The motive for the flight was probably a patriotic one. David would not, let the city be destroyed by civil war. Like Louis Philippe, he could: not hear to shed his people’s blood. This tenderness of disposition, so unlike the spirit of the times, is characteristic of him. (1Ch_21:17.)
1. Notice the different classes of people who went out with the king, displaying different aspects of loyalty.
(1) The servants of thehousehold (2Sa_15:15). Unqualified obedience, whatsoever (Joh_2:5; Joh_15:14).
(2) The sympathising people.
(3) The bodyguard. Cherethites and Pelethites (1Ki_1:38-44). (Foreigners, Eze_25:16; 1Sa_30:14; Eph_2:19.)
(4) Ittai and his Gittites--mercenaries become volunteers. Story of Ittai. From Gath, a Philistine city, probably (2Sa_15:19), an exile from his own country, who had taken refuge with David.
The special lessons he teaches. True service must be voluntary. (Psa_40:8; Deu_28:47.) “Whose service is perfect freedom.” It becomes so in proportion as we know and love the one served. (2Co_5:14; Son_1:4.) Duty a lower motive-power than love. (Duty would have constrained Ittai to fight well, but not to endure exile.) All soul-satisfying religion centres round a person, not a system, or a doctrine. “Believe on the Lord JesusChrist,” not only in His work for you. A man the real object of love and trust. The God-man--Emmanuel. (R. E. Faulkner.)
David retires from the capital to the east of the Jordan
David is evidently taken completely by surprise. The reasons for his hasty resolution to leave his fortified capital are not clear from the narrative before us. Had he grounds for suspecting the loyalty of the population, perhaps still predominantly Jebusite? Of no single day in the whole course of the recorded history of the Hebrews have we so detailed a record as we have of the day on which David fled before his undutiful son. From the time when, in the morning hours: he passed in haste through the eastern gate until, before the next day dawned (2Sa_17:22),. he and all his following had safely crossed the Jordan, every hour is crowded with life and incident, and every line of the narrative is instinct with the emotions and impulses, good and bad, that mould the lives of men. (Century Bible.)
A king’s flight from his capital
James II. was fleeing from his English subjects. At three in the morning of Tuesday, the 11th of December, James rose, took the great seal in his hand, laid his commands on Northumberland not to open the door of the bed-chamber till the usual hour, and disappeared through a secret passage . . . Sir Edward Hales was in attendance with a hackney coach. James was conveyed to Milbank, where he crossed the Thames in a small wherry. As he passed Lambeth he flung the great seal into the midst of the stream, whence, after many months, it was accidentally caught by a fishing-net and dragged up. (Macaulay’s England.)
