David Flees Jerusalem With Mourning Peopleby abairrn
15:262 Samuel 15:26
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 words are spoken by David while fleeing the throne he had forfeited by his own course of action, when Zadok and Abiathar bring the ark to him and he commands it to be carried back into the city of Jerusalem. The ark is the symbol of God's presence that gives the city its holiness, belonging in its place of rest in God's habitation and dwelling. He refuses to keep it from unselfish and noble motives and reverence for sacred things, unwilling to imperil it in hasty flight, to remove it from its rest without a divine command, to rob the city of its holiness, or to use it as a charm to preserve his own honor and life and to rally Israel and win back the disaffected.
Worldly wisdom advised accepting the ark, and if his expulsion had been merely the work of man from uncontrolled human passion or caprice he would have taken an entirely different course and accepted it; instead he views his adversity and humiliation as from the Lord and not merely from man. His surrender is conditional and complete: if he finds favor in the eyes of the Lord, the Lord will bring him back to see the ark and God's dwelling, but if the Lord takes no pleasure in him he yields himself to let God do whatever God decides is good, leaving his future in God's hands. He makes this submission with the solemn and condemnatory words of Nathan ringing in his ears. At the same time he directs Zadok and the priests to return into the city in peace with Ahimaaz and Jonathan to learn the movements and purposes of the rebels and secretly send word to him while he waits in the plain of the wilderness.
The turning back of the priests leaves David and his followers feeling forsaken even by the ark with a future dark with terror, and he goes up by the ascent of Olivet weeping with his head covered and barefoot, with all the people covering their heads and weeping as they go up. When told that Ahithophel is among the conspirators with Absalom, he is forced again to recognize in his calamities the results of his own sin, since Ahithophel's defection is revenge for the family disgrace in the wrong to Bathsheba his granddaughter. The verse also expresses trustful submission to God's will exemplified later when Luther accepts that God may do with him as God sees fit while refusing to retract his testimony to the Christian faith even under threat of punishment.
The words are spoken by David while fleeing the throne he had forfeited by his own course of action, when Zadok and Abiathar bring the ark to him and he commands it to be carried back into the city of Jerusalem. The ark is the symbol of God's presence that gives the city its holiness, belonging in its place of rest in God's habitation and dwelling. He refuses to keep it from unselfish and noble motives and reverence for sacred things, unwilling to imperil it in hasty flight, to remove it from its rest without a divine command, to rob the city of its holiness, or to use it as a charm to preserve his own honor and life and to rally Israel and win back the disaffected.
Worldly wisdom advised accepting the ark, and if his expulsion had been merely the work of man from uncontrolled human passion or caprice he would have taken an entirely different course and accepted it; instead he views his adversity and humiliation as from the Lord and not merely from man. His surrender is conditional and complete: if he finds favor in the eyes of the Lord, the Lord will bring him back to see the ark and God's dwelling, but if the Lord takes no pleasure in him he yields himself to let God do whatever God decides is good, leaving his future in God's hands. He makes this submission with the solemn and condemnatory words of Nathan ringing in his ears. At the same time he directs Zadok and the priests to return into the city in peace with Ahimaaz and Jonathan to learn the movements and purposes of the rebels and secretly send word to him while he waits in the plain of the wilderness.
The turning back of the priests leaves David and his followers feeling forsaken even by the ark with a future dark with terror, and he goes up by the ascent of Olivet weeping with his head covered and barefoot, with all the people covering their heads and weeping as they go up. When told that Ahithophel is among the conspirators with Absalom, he is forced again to recognize in his calamities the results of his own sin, since Ahithophel's defection is revenge for the family disgrace in the wrong to Bathsheba his granddaughter. The verse also expresses trustful submission to God's will exemplified later when Luther accepts that God may do with him as God sees fit while refusing to retract his testimony to the Christian faith even under threat of punishment.