which God answered (vid., 2Sa 17:1.).
Verses 32-34
On David's arrival at the height where people were accustomed to worship, i.e., upon the top of the Mount of Olives, the Archite Hushai came to meet him with his clothes rent and earth upon his head, that is to say, in the deepest mourning (see 1Sa 4:12). It is evident from the words וגו אשׁר־ישׁתּחוה that there was a place of worship upon the top of the Mount of Olives, probably a bamah, such as continued to exist in different places throughout the land, even after the building of the temple. According to 2Sa 15:37; 2Sa 16:16, and 1Ch 27:33, Hushai was רעה, a friend of David, i.e., one of his privy councillors. הארכּי (the Archite), if we may judge from Jos 16:2, was the name of a family whose possessions were upon the southern boundary of the tribe of Ephraim, between Bethel and Ataroth. Hushai was probably a very old man, as David said to him (2Sa 15:33, 2Sa 15:34), “If thou goest with me, thou wilt be a burden to me. But if thou returnest to the city and offerest Absalom thy services, thou canst bring for me the counsel of Ahithophel to nought. If thou sayest to Absalom, I will be thy servant, O king; servant of thy father (i.e., as regards this) I was that of old, but now I am thy servant.” The ו before אני introduces the apodosis both times (vid., Ewald, §348, a.).
Verses 35-36
David then commissioned him to communicate to the priests Zadok and Abiathar all that he should hear of the king's house, and send word to him through their sons.
Verse 37
So Hushai went into the city when Absalom came to Jerusalem. The רְְ before the second clause, followed by the imperfect יבוא, indicates contemporaneous occurrence (vid., Ewald, §346, b.).
Chap. 16
==Verse 1== Ziba's faithless conduct towards Mephibosheth. - 2Sa 16:1. When David had gone a little over the height (of the Mount of Olives: הראשׁ points back to 2Sa 15:32), Mephibosheth's servant Ziba came to meet him, with a couple of asses saddled, and laden with two hundred loaves, a hundred raisin-cakes, a hundred date or fig-cakes, and a skin of wine. The word קיץ corresponds to the Greek ὀπώρα, as the lxx have rendered it in Jer 40:10, Jer 40:12, and is used to signify summer fruits, both here and in Amo 8:1 (Symm.). The early translators rendered it lumps of figs in the present passage (παλάθαι; cf. Ges. Thes. p. 1209). The Septuagint only has ἑκατὸν φοίνικες.
