Today, I am reading and commenting on 2 Samuel 16-17.

There are a lot of things I could write about today: Ziba’s comments about Mephibosheth’s reaction to Absalom’s treachery, the contrasting advice of Ahithophel and Hushai, and why Absalom listened to Hushai’s intentionally bad advice rather than Ahithophel’s good advice.  I chose however to write about how King David reacted to Shimei cursing him.  Abishai, Joab’s brother and David’s nephew, wanted to execute Shimei for cursing the king, a reaction which harkens back to David’s refusal to kill King Saul when he had the opportunity.  David, on the other hand, chose to let Shimei’s offense pass.  We can learn a lot about how we should react to our enemies from what David did here.  David chose to accept Shimei’s curse as something from God which he deserved because of his sin with Bathsheba and what he did to Uriah.  At this time, David chose to humbly bow his head and accept the suffering which God chose to inflict upon him by inspiring Shimei to curse him.  David chose to bow his head and accept that perhaps God had torn the throne from him.  David did not think it appropriate to claim the prerogatives of being God’s anointed when he was fleeing Jerusalem, because perhaps God had taken that blessing from him, as He had done to Saul many years earlier.  What I have written so far does not quite capture what I am trying to say.  David models for us something we should imitate.  As he fled from Absalom, he refused to take his frustration out on those who heaped abuse on him because of his fallen estate.  Instead, he threw himself on the mercy of God, and accepted the full suffering which came with what God had inflicted on him.  When we suffer, let us strive to not take our misery out on others, but instead cry out to God for forgiveness and rescue.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.