Commentaria in II Regum (II Samuelis)
Chapter 16. Synopsis of the Chapter
Siba meets David as he flees, offering food. Soon, verse 5, Semei curses David; whence Abisai demands his death, but David forbids it. Then, verse 15, Absalom enters Jerusalem, and publicly violates his father’s concubines.
1. And when David was a little past the top of the hill, behold, Siba the servant of Miphiboseth met him with two asses, which were loaded with two hundred loaves, and a hundred bunches of raisins, and a hundred cakes of dried figs, and a bottle of wine. 2. And the king said to Siba: What mean these things? And Siba answered: The asses are for the king’s household to sit on; and the loaves and the figs for thy servants to eat; and the wine to drink, if any man faint in the desert. 3. And the king said: Where is thy master’s son? And Siba answered the king: He remained in Jerusalem, saying: To-day will the house of Israel restore me the kingdom of my father. 4. And the king said to Siba: Thine be all that belonged to Miphiboseth. And Siba said: I beseech thee let me find grace before thee, my lord, O king. 5. And king David came as far as Bahurim; and behold, there came out from thence a man of the kindred of the house of Saul, named Semei, the son of Gera, and he came out going on, and cursing, 6. And casting stones at David, and at all the servants of king David; and all the people, and all the warriors, went on the right and left side of the king. 7. And Semei spoke thus when he cursed the king: Come out, come out, thou man of blood, and thou man of Belial. 8. The Lord hath repaid thee for all the blood of the house of Saul, because thou hast usurped the kingdom in his stead, and the Lord hath given the kingdom into the hand of Absalom thy son; and behold, thy evils press upon thee, because thou art a man of blood. 9. And Abisai the son of Sarvia said to the king: Why doth this dead dog curse my lord the king? I will go and cut off his head. 10. And the king said: What have I to do with you, ye sons of Sarvia? let him alone and let him curse, for the Lord hath bid him curse David; and who is he that shall dare to say why he hath done so? 11. And the king said to Abisai, and to all his servants: Behold, my son, who came forth from my bowels, seeketh my life, how much more now a son of Jemini? let him alone that he may curse, according to the orders of the Lord; 12. It may be that the Lord may look upon my affliction, and that the Lord may render me good for this day’s cursing. 13. So David and his companions went by the way with him. But Semei went by the hill’s side over against him, cursing, and casting stones at him, and scattering earth. 14. And the king and all the people with him came weary, and refreshed themselves there. 15. But Absalom and all his people came into Jerusalem, and Achitophel with him. 16. And when Chusai the Arachite, David’s friend, was come to Absalom, he said to him: God save thee, O king, God save thee, O king. 17. And Absalom said to him: Is this thy kindness to thy friend? why didst thou not go with thy friend? 18. And Chusai answered Absalom: Nay, but I will be his whom the Lord hath chosen, and all this people, and all Israel, and with him will I abide. 19. And, to add this, whom shall I serve? is it not the king’s son? As I have obeyed thy father, so will I obey thee also. 20. And Absalom said to Achitophel: Consult what we ought to do. 21. And Achitophel said to Absalom: Go in to the concubines of thy father, whom he hath left to keep the house; that when all Israel shall hear that thou hast disgraced thy father, their hands may be strengthened with thee. 22. So they pitched a tent for Absalom on the top of the house, and he went in to his father’s concubines in the sight of all Israel. 23. Now the counsel of Achitophel, which he gave in those days, was as if a man should consult God; so was all the counsel of Achitophel, both when he was with David, and when he was with Absalom.
1. SIBA THE SERVANT OF MIPHIBOSETH MET HIM.—“Servant,” that is, slave and steward, who looked after and administered all the goods of Miphiboseth. This wicked servant, coveting the estates of his lame and wretched master, to obtain them from David, went out from Jerusalem, and even went ahead of the fleeing David, from some farm of his master, and met David with abundant provisions, laying a false charge of treason against his master, as is plain from chapter 19, verse 26.
CAKES OF DRIED FIGS,—that is, of dried figs. In Hebrew, summer fruits.
3. SAYING: TO-DAY WILL THE HOUSE OF ISRAEL RESTORE ME THE KINGDOM OF MY FATHER,—of Jonathan and of his grandfather Saul. This slander of Siba against his master Miphiboseth was shameless and foolish, both because he himself, being lame and feeble, was unfit for the kingdom, and because no one thought of raising him to be king: for all followed Absalom to make him king; wherefore Miphiboseth, his master, rightly accuses this servant to David as wicked and a liar, chapter 19, verse 26.
4. THINE BE ALL THAT BELONGED TO MIPHIBOSETH.—David too quickly believed Siba accusing his master, and condemned his master Miphiboseth: and therefore he deprived him as ungrateful of his estates, and gave them to the covetous Siba, who sought them. Wherefore David sinned, when rashly he despoiled of all his goods the innocent, unheard and wretched Miphiboseth, the son of his most loving Jonathan, and transferred them to Siba his slanderous servant; and therefore God permitted that this injustice should be repaid with a most grievous injury from another servant, namely that Semei, a servant, should curse David his prince. For divine justice demanded that he who had unjustly enriched one servant should be most severely chastised through another. Let princes learn here not to believe their servants rashly when they accuse others in order to succeed to their wealth or office. The suspicion and ambition of princes are credulous when their honour is at stake, as here the kingdom of David was; and unless princes themselves resist this prudently and bravely, they will easily let themselves be led into falsehood and injustice. Hence St. Bernard, book 1 On Consideration, at the end: “Of this most cunning little fox (an over-easy credulity, which is given to calumny) I have found none of the great sufficiently on guard against its wiles. Hence they are angry for nothing, hence the frequent condemnation of the innocent, hence prejudgments against the absent.” More closely and more to the present matter the Author of the Imperfect Work among St. Chrysostom’s, homily 2: “A king,” he says, “thinks whatever has been suspected against his kingdom to be wholly true. His mind is always suspicious, filled with zeal for the kingdom. While he fears everything, he suspects everything, and easily believes whatever he has suspected. As a husband, if he is jealous of his wife, or a wife of her husband, believes every shameful report about him, though zeal commends credit to the report.”
5. A MAN OF THE KINDRED OF SAUL,—St. Jerome in the Hebrew Traditions says that this Semei was the father of Nabath, the father of Jeroboam, who made a schism from Roboam, the grandson of David, and took from him ten tribes, and made himself king of them, 3 Kings 11 and following. But this is plainly false, because Semei was the son of Jemini, and so of the tribe of Benjamin, and a kinsman of Saul, as is here said. But Jeroboam and his father Nabath were of the tribe of Ephraim, as is plain from 3 Kings 11:26. So Abulensis and others.
You will object: the Scripture, 3 Kings 11:28, says that Jeroboam was set over the tribute of the house of Joseph; but Ephraim was the son of Joseph; therefore Semei was of the tribe of Ephraim. I answer: Joseph there signifies all the ten tribes, of which one was Benjamin, from which Semei was descended, of whom more in the same place.
6. AND CURSING, AND CASTING STONES AT DAVID.—The Hebrews hand down that Semei hurled five atrocious curses and insults at David: for he called him first an adulterer, secondly a Moabite, thirdly a murderer, fourthly a leper, fifthly an abominable man; and they gather this from 3 Kings 2:8, as I shall show in the same place. This was great wantonness, impiety, impudence, calumny, audacity, and evil-speaking, as well as imprudence and folly in Semei: for he could and ought to have thought that David, or one of his followers, would avenge so great a wickedness, as Solomon avenged the same: but anger and fury blinded him, so that he did not foresee this evil that would befall him, nor fear it, and therefore did not guard against it.