2
ND
SAMUEL
Week 25, chapters 15 and 16

We’re going to continue our slow crawl through 2
nd
Samuel 15 today because it is so laden
with fundamental concepts and patterns that are vitally important to who we are in Christ. We
certainly won’t go this painstakingly through the rest of the book, but the nature of this
particular chapter compels me to take the needed time to extract the profound lessons that are
built into the passages.

David, as passive and self indulgent as he had become; so back-slidden and prone to rash
actions as was now his way, seems to have been jarred into action by the sudden rebellion of
the Kingdom of Israel led by his son Avishalom. That same jarring also seems to have re-
awakened a sense of humility and repentance within him that reflected a much earlier self that
operated in a more righteous manner. So despite being the great warrior that he still was at
heart, and probably quite capable of mustering a substantial force of loyal supporters to resist
the rebels, David chose a different course. He chose to put his people ahead of himself.

When he heard that Absalom had won over the hearts and minds of a substantial segment of
society throughout Israel (people from every tribe including even his own), David knew that had
he remained hold-up in his capital city of Yerushalayim (and more specifically the City of David
royal enclave), great destruction and death of the innocent would have been the result if it was
attacked.

No doubt David’s mind would have wondered if perhaps since so many of his people eagerly
accepted Absalom as king then David was maybe no longer worthy of the throne. After all,
such insurrection was promised by the Prophet Nathan when the Lord took David to task for
his adultery with Bathsheba and murder of her husband Uriyah. David knew that (at the least)
what was happening was God’s will and part of the just punishment due him, so he
determined that he would not fight it.

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Let’s re-read the last half of 2
nd
Samuel chapter 15 to get our bearings for today’s lesson.

RE-READ 2
ND
SAMUEL CHAPTER 15: 17 – end


The King and his followers were fleeing eastward, down and through the Kidron Valley that
separated Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives, and then up and over the Mount of Olives and
eastward towards the wilderness. A group of 600 of his loyal personal bodyguard were led by a
foreigner (probably a former Philistine) named Ittai, and as they passed in review before David
he took Ittai aside and offered him the opportunity to go back and not become embroiled in an
uncertain future, attached to a deposed king. In verses 19 and 20 David tells Ittai that he has
no obligation to stick to David (since he is not a Hebrew) and that he is essentially free to
dissolve the covenant of loyalty with David and instead serve the coming anti-king, Absalom.
David also reminds Ittai that he is only a relatively recent newcomer to Israel.

Most of our Bibles say that Ittai came only “yesterday”, but that is a too rigid interpretation of
the Hebrew word temol, which means yesterday only in the sense of “not very long ago”. We
also see that David calls Ittai a nokri and a goleh: an alien stranger and an exile. Thus Ittai
had not become a national member of Israel, instead choosing to remain in his foreign identity
rather than becoming an official Hebrew. But as a Philistine who had thrown his loyalty to
David, he was now an enemy of his former government and thus an exile from his own
homeland. Ittai was in a strange situation; he didn’t want to give up being a gentile and yet he
had chosen to give his allegiance to God’s anointed king, a Jew. Interestingly, David was
satisfied with this gentile’s loyalty and didn’t require Ittai to become a Jew in order to serve
him.

David tells Ittai that he cannot promise any kind of a known or profitable earthly future for Ittai
and his fellow kinsman if he follows David into the wilderness, so he gives Ittai permission to
go back and serve Absalom and to do so with David’s blessings. Most of our Bible versions
have David saying to Ittai, “May mercy and truth” or “May grace and truth” go with you. In
Hebrew it says, “May chesed and emeth” go with you. This is no condescending or merely
courteous blessing that David has offered Ittai. Chesed is a word that has a deep spiritual
sense to it, much as does the Hebrew word shalom. Chesed (and shalom) are words that
describe a condition or a state of being and relationship that can only come from a divine
source. Chesed, as a concept, means that it needs definition to be properly understood. It is a
concept that contains many attributes, among which is grace. The word “grace” is commonly
used to translate chesed, as is also kindness or loving kindness, and while those English
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words are not wrong it doesn’t necessarily impart to us the depth and breadth of what is being
proposed.

This knowledge of the Hebrew idea of chesed is important for us to grasp on several levels
mainly because a thorough misunderstanding or ignorance of chesed is what has led to a
corrupt manmade Theology that says that grace is a New Testament aspect of God that didn’t
exist prior to the advent of Yeshua. And that grace as the new basis for relationship between
God and mankind makes the former Old Testament “law” relationship between God and
mankind faulty, irrelevant and obsolete for the Believer.

Therefore although we’ve discussed it before, I want to take a few moments to detour and
perhaps add a little more to the fascinating topic of chesed because it has such impact on the
relationship between God and man in all eras. As I said it is a word that is difficult to translate
because it is more a concept than a word; and as such it has a whole range of meanings that
must be folded together to try and define it.

Let me give you an illustration of the issue. If we describe our typical mode of driving to work,
we might say we drive to work in a car. But what is a car? A car is a device that consists of
many identifiable components; it has an engine, it has 4 wheels, it has seats to sit on, a roof to
keep the weather out, a transmission, and much more. Altogether these components form a
car. Now if I told you that I get to work by driving an engine, I wouldn’t be entirely wrong
because all cars have engines. But an engine, as important as it is (and arguably it might the
key component) is but one of several components that when assembled as a unit creates a
car. So saying I drive a car to work gives you a much more complete and useful mental picture
and understanding of this transportation device than saying I drive an engine to work.

It works the same with the concept of Chesed. Included in the total concept of Chesed are
such components as faithfulness, kindness, love, loyalty, mercy, truthfulness, and grace. Each
of these components is a bit different, but all of them (plus several more) when taken together
make Chesed. Chesed is so fundamental in God’s idea of relationship that it transcends even
the convent relationship and may be thought of as perhaps the prime and overriding virtue in
ancient Israel for any relationship. Thus we find in the book of Ruth that Ruth exhibits great
chesed towards her mother in law Naomi even though, strictly speaking, there is no covenant
between them. And at the same time, the concept of chesed defines the right attitude and
behavior of partners in a convent relationship towards one another.

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The Mosaic Covenant between YHWH and Israel is itself an act of chesed of the God of Israel
towards His people. Yehoveh keeping His promises to Israel and to King David even though
they often transgressed those covenants was also an act of chesed. But God’s chesed always
calls for reciprocal behavior; therefore Israel is to respond by maintaining chesed towards the
covenants and towards God. Thus in a simple sense chesed can be thought of as “loving
loyalty” (with all of its necessary components) on the part of Yehoveh towards His people
Israel, but also on the part of Israel towards their God to whom they have made covenant and
thus obligated themselves.

Just as there is no single word or direct concept equivalent in English for chesed, there is also
no direct Greek equivalent. So since the most ancient manuscripts we have for the New
Testament are written in Greek and only then translated into English, the complex concept of
chesed has generally been reduced by translators to only the single attribute of “grace”. Do
not think I’m saying that grace is bad translation or that it is wrong; but it is too narrow and
incomplete to give us all the meaning we need to understand the divine transaction.

The Church has had an annoying tendency to reduce many enormous and complex Biblical
concepts into overly simplified, often single word sound bites called doctrines, and it robs us of
critical information and can send us down rabbit trails. For instance, even God Himself lately
has been reduced in many denominations (who seek to make Him appear more attractive to
potential followers) to but a single attribute: love. And certainly God is love; but that’s not all
He is. He is healing. He is wisdom. He is mercy. But He is also wrath. He is judge. He is
warrior. He is lawgiver. So to reduce God to only a single attribute (whatever one is chosen)
and to eschew the others gives us a very incomplete and limited understanding of His nature
that can have a profound consequence on our view of who God is and what our relationship
with Him ought to be.

So just as the underlying basis for all covenant relationship has always been chesed, as
Believers in Yeshua it would help us to see that we are saved NOT merely by the single
attribute of grace but rather by the enormity of God’s chesed with all its attributes and
components. Why do I say that? Because grace is but one of several components of chesed;
grace may be the all important car engine, but it’s not the whole car. Grace as we narrowly
define it offers but a fraction of the overall divine concept of chesed, and therefore of what is
behind our saving relationship with Christ and how we obtain it. And when we can finally grasp
that, then we see that regardless of the era, and regardless of which testament or covenant we
are exploring, chesed is and has always been the basis for relationship between worshipper
and God. And why is that? Because God never changes.

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But our more thorough understanding of chesed as an overriding Biblical principle also helps
to revive and underscore the nearly extinct premise within the Church that we as Messiah’s
followers have obligated ourselves to God (and not just He to us) when first we signed on to
the covenant that redeems us, sealed in Messiah’s blood. And this obligation that is all
wrapped up in the concept of chesed involves duties and obedience towards God and His
commandments, not merely our tacit acknowledgement of our desire for this relationship.

As the New Testament Scripture passage from last week’s lesson that comes from the mouth
of our Savior Himself so plainly and forthrightly states:


CJB
Matthew 7:21 "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord!' will enter the Kingdom of
Heaven, only those who do what my Father in heaven wants.

“Do” is an action word. To “do” goes beyond passive belief or promise and instead speaks of
an obligation from God to us and from us to God. And as further evidence of the reciprocal
nature of chesed, and of the duties and obligations that we take on when we sign on to God’s
covenant, and thus the basis of our relationship with Christ is formed and defined, we have
these words from Yeshua’s biological half-brother who (growing up in the same household as
Yeshua) must have heard pronounced so very often:

(Jam 2:14, 17 CJB)
14
What good is it, my brothers, if someone claims to have faith but has no actions to
prove it? Is such "faith" able to save him?


17
Thus, faith by itself, unaccompanied by actions, is dead.


So in our story in 2
nd
Samuel 15, the anointed King of Israel offers the gentile foreigner Ittai
chesed even if Ittai chooses not to live among the anointed King and his Israelite followers.
Why? Because even though the bond of covenant is strong, the follower of the King is not a
robot nor does he lose his free will to disavow the covenant and to go and follow another
leader. Ittai, in his free will, chooses to continue following his Jewish king unto death if need
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be. Chesed is being reciprocated; David offered chesed to Ittai, and so Ittai responds in
chesed towards David. Hopefully all of this is conjuring up a shadow and a pattern of the
Believer’s relationship with God through Messiah, and of the always-present temptation to fall
away and follow another popular leader that will be especially manifested when the Anti-Christ
appears. But, it’ll get even more interesting as our story continues.

Verse 23 speaks of the grieving procession of David’s loyalists crossing the Kidron Valley and
heading towards the desert road. Almost all English translations have some variation of this
meaning, but some ancient manuscripts written in other languages and also modern scholarly
re-examination of the Masoretic Hebrew texts give us some enlightening insight. It seems as
though the Masoretic Texts have a few minor copyist errors regarding the description of the
exact route that this grieving procession took over the Mount of Olives. The extant Hebrew
copies are obviously misspelled such that (whether Jewish or Christian) a scholar has to try to
figure out what the misspelled words mean because taken exactly as written they are
gibberish. And the new understanding taken with the reading from some of the older
manuscripts makes this verse read something like this: “…..However the king remained
standing in the Kidron Valley while the entire army passed on before him along the Way of the
Wild Olive Trees towards the desert.”

Stay with me; in other words the context of the reference to Ittai’s army is to the group of
foreign mercenaries led by the gentile Ittai, and the route they took across the Mount of Olives
was a certain pathway that was locally known as the Way of the Wild Olive Trees. Nothing
earth shattering about that; the Mount of Olives is huge and so there were several routes to
cross it depending on which compass direction you intended to travel to and from Jerusalem.
The various pathways were given informal names. Now this hardly seems like an important
modification to the standard translation of this verse except when we recall a rather cryptic
statement of St. Paul’s that incorporates a similar idea; and I think that it was this well known
story among the Jews of his day (the story of David fleeing Jerusalem), and of the probably still
existing pathway across the Mount of Olives in Paul’s day known as the Way of the Wild Olive
Trees, that Paul was using as an understandable and simple illustration of how gentile
foreigners can become participants in Israel’s saving covenant with Israel’s God, and yet they
don’t stop being gentiles. Let me point out that in the Bible (as elsewhere) the purpose of an
analogy or illustration is to use a commonly understood thing to help explain something that is
perhaps more difficult to understand (such as the use of my car illustration in explaining
chesed).

(Rom 11:16-24 CJB)
16
Now if the hallah offered as firstfruits is holy, so is the whole loaf. And if the root is
holy, so are the branches.
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17
But if some of the branches were broken off, and you- a wild olive- were grafted in
among them and have become equal sharers in the rich root of the olive tree,

18
then don't boast as if you were better than the branches! However, if you do boast,
remember that you are not supporting the root, the root is supporting you.

19
So you will say, "Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in."

20
True, but so what? They were broken off because of their lack of trust. However, you
keep your place only because of your trust. So don't be arrogant; on the contrary, be
terrified!

21
For if God did not spare the natural branches, he certainly won't spare you!

22
So take a good look at God's kindness and his severity: on the one hand, severity
toward those who fell off; but, on the other hand, God's kindness toward you- provided
you maintain yourself in that kindness! Otherwise, you too will be cut off!

23
Moreover, the others, if they do not persist in their lack of trust, will be grafted in;
because God is able to graft them back in.

24
For if you were cut out of what is by nature a wild olive tree and grafted, contrary to
nature, into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these natural branches be
grafted back into their own olive tree!

And thus we have this metaphorical connection being made by Paul between wild olive trees
and gentiles that I think may be based on the commonly known story of the pathway of wild
olives that Ittai (the gentile foreigner) voluntarily followed in order to maintain his relationship
with David (God’s anointed king) who was a shadow and type of Messiah. And the God-
principle it reveals is that our spiritual chesed towards Yehoveh and to His anointed king, and
thus God’s chesed towards us which preceded it, does not mean that a person must change
their physical and national earthly identity in order to obtain it. A gentile can trust in the God of
Israel, and can faithfully follow Israel’s anointed king, and can be made part of Israel’s saving
covenant by means of God’s chesed and all without being a physical Hebrew or by becoming
a naturalized Israelite. Ittai did it; his men did it; and those among us who are gentiles can do it
and if we are already Believers, we have done it. Let’s move on.

Verse 24 gives us this tantalizing piece of information: the High Priest Tzadok suddenly
showed up followed by a procession of Levites carrying the Ark of the Covenant on their
shoulders. The Levites set the Ark down and waited while all the people who were going with
David passed by as they crossed over the Kidron Valley. Although it doesn’t directly say so, I
suspect that setting the Ark down was meant to imitate that day several centuries earlier when
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the Levites carried the Ark to the center of the Jordan River as Israel first entered the Promised
Land (led by Joshua) and waited until all the people crossed over, and then picked it up to
continue on. What makes this tantalizing is that we see a 2
nd
High Priest, Evyatar, also
involved.

Before David was king, Evyatar was the High Priest. But by all accounts he was illegitimate.
He had been installed by King Saul but that isn’t what made him illegitimate; it’s that he was a
descendant of Eli, who was of the Levite line of Ithamar. But the line of Ithamar was not
supposed to be the line of High Priests; High Priests were to be descended from Eleazar.

Apparently at some point David recognized this problem and appointed Tzadok to the High
Priesthood, but he didn’t remove Evyatar. Tzadok was indeed of the legitimate High Priest line
of Eleazar. But as we’ve seen, David had become the consummate politician and played fast
and loose with the Torah commandments and so apparently he figured that it would be less
divisive among his subjects to merely add Tzadok but not replace Evyatar, so the result was
that Israel had co-High Priests at this time (King Solomon would remedy this odd situation a
few years later).

David told Tzadok and Evyatar that the Ark should not accompany the procession into the
wilderness; they should take it back to its resting place in Jerusalem. There were two reasons
for doing this: 1
st
is that David wanted to have the loyal ears of Tzadok and Evyatar and their
two sons (next in line for High Priest) in Jerusalem to report the goings on to David in exile.
Second is that David figured that if God had in His will deposed David, then David had no right
to the presence of the Ark. The Ark was for the benefit of Israel. Therefore the Ark would be
needed by the new king, Avishalom, as a key element of his rule over Israel.

After the matter of the Ark of the Covenant was handled, the weeping procession continued up
the Way of the Wild Olive Trees towards the summit of the Mount of Olives; David and all the
people had their heads covered and walked barefoot. This was a standard sign of contrition
and repentance, thus acknowledging that what was occurring was God’s justice for trespasses
committed and that they accepted God’s judgment. But then David got news that devastated
him all over again; his trusted advisor and councilor Achitofel is among those who conspired
against David (recall that Achitofel is Bathsheba’s grandfather). David instinctively shouted
out a quick prayer towards the heavens: “Yehoveh, please, turn Achitofel’s advice into
foolishness!” In other words, David pleaded with God to take Achitofel’s formerly outstanding
and sage advice and when used for Absalom’s council turn it into bad advice.

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As David reached the summit of the Mount of Olives Hushai the Arkite met him there.
Apparently there was some kind of formal worship place at the top of the Mount of Olives, as
there was in a number of other places throughout Israel as well. While the main sanctuary
seems to have been at Gibeon at this moment, it didn’t appear to carry much weight. Anyone
of stature created their own altar, and their own worship center to Yehoveh, and the
archeological finds of recent years seems to verify that private worship centers and altars were
erected all over the Promised Land.

This Hushai was a very old man and was called friend of David. He, too, was grieving and
penitent, clothing torn and dirt thrown over his head and shoulders, when David spotted him.
But David told him that it would be better that Hushai stayed at the palace because a) his
elderly state would have made his very presence a burden on David who needed to move
quickly to avoid danger, and b) Hushai could be useful as a spy for David inside Absalom’s
administration. David tells him that he won’t be alone in this endeavor, that Tzadok and
Evyatar will remain there with him as well. The plan was that Hushai would give information to
the 2 High Priests, who would pass it along to their 2 sons, who would then make contact with
David.

Let’s move on to chapter 16.


READ 2
ND
SAMUEL CHAPTER 16 all


I’ll only set the stage for this chapter today, and we’ll get more deeply into it the next time we
meet.

This is another place where it would have been best to have no division between chapters; the
last verse of chapter 15 merely flows directly into the 1
st
verse of chapter 16.

Thus chapter 16 beings with the procession still on the Mount of Olives and following the same
pathway. What we’re seeing is David meeting a whole string of folks as he exits Jerusalem.
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He’s met Ittai, the faithful gentile leader of a contingent of 600 armed men. He’s also
met Tzadok and Evyatar the co-High Priests and sent them (along with the Ark) back into the
city as informers. An anonymous person then told David of Achitofel’s treachery, and this was
immediately followed by the faithful Hushai who agreed to be a spy for David in Absalom’s
royal court. David undoubtedly expects to meet more loyalists who were rallying to his support
on his way out of town, but is surprised when Tziva, Mephibosheth’s servant, approaches
David with needed supplies and gifts for his exile. Considering the state of emergency and
catastrophic event that is unfolding, David expected that even the lame Mephibosheth whom
he had treated with such chesed would have come himself instead of sending a servant.

David had plucked Mephibosheth from hiding out in fear in the Trans-Jordan and brought him
safely to David’s palace, guaranteed him security and prosperity, supplied his every need and
even turned over Saul’s considerable estate to him so it would have seeemd natural
for Mephibosheth to now come to David in his time of need. Instead here stands Tziva, the
gentile estate steward, armed with a slanderous story about Mephibosheth.

We’ll continue this next time.




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