Commentaria in II Regum (II Samuelis)
10. AND THE KING SAID: WHAT HAVE I TO DO WITH YOU, YE SONS OF SARVIA?—as if to say: What have I to do with your indignation and contention against Semei? I do not wish it to be ascribed to me, I do not wish to be a partner in it.
LET HIM ALONE AND LET HIM CURSE.—Here shines David’s wonderful toleration of so great an injury. Hear St. Ambrose, book 1 On David, chapter 6: “How morally,” he says, “he taught that the times of injuries are the tests of trials. The good athlete is exercised by insults, exercised by labours and dangers, that he may be worthy to have the crown of justice conferred on him.” Whence soon after, citing these words of David, “What have I to do with you,” etc., he exclaims: “O height of prudence! O height of patience! O great discovery of swallowing an insult! Behold, though the insult of words is not worthy of a hearing nor fit to be believed, [the Hebrew tradition] says that this Semei was Nabath, the father of Jeroboam; who lightened the trouble of the parricide. Who would not compensate with himself such an injury, so that the man whom man has hurt, God may console with a recompense of better things?”
The saying of St. Basil is golden, sermon Against the Angry, in the Basel edition: “Not even in solitudes does the echo, entire, rebound so to him who sent out the voice, as insults return to the one who insults.” Similar is Tertullian, book On Patience, chapter 8: “If,” he says, “I hear with too little calm some insolent or wicked word against me, I too must needs return the bitterness in turn, or be tormented by dumb impatience. But he who shall stop his ears to such sayings will be rescued from both inconveniences, neither speaking will he curse, nor keeping silent will he be afflicted.” So David stopped his ears: “But I, as a deaf man, did not hear, and as a dumb man not opening his mouth; and I became as a man that heareth not, and that hath no reproofs in his mouth,” Psalm 37.
FOR THE LORD HATH BID HIM CURSE DAVID.—David, conscious of his adultery and murder, thought in humility and penance that God had sent Semei (even if the matter were otherwise) and had ordered him to reproach him with these crimes, and so to chastise him according to his deserts: that Semei, therefore, was as it were God’s lictor; but what God willed from just vengeance, Semei did from unjust hatred and ill-will, and heaped on him by calumny more crimes than God had ordered, of which David was not guilty. So “he bade” is understood actively and properly.
Secondly, “he bade” can be taken improperly and permissively for “he permitted,” or rather for “he decreed to permit this cursing, and positively ordained it to my punishment and chastisement.” For God, seeing Semei hostile to David, because he had transferred the kingdom to himself from Saul his kinsman, and therefore inclined to curse him, expelled and a fugitive, willed on purpose to permit this ill-will of his to issue into the work of cursing, and ordained it directly and positively to this end, namely that David’s sins might be chastised and punished by it. Hence for “he bade,” the Hebrew and Septuagint have “he said,” that is, decreed, determined, ordained, namely to permit this malice, that through it he may afflict me for my sins; as if to say: I have deserved this and more by my sins; this cursing is the just vengeance of my crimes, decreed and inflicted on me by God: wherefore I must bear it patiently, and receive it from the hand of God, as a sinning son patiently and lovingly receives his father’s scourging: for God uses the impiety of the wicked as an executioner to punish the faults of the pious. So “to bid” or “to command” is taken for “to ordain,” whether by commanding or by permitting, Matthew 19:7: “Moses commanded to give a bill of divorce”; “commanded,” that is, permitted to put away a wife, but permitting it, he commanded that she be not put away except by a bill drawn up by public authority of the judges. So 1 Kings 13:14, God is said “to have commanded,” that is, ordained David to rule Israel; and to the ravens “to have commanded,” that is, ordained that they should feed Elias, 3 Kings 17, verse 4; for otherwise the ravens, lacking reason, are incapable of a proper command. So 3 Kings 22:22, God says to the demon who wished to deceive King Achab: “Go forth, and do so,” that is, I permit thee to do so. For the wicked so depend on and are ruled by the providence of God that they can do nothing unless they have his consent; that is, a permission not negative but positive. As in a commonwealth usurers and harlots cannot live unless they have the consent, and the positive permission, of the prince and of the earthly court. And this signifies, “he bade,” that is, ordained. So St. Ambrose, Apology of David, chapter 6: “He does not accuse the Lord,” he says, “as the author of the injury, but rather praises him that he suffers us to endure lesser things, that we may obtain a greater pardon of our sins.” And St. Bernard, sermon 34: “Truly,” he says, “a man after God’s own heart, who gave sentence from the heart of God. The cursing tongue raged, and he considered what God was doing in secret. The voice of the curser was in his ears, and his mind inclined itself to blessing. Was God in the mouth of the blasphemer? Far from it; but he used him to humble David. Nor was it hidden from the Prophet, to whom God had made manifest the uncertain and hidden things of his wisdom. And therefore he says: It is good for me that thou hast humbled me.”
Tropologically, let us imitate David, who, when he was cursed by Semei, thought of his own sins, for which he had deserved it, and therefore bore it patiently. So St. Gregory, book 31 of the Morals, chapter 17: “Then,” he says, “we bear well the insults inflicted, when in the secret of the mind we run back to the evils committed, and see that we have deserved greater.” Let the patient and penitent man say, then, to himself: I have mortally offended God; I have deserved to burn for ever in hell, to be mocked and tormented by demons. Shall I not bear this little cursing and biting word? Nay, I will bear any words, however many, rather than blows. For words strike the ear, blows beat the back. Hear St. Chrysostom on Psalm 35:29: “When Semei assailed me with curses, I recalled to memory the sin I had committed, considering that on account of it I am attacked with curses and punished, and, driven from the kingdom, I am forced by flight to look to my safety.” And Theodoret: “Affected by insults,” he says, “I remembered the sin, and was pierced by the goads sent forth from sin, reckoning that this was the cause why I am afflicted with curses, and oppressed by tyranny, and driven from the royal houses am forced to flee.” St. Gregory adds, book 31 of the Morals, chapter 17: “David,” he says, “fleeing from his son rising against him, brought back to mind the evil he had done, and calmly bore what he heard, and believed the insulting words not so much insults as helps, by which he judged that he could be purified and have mercy on himself. For it seems light, indeed, that we are struck by an injury, when in our own action we see that what we deserve is worse; and thus it comes about that for insults thanks rather than anger is due.” This word for word Eucherius (more truly Bede) and Angelomus have transcribed from St. Gregory. Hear finally St. Ambrose, book 1 of the Offices, chapter 6: “He went,” he says, “as one dumb and humbled, he went in silence: nor was he moved when he was called a man of blood, who was conscious of his own meekness. He therefore was not moved by insults who abounded in the consciousness of good works. And so he who is quickly moved by injury makes himself seem worthy of insult, while he wishes to prove himself unworthy of it. Better, therefore, is he who despises an injury than he who grieves at it. For he who despises it, as though not feeling it, so scorns it: but he who grieves, as though he had felt it, is tormented.”