2 Samuel 16:1-12

a Day That Revealed Character

2 Samuel 16:1

There may have been some truth in Ziba's statement, but we should balance it with 2 Samuel 19:24. Shimei vented the spleen of the house of Saul. He probably referred to the recent execution of the sons of Rizpah, and perhaps suggested that David had been guilty of all the disaster that had befallen Saul's house from the day of Gilboa. When men curse us, whether we deserve it or not, let us look past them to the permissive will of God. “Let him curse; for the Lord hath bidden him!”

When, through the treachery of Judas, the bitter cup came to the lips of our Lord, he said, “It is the cup that my Father hath given me to drink.” Pain and sorrow, treachery and hard speeches, may be devised against us by the malignity of an Ahithophel, a Shimei, or a Judas; but by the time these have passed, through the permissive will of God, we may receive them as the strokes of His chastening rod, that we may partake of His holiness. We are not the sport of chance or human caprice. God deals with us as with sons.