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The Beginning of the End
David Finally Acts
Meanwhile the alarm was carried to Jerusalem. David suddenly
saw that rebellion was breaking out close beside his throne. His own
son had been plotting to seize his crown and certainly take his life.
In his great danger David shook off the depression that had long
engulfed him and prepared to meet this terrible emergency. Absalom
was only twenty miles away—the rebels would soon be at the gates
of Jerusalem.
David shuddered at the thought of exposing his capital to blood-
shed and devastation. Should he permit Jerusalem to be deluged
with blood? He made his decision. He would leave Jerusalem, and
then test his people, giving them opportunity to rally to his support.
It was his duty to God and to his people to maintain the authority
that Heaven had given him.
In humility and sorrow, David went out of the gate of Jerusalem.
The people followed in a long, sad procession, like a funeral train.
David’s bodyguard of Cherethites, Pelethites, and Gittites, under the
command of Ittai, accompanied the king. But with characteristic
unselfishness, David could not consent to involve these strangers
in his calamity. Then the king said to Ittai, “Why are you also
going with us? ... You are a foreigner and also an exile. ... In fact,
you came only yesterday. Should I make you wander up and down
with us today, since I go I know not where? Return, and take your
brethren back. Mercy and truth be with you.”
Ittai answered, “As the Lord lives, and as my lord the king lives,
surely in whatever place my lord the king shall be, whether in death
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or life, even there also your servant will be.” These men had been
converted from paganism, and they now nobly proved their loyalty to
God and their king. David accepted their devotion to his apparently
losing cause, and they all passed over the Kidron brook, toward the
wilderness.
Some Are Loyal to David in the Crisis
Again the procession stopped. “There was Zadok also, and all
the Levites with him, bearing the ark of the covenant of God.” To the
people with David, the presence of that sacred symbol was a pledge