Rebuilding Burnt ‘Emotional’ Bridges

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. ‘” 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.” (2 Samuel 19:13,14 NASB)

David, you’ve just won the battle against your rebellious son and all of Israel.  What are you going to do now?  Well, whatever he should have done, could have done, or might have done; what he did was ball his eyes out demoralizing his faithful victorious troops, sit in the gate to cheer them up, send word to Judah to rebuild relationships, and sort of forgave his enemies all around.  But it’s not really clear whether this is one of David’s shining moments or not.

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Famous For The Wrong Thing

When King David came to Bahurim, behold, there came out from there a man of the family of the house of Saul whose name was Shimei, the son of Gera; he came out cursing continually as he came.  He threw stones at David and at all the servants of King David; and all the people and all the mighty men were at his right hand and at his left (2 Samuel 16:5-6 NASB)

After Ziba, the conniving servant of Saul’s household, comes another related to Saul.  Only this guy does not bring donkey’s with supplies, but curses.  He pelts the travelers with rocks (including the mighty men – how stupid is that?), throws dust, and hurls insults at David.  At first I thought he had a death wish, but when I look at the details, that’s not quite true.  So, his motivation seems to be harbored resentment toward David that only now finds expression.  We’re never told what his problem actually is though.  Only that he calls David a ‘man of blood’.

So, what is going on here, why include it, and why is this so important it is revisited at least twice more (chapter 19, and 1 Kings 2)?  All I can find are possibilities, but one relies on the idea that part of David’s story is out of order.  So here are two possibilities: