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 bloodshed 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 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.
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