David had some meaningful encounters on his flight from Jerusalem. He ran into a servant of Mephibosheth’s bringing mounts and provisions for them. Mephibosheth was the knob-footed grandson of Saul’s, the only remaining male in that line, who David had given some good lands and an honorable position at court. Mephibosheth himself had gone up to Jerusalem thinking that the people were going to give him back his grandfather’s throne, but his servant had brought out some supplies for David as he passed by. David declared that all that had belonged to Mephibosheth now belonged to this servant.
Later, someone else not directly related to Saul, but from the same clan, came out screaming and hurling curses and rocks at David and his officers. One of them wanted to go kill him for it, but it sounds like David was feeling a little down and he waved them off, saying the Lord has told him to curse them, so let him be.
Meanwhile, back in Jerusalem, Absolom rides back into the city and a wise and highly trusted advisor of David’s tells him to sleep with his dad’s concubines, which David had left in charge of the city as he fled. This, the advisor said, would make everyone know that Absolom had made himself obnoxious in his father’s sight and would polarize Israel, making his followers stronger.
Next, this advisor told Absolom to take a few thousand guys and go track down David. Before he went though, he checked in with another official who stayed behind. This guy said that David was way more experienced a fighter and he had good men with him so this plan would definitely not work. He needed to collect all of Israel to go after David. Absolom didn’t realize that this guy was still loyal to David though and he sent news to David as soon as he determined that Absolom was going to follow his advice. That advisor went back to his hometown and hung himself when he found out that Absolom wasn’t going to follow his plan.
The big battle came and, dispite David’s request that everyone be gentle with Absolom, one ofhis officers found him stuck in a tree and killed him.
What happens next is kind of funny. An eager young man who was there when Absolom was killed wanted really badly to go deliver the news to David. His commander knew that David would not be happy when he heard it though. After all, he reacted to news of the deaths of Saul and of Saul’s heir by having the people involved killed, so he told this man that he could take the news back some other time after a victory, but not this time. Then he dispatched some nameless cushite to go tell David in stead.
The eager man said he wanted to run behind the Cushite then. He was just so excited, he really wanted to be involved with David getting this good news. I can practically see his commander rolling his eyes at this and imploring him “Why do you want to go so badly? You’re not going to get any kind of reward you know.” But the man insisted still, so he let him go. He ran so fast he overtook the Cushite back to the city, so he got to deliver the news to David first after all. Fortunately David didn’t have him killed, he just started mourning the death of his son, while the man who delivered the news of his death stood awkwardly off to the side being confused.
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