1-2 Samuel Week Forty-Eight: 2 Samuel 19:1-43

¹ Then it was told Joab, “Behold, the king is weeping and mourns for Absalom.” ² The victory that day was turned to mourning for all the people, for the people heard it said that day, “The king is grieved for his son.” ³ So the people went by stealth into the city that day, as people who are humiliated steal away when they flee in battle. ⁴ The king covered his face and cried out with a loud voice, “O my son Absalom, O Absalom, my son, my son!” ⁵ Then Joab came into the house to the king and said, “Today you have covered with shame the faces of all your servants, who today have saved your life and the lives of your sons and daughters, the lives of your wives, and the lives of your concubines, ⁶ by loving those who hate you, and by hating those who love you. For you have shown today that princes and servants are nothing to you; for I know this day that if Absalom were alive and all of us were dead today, then you would be pleased. ⁷ Now therefore arise, go out and speak kindly to your servants, for I swear by the Lord, if you do not go out, surely not a man will pass the night with you, and this will be worse for you than all the evil that has come upon you from your youth until now.”

⁸ So the king arose and sat in the gate. When they told all the people, saying, “Behold, the king is sitting in the gate,” then all the people came before the king.

Now Israel had fled, each to his tent. ⁹ All the people were quarreling throughout all the tribes of Israel, saying, “The king delivered us from the hand of our enemies and saved us from the hand of the Philistines, but now he has fled out of the land from Absalom. ¹⁰ However, Absalom, whom we anointed over us, has died in battle. Now then, why are you silent about bringing the king back?”

¹¹ Then King David sent to Zadok and Abiathar the priests, saying, “Speak to the elders of Judah, saying, ‘Why are you the last to bring the king back to his house, since the word of all Israel has come to the king, even to his house? ¹² You are my brothers; you are my bone and my flesh. Why then should you be the last to bring back the king?’ ¹³ Say to Amasa, ‘Are you not my bone and my flesh? May God do so to me, and more also, if you will not be commander of the army before me continually in place of Joab.’” ¹⁴ Thus he turned the hearts of all the men of Judah as one man, so that they sent word to the king, saying, “Return, you and all your servants.” ¹⁵ The king then returned and came as far as the Jordan. And Judah came to Gilgal in order to go to meet the king, to bring the king across the Jordan.

¹⁶ Then Shimei the son of Gera, the Benjamite who was from Bahurim, hurried and came down with the men of Judah to meet King David. ¹⁷ There were a thousand men of Benjamin with him, with Ziba the servant of the house of Saul, and his fifteen sons and his twenty servants with him; and they rushed to the Jordan before the king. ¹⁸ Then they kept crossing the ford to bring over the king’s household, and to do what was good in his sight. And Shimei the son of Gera fell down before the king as he was about to cross the Jordan. ¹⁹ So he said to the king, “Let not my lord consider me guilty, nor remember what your servant did wrong on the day when my lord the king came out from Jerusalem, so that the king would take it to heart. ²⁰ For your servant knows that I have sinned; therefore behold, I have come today, the first of all the house of Joseph to go down to meet my lord the king.” ²¹ But Abishai the son of Zeruiah said, “Should not Shimei be put to death for this, because he cursed the Lord’s anointed?” ²² David then said, “What have I to do with you, O sons of Zeruiah, that you should this day be an adversary to me? Should any man be put to death in Israel today? For do I not know that I am king over Israel today?” ²³ The king said to Shimei, “You shall not die.” Thus the king swore to him.

²⁴ Then Mephibosheth the son of Saul came down to meet the king; and he had neither cared for his feet, nor trimmed his mustache, nor washed his clothes, from the day the king departed until the day he came home in peace. ²⁵ It was when he came from Jerusalem to meet the king, that the king said to him, “Why did you not go with me, Mephibosheth?” ²⁶ So he answered, “O my lord, the king, my servant deceived me; for your servant said, ‘I will saddle a donkey for myself that I may ride on it and go with the king,’ because your servant is lame. ²⁷ Moreover, he has slandered your servant to my lord the king; but my lord the king is like the angel of God, therefore do what is good in your sight. ²⁸ For all my father’s household was nothing but dead men before my lord the king; yet you set your servant among those who ate at your own table. What right do I have yet that I should complain anymore to the king?” ²⁹ So the king said to him, “Why do you still speak of your affairs? I have decided, ‘You and Ziba shall divide the land.’” ³⁰ Mephibosheth said to the king, “Let him even take it all, since my lord the king has come safely to his own house.”

³¹ Now Barzillai the Gileadite had come down from Rogelim; and he went on to the Jordan with the king to escort him over the Jordan. ³² Now Barzillai was very old, being eighty years old; and he had sustained the king while he stayed at Mahanaim, for he was a very great man. ³³ The king said to Barzillai, “You cross over with me and I will sustain you in Jerusalem with me.” ³⁴ But Barzillai said to the king, “How long have I yet to live, that I should go up with the king to Jerusalem? ³⁵ I am now eighty years old. Can I distinguish between good and bad? Or can your servant taste what I eat or what I drink? Or can I hear anymore the voice of singing men and women? Why then should your servant be an added burden to my lord the king? ³⁶ Your servant would merely cross over the Jordan with the king. Why should the king compensate me with this reward? ³⁷ Please let your servant return, that I may die in my own city near the grave of my father and my mother. However, here is your servant Chimham, let him cross over with my lord the king, and do for him what is good in your sight.” ³⁸ The king answered, “Chimham shall cross over with me, and I will do for him what is good in your sight; and whatever you require of me, I will do for you.” ³⁹ All the people crossed over the Jordan and the king crossed too. The king then kissed Barzillai and blessed him, and he returned to his place.

⁴⁰ Now the king went on to Gilgal, and Chimham went on with him; and all the people of Judah and also half the people of Israel accompanied the king. ⁴¹ And behold, all the men of Israel came to the king and said to the king, “Why had our brothers the men of Judah stolen you away, and brought the king and his household and all David’s men with him over the Jordan?” ⁴² Then all the men of Judah answered the men of Israel, “Because the king is a close relative to us. Why then are you angry about this matter? Have we eaten at all at the king’s expense, or has anything been taken for us?” ⁴³ But the men of Israel answered the men of Judah and said, “We have ten parts in the king, therefore we also have more claim on David than you. Why then did you treat us with contempt? Was it not our advice first to bring back our king?” Yet the words of the men of Judah were harsher than the words of the men of Israel.

—2 Samuel 19:1-43

Sermon Outline

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References

Weekly Study Guide

When a company is struggling, and they bring in a consultant to help them turn things around, the very first thing this consultant will ask is: what is your purpose? Why does your company exist? Because if you are not clear on your purpose, then you will never be effective. One theme we have revisited time and time again in our study of God’s Word is the reality of the long war of Satan against God. We do this because if we do not recognize the strategies used by Satan in trying to oppose God and His plan, we will not properly understand what is going on in scripture, or in the world around us. Satan is alive and well and is actively influencing the course of world events, both on large and small scales. This influence affects us in our everyday lives—even if we don’t realize it. We have discussed how, in the big picture, these strategies of Satan have centered on attacking Israel as the centerpiece of God’s redemptive plan. However, one very intentional consequence of this attack on the identity, role, and future of Israel in God’s plan is that it creates confusion in the church as to its own purpose and role in that plan. It has been said that the saddest end is to discover you’ve won the wrong race. If we are not running the race God has for us—that is to say, if the church is confused about what God wants it to be and do—then Satan has won a significant victory. And misunderstandings about this concept of the Kingdom are front and center in that confusion.

One important starting place for understanding the purpose and destiny of the church is to realize that the church is not called to “conquer” the world with the gospel. We noted several years ago in our study of the church in the book of Ephesians that the church and the Kingdom are two very different things. When the two are confused and conflated, we misunderstand both. The church is not the Kingdom. The church does not bring in the Kingdom. The church is not called to, through its efforts, make the world a better and better place so that the return of Christ can be ushered in. The church is not destined to rule in this age. Rather, we are told to be subservient to Caesar, not overthrow him. Despite what many believe, the world will not grow more and more “Christian” as the end draws near. Rather, the very opposite will occur. All of these previous ideas are taught by those who misunderstand the Kingdom in scripture. Rather, according to scripture, the church is the body of believers present in the world between Pentecost and the Rapture who are dispatched on a mission to be and make disciples. In stark contrast, the Kingdom is the 1,000-year period of peace that follows the return of Christ, when He rules on earth from the throne of David with a rod of iron, following Israel’s repentance. We absolutely must not confuse the two.

This question of confusion and misconceptions about the Kingdom is where we begin this week. Just about every Christian organization out there uses the term “Kingdom” in its mission statement. We hear messages from our pulpits about how we are doing “Kingdom work,” or that we should have “Kingdom priorities,” or seek “Kingdom living”. It is said that, by our efforts, we are “bringing in the Kingdom”, or that we are a sneak peek of the Kingdom. “Kingdom” has become a buzzword that gets tossed around because it sounds biblical. But unfortunately, we fail to go to the biblical text to see what the term actually means. Are we, indeed, using the term properly? This phenomenon is not unique to this topic of “Kingdom”. We very often find ourselves using biblical terminology imprecisely for a variety of reasons—sometimes even to undergird and support our own agendas. Yet, when we look closer at how the terms are actually used in the Bible, we are often in for a surprise.

We get church leaders saying things like: “The locus of the kingdom of God in this age is within the church, where Jesus rules as king. As we live our lives together, we see the transforming power of the gospel and the in-breaking of the future kingdom.” Now, on its surface, that might not seem so bad to some. But that is only because we are so used to hearing Kingdom language being applied to what the church is doing. Whereas, we have seen in our exploration of scripture that the Kingdom is something very specific—and it is not the church. Another very prominent leader says: “I’m looking at a stadium full of people right now who are telling God they will do whatever it takes to establish God’s Kingdom on earth.” Still, another leader says, “The kingdom is about how God wants things to be here and now.”

All of these quotes demonstrate a “this-worldly” understanding of God’s plan and program—as if the life we have here and now is what our existence is all about. Whereas, scripture presents this current portion of God’s salvation program as preparation for the age to come. We confuse the Christian life on earth with the Christian life as it will be in Heaven. Our eyes should not solely be on this life as the focus and goal of existence. The 70 or 80 years we spend here on earth is less than a blink of an eye when compared with eternity. This is why we need to develop an “eternal perspective”.

This “Kingdom Now” perspective teaches that it is the task of the church to bring about the societal transformation and change that will precipitate the return of Christ. And this is one of the fundamental misunderstandings of what the Kingdom will be. As we saw earlier, the stone cut without hands in Daniel chapter two is not part of the statue. The statue is a vision of human world government—humanity’s greatest accomplishments. The picture that God gives Daniel of the Kingdom is that it comes in from the outside and destroys all that mankind has created in their attempts to design a life without God. The message of Daniel is clear. The Kingdom is not about societal transformation. It is about the repudiation, rejection, and destruction of the structures that mankind has built in defiance of God. The Kingdom is God-focused, God-centric, and God-authored. What these quotes also all lack is a focus on the Great Commission. Kingdom Now theology is ultimately focused on societal transformation and not on the very clear mandate Jesus gave us to be and make disciples.

This confusion about the Kingdom is not a modern phenomenon. Again, we must remember that it is a part of Satan’s strategy to distract us from doing the actual work God has for us. In this age, Satan’s agenda has always been to get the church confused about its mission. If we’re confused about our mission, then we won’t be effective. We see the roots of this confusion all the way back in the early church. Satan introduced the idea through some of the early church fathers that we can choose for ourselves how we should read the Bible—that perhaps reading it in a non-literal way was even an option. What they were saying is that maybe what the text says doesn’t really mean what it clearly says. The result was that we gave ourselves permission to redefine terms like “Israel” and “Kingdom” to mean things that they never meant before. Ultimately, the question is: does “meaning” lie in the text itself or in our interpretation of it? Do we have the right to pour our own understandings into precise, long-held, God-defined, theological terms simply to suit our agendas?

As a result of this shift in how the early church read scripture, the door was opened for church leaders in the 4^th Century, especially Augustine, to begin to re-interpret the word “Kingdom” independently of how it was used in the Old Testament. It was argued that “Kingdom” no longer meant the period of peace and rest Messiah would usher in upon His return. Augustine and the allegorists tried to get us to believe that the Millennial Kingdom was now a vague period of indeterminant length, where Christ merely ruled in the hearts of His believers. They rejected the idea of an earthly Kingdom. One of my many counters to this perspective would be to ask: did David rule only in the hearts of his people, or did he rule and reign on an actual throne? This is a prime example of allowing your theological presuppositions to drive your theology, rather than letting the text speak for itself. On the surface, this idea of the word “Kingdom” meaning one thing in the first half of the Bible, and meaning something completely different in the last half, seems bizarre. If God is the author of scripture, then He will be consistent in how language is used. What gives people the audacity to think they have permission to change the meaning of biblical terms and ideas?

This hermeneutical shift had other results as well. It contributed to the gross misunderstanding of God being different in the New Testament than He was in the Old. People somehow believe that God was a God of wrath in the Old Testament and a God of grace in the New. As one teacher puts it, “In the New Testament, God is not mad at us anymore.” This is such a painful thing to read—that Bible-believing Christians would say and think such a thing. No, the very clear and apparent truth, all throughout the Bible, is that God does not change. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. There is grace all throughout the Old Testament, and there is wrath in the New Testament. There is actually far more wrath being poured out in the New Testament than there ever was in the Old. The wrath of God for the sins of all humanity was poured out on Jesus at the cross. And the wrath of God for humanity’s cosmic treason is poured out on the earth during the Tribulation. And the wrath of God is fully poured out through the creation and population of the Lake of Fire. All of this wrath is revealed in the New Testament. The reality is that God is a God who judges sin. He does this in the New Testament just as He does in the Old. God is not mad at us! He loves us and does the unimaginable to demonstrate that love to us.

The truth is, that this kind of mindset is dangerous. God never changes. His Word never changes. The New Testament does not interpret the Old Testament—it is a continuation of the same story, the same themes, the same message, and the same definitions. As Andy Woods says:

As you move from Old Testament to New Testament the definition of the Kingdom, which God has spent centuries developing in the Old Testament … it never changes in the New Testament. Christ never changed the definition of the Kingdom in the New Testament. The apostles never changed the definition of the Kingdom in the New Testament. And of course, the Apostle Paul in his epistles never changed the definition of Kingdom. It’s static, it’s consistent all the way through.

Jesus did not come to change what He Himself did in the Old Testament. He offered Israel the Kingdom in His first coming—a Kingdom that He described to His people from the very beginning. And He will do the same at His Second Coming.

So, what’s the problem with having a faulty understanding of the Kingdom? Why is this an important doctrine to understand? Why should we care about the definition of the Kingdom? It’s because the Kingdom is the goal for which God created the universe. God will be reigning over His creatures as their King—not just in the Millennium, but throughout eternity. God began this work in the Garden and will fulfill it in the Millennium. Why would it be wrong to call what we are experiencing now, the Kingdom? It’s because that is not how scripture defines it. God is doing an amazing work right now in the world, but it’s not the Kingdom. In scripture, the Kingdom has two components: first, it is earthly; and second, it only becomes manifest once Israel repents. Until those two things become a reality, you cannot say the Kingdom has come. Israel has definitely not repented. They have been regathered in the land (Ezek 36 & 37), but they are still in unbelief. And the idea that the Kingdom is Heavenly is just patently unbiblical.

According to Renald Showers:

Several items of Scripture reveal that no form of the future Kingdom of God foretold in the Old Testament will be established before the Second Coming of Christ … no Old Testament revelation concerning the future Kingdom of God indicated that the Kingdom would consist of two forms, one spiritual and the other political, established at two different points of time in the future.

The problem with this alternative understanding of the Kingdom is that it contradicts everything God has revealed about the Kingdom in the Old Testament. So, as Andy Woods says, “If you’re coming up with an interpretation of the New Testament that completely rewrites the Old Testament then guess what? You need to rethink your interpretation.” No, the New Testament needs to be interpreted in a way that is consistent with the Old Testament, not in contradiction to it.

As the Kingdom is the most dominant theme in the Bible, we must expect that Satan will attempt to muddy the definition of it. We must be on guard to resist his strategies. If he can convince us that our task in the church is to transform society into some sort of Christian paradise, then we will not be about the actual work Jesus commissioned us to do. We will not understand the purpose, role, and destiny of Israel—nor the task Jesus gave us as the church—if we are confused about what the Kingdom is all about.

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Discussion Questions

1. Do you tend to support the underdog, or do you root for the one favored to win? Why do you think that is? (MULTILINE)
2. What are the different examples Joab uses in his rebuke of David? Why do you think this was effective? In what ways does Joab’s rebuke of David teach us about the responsibility of leaders towards their people? What about the responsibility of people to their leaders, to hold them accountable? Why do you think David replaced Joab with Amasa? Who was Amasa and why would this be a strategic move for David? What would this move communicate to Joab? (MULTILINE)
3. Reread 2 Samuel 16:5-14. Why do you think David showed mercy to Shimei here in chapter 19? Do you think Shimei’s repentance was sincere? Why or why not? How did the mercy David showed to Shimei represent David’s thinking about how he would handle Shimei’s return? Why do you think David was not interested in taking vengeance upon his return? In what ways do you see the same attitude at play in how David deals with Mephibosheth? Who is more believable: Ziba or Mephibosheth? Why? How do David’s actions here reflect the mercy of God? (MULTILINE)
4. What lessons do you think David learned through this brief exile experience? Where in the world today do you see displayed the kind of graciousness in victory that David exhibited? Where do you see the opposite? Why do you think this humble graciousness is pretty rare? (MULTILINE)
5. He who is forgiven much, loves much. How do you see this reflected in how David treats those who betrayed him? What do you think is going through David’s mind as he decides whether or not to give out second chances? What experiences in his past do you think would be the most impactful in influencing David’s responses? Where in your life can you be generous in forgiving? What can we learn from David’s ability to move forward and not hold grudges? What situations are you experiencing right now that might cause you to follow David’s (and God’s) example of forgiving much, because we, too, have been forgiven? (MULTILINE)

Going Deeper

1. What do you think is really going on with the northern tribes vying for attention upon David’s return? Why do you think Judah was slow in bringing David back? How does this rivalry between the North and the South set the stage for what will happen to the nation following the death of Solomon? (MULTILINE)
2. What do you think of the flood of people trying to ingratiate themselves to David upon his return? Do you think David was wise in how he dealt with Shimei? How would you have handled this differently? What do you think of David’s judgment on the case of Ziba vs. Mephibosheth? Why would this be a challenging case to decide? Why do you think David treated Barzillai the way that he did? If you were David, how would you have dealt with the northern tribes who had followed Absalom? (MULTILINE)

Transformational Activity

Bible Study

This was surely one of the most humbling experiences of David’s life. Power inevitably corrupts, and even though David had experienced a good amount of preparation in humility throughout his life, many years of palace life had to have taken a toll on his humble approach to life.  Take some time this week to do a deep dive into the topic of humility. What does the Bible teach about humility? What are some good examples, and what are some examples where God taught this lesson the hard way? Come back next week and share what you have learned and how you might put this into practice.