSALM xli. 9.

Neither was it he that hated me that did magnify himself against me;
Then I would have hid myself from him.

But it was thou, a man mine equal, my guide, and mine acquaintance.
We took sweet counsel together, and walked unto the house of God

in company.

PSALM lv. 12—14.

In both of these wondrously foretelling, even in minute detail, the treachery of Judas.

Such numbers flocked round at Absalom's summons, drawn by his machinations, that when the tidings came to Jerusalem David had no time to raise an equal force. He had no doubt that there were many faithful hearts throughout Israel; but Absalom was on his march, and no warriors were at hand but the Philistine bodyguard, whom he had brought with him from Ziklag, and probably converted to his faith. They were the Cherethites, a word thought to come from the name Cretans; the Pelethites, or runners; and the Gittites, from Gath; but brave as they were, David had not numbers to risk a battle, and as the walls of Jerusalem were not yet finished, he thought that to await the rebels within them would only bring bloodshed and destruction on his beloved city. So, with all his wives and young children, he repaired first to his house outside the city, where all the faithful gathered round him, and he had time to show his noble unselfishness by the commands he gave. He advised Ittai of Gath, as a stranger and not his subject, to go back with his Philistines, and serve the new king; but Ittai loved him far too earnestly not to cast in his lot with him, and held to him, like Ruth, as indeed did all the noble guard, taking their wives and children with them. allow the priests to bear the ark with him; rightful home, and he would not take it away. He was religious and reverent, but not superstitious, and he knew that God would be with him even without the ark, and that if God were against

Nor would David
Jerusalem was its

him the ark could do nothing for him. He further agreed with the two priests, Zadok and Abiathar, that their two sons, sacred persons able to pass in and out easily, but active young men, should carry him intelligence, for which he would wait on the road to the fords of Jordan, through the wilderness of Judea. So all the faithful, and David among them, descended to the ravine where flows the brook Kidron, or "The Dark," by the very path, perhaps, by which, after more than a thousand years, the Son of David should descend, to be betrayed in the garden of Gethsemane, by His own familiar friend, into the hands of His enemies.

LESSON CX.

DAVID ON MOUNT OLIVET.

B.C. 1023.-2 SAM. XV. 30-xvi. 14.

And David went up by the ascent of mount Olivet, and wept as he went up, and had his head covered, and he went barefoot: and all the people that was with him covered every man his head, and they went up, weeping as they went up.

And one told David, saying, Ahithophel is among the conspirators with Absalom. And David said, O LORD, I pray thee, turn the counsel of Ahithophel into foolishness.

And it came to pass, that when David was come to the top of the mount, where he worshipped God, behold, Hushai the Archite came to meet him with his coat rent, and earth upon his head :

Unto whom David said, If thou passest on with me, then thou shalt be a burden unto me:

But if thou return to the city, and say unto Absalom, I will be thy servant, O king; as I have been thy father's servant hitherto, so will I now also be thy servant: then mayest thou for me defeat the counsel of Ahithophel.

And hast thou not there with thee Zadok and Abiathar the priests? therefore it shall be, that what thing soever thou shalt hear out of the king's house, thou shalt tell it to Zadok and Abiathar the priests.

Behold, they have there with them their two sons, Ahimaaz Zadok's son, and Jonathan Abiathar's son; and by them ye shall send unto me every thing that ye can hear.

So Hushai David's friend came into the city, and Absalom came into Jerusalem.

And when David was a little past the top of the hill, behold, Ziba the

servant of Mephibosheth met him, with a couple of asses saddled, and upon them two hundred loaves of bread, and an hundred bunches of raisins, and an hundred of summer fruits, and a bottle of wine.

And the king said unto Ziba, What meanest thou by these? And Ziba said, The asses be for the king's household to ride on; and the bread and summer fruit for the young men to eat; and the wine, that such as be faint in the wilderness may drink.

And the king said, And where is thy master's son? And Ziba said unto the king, Behold, he abideth at Jerusalem: for he said, To-day shall the house of Israel restore me the kingdom of my father.

Then said the king to Ziba, Behold, thine are all that pertained unto Mephibosheth. And Ziba said, I humbly beseech thee that I may find grace in thy sight, my lord, O king.

And when king David came to Bahurim, behold, thence came out a man of the family of the house of Saul, whose name was Shimei, the son of Gera: he came forth, and cursed still as he came.

And he cast stones at David, and at all the servants of king David: and all the people and all the mighty men were on his right hand and on his left. And thus said Shimei when he cursed, Come out, come out, thou bloody man, and thou man of Belial:

The Lord hath returned upon thee all the blood of the house of Saul, in whose stead thou hast reigned; and the LORD hath delivered the kingdom into the hand of Absalom thy son: and, behold, thou art taken in thy mischief, because thou art a bloody man.

Then said Abishai the son of Zeruiah unto the king, Why should this dead dog curse my lord the king? let me go over, I pray thee, and take off his head.

And the king said, What have I to do with you, ye sons of Zeruiah? so let him curse, because the LORD hath said unto him, Curse David. Who shall then say, Wherefore hast thou done so?

And David said to Abishai, and to all his servants, Behold, my son, which came forth of my bowels, seeketh my life: how much more now may this Benjamite do it? let him alone, and let him curse, for the LORD hath bidden him.

It may be that the LORD will look on mine affliction, and that the LORD will requite me good for his cursing this day.

And as David and his men went by the way, Shimei went along on the hill's side over against him, and cursed as he went, and threw stones at him, and cast dust.

And the king, and all the people that were with him, came weary, and refreshed themselves there.

COMMENT.-There are few descriptions more touching in the whole world than that of the great conqueror king, in his old age, driven from the city his victorious arms had won for his people by his own ungrateful son and subjects, weeping as he went, and with all those with him bearing the tokens of mourning, the head + Large skin.

* Dates.

wrapped in the mantle and strewn with dust, and the feet bare. But the hill he mounted was Olivet, which slopes up from the Kedron brook which he had just passed—the same hill where the Anointed Son of David wept in like manner over Jerusalem, but, unlike David, had no sin of His own for which to weep. On the crown of the hill, whence the Saviour should one day ascend into heaven, David, before turning away out of sight of the fair city that he loved so well, bent prostrate on the ground in prayer. He had just been told of the defection of Ahithophel, tidings that had dismayed and grieved him exceedingly; but he was here encouraged by the arrival of Hushai, his friend and counsellor, and apparently reckoned as next in prudence to Ahithophel; but he seems to have been an old man and useless as a warrior, so that David represented that, though he would be an encumbrance in the retreat and wandering, he could do as great service by offering himself to Absalom, doing his best to prevent Ahithophel's clever plans from being adopted, and sending tidings of them through the two young priests. It was a stratagem, no doubt, and does not agree with our Christian notions of honour; but this shows how the standard even of the good has been raised since the coming of the Greater than David.

Another pang caused by the sense of ingratitude fell on the sorrowful king. Ziba, Mephibosheth's steward, came up from Gibeah with a present of cakes of pressed raisins and dates, with wine and asses— all most welcome to the fugitives hastily driven from home; but he brought with them a story that Mephibosheth was waiting at Jerusalem in the hope of being made king in his grandfather's room—a cruel and false accusation, for poor lame Mephibosheth had been only prevented from accompanying his benefactor in his flight by Ziba's own contrivance to deprive him of his ass. But it was another shock, to make David feel himself forsaken; and, stung with grief and anger, he granted all Saul's land away to the treacherous Ziba. Again, as he passed down the eastern slope of Olivet, at Bahurim (near Bethany), he was on Benjamite ground, and a kinsman of Saul's family, Shimei by name, came out and ran along the side of the hill, on the opposite side of the long ravine through which the Kedron rushes to the Jordan, throwing stones and earth at the fugitive king, and reproaching and cursing him savagely as a man of blood, declaring that the deaths of the sons of Saul (probably the seven slain in