David ought to have suppressed his anger in his existing circumstances, and ought not to have rendered evil for evil, especially as he was not only about to pardon Amasa's crime, but even to reward him as one of his faithful servants.
Verses 15-16
2Sa 19:15-16Return of the king; and occurrences at the crossing of the Jordan. - 2Sa 19:15-23. Pardon of Shimei. - 2Sa 19:15, 2Sa 19:16. When David reached the Jordan on his return, and Judah had come to Gilgal “to meet him, to conduct the king over the Jordan,” i.e., to form an escort at the crossing, Shimei the Benjaminite hastened down from Bahurim (see 2Sa 16:5.) with the men of Judah to meet David.
Verses 17-19
There also came along with Shimei a thousand men of Benjamin, and Ziba the servant of the house of Saul, with his fifteen sons and twenty servants (see 2Sa 9:10); and they went over the Jordan before the king, viz., through a ford, and the ferry-boat had crossed over to carry over the king's family, and to do whatever seemed good to him, i.e., to be placed at the king's sole disposal. And Shimei fell down before the king, בּעברו, i.e., “when he (David) was about to cross over the Jordan,” not “when Shimei had crossed over the Jordan;” for after what has just been stated, such a remark would be superfluous: moreover, it is very doubtful whether the infinitive with בּ can express the sense of the pluperfect. Shimei said, “Let not my lord impute to me any crime, and do not remember how thy servant hath sinned.”
Verses 20-23
2Sa 19:20-23 “For thy servant knoweth (i.e., I know) that I have sinned, and behold I have come to-day the first of the whole house of Joseph, to go to meet my lord the king.” By “the whole house of Joseph” we are to understand the rest of the tribes with the exception of Judah, who are called “all Israel” in 2Sa 19:12. There is no reason for the objection taken by Thenius and Böttcher to the expression בּית־יוסף. This rendering of the lxx (παντὸς Ἰσραὴλ καὶ οἴκου Ἰωσήφ) does not prove that כּלישׂראל was the original reading, but only that the translator thought it necessary to explain οἴκου Ἰωσήφ by adding the gloss παντὸς Ἰσραὴλ; and the assertion that it was only in the oratorical style of a later period, when the kingdom had been divided, that Joseph became the party name of all that were not included in Judah, is overthrown by 1Ki 11:28. The designation of the tribes that opposed Judah by the name of the leading tribe (Joseph: Jos 16:1)
