2 Samuel 16:21

Ahithophel said—Go in unto thy father's concubines— Ahithophel advised this action, because it would prove his enmity to his father to be irreconcileable, and consequently attach firmly to his interest all those who were disaffected to David, when they once saw that they were out of all danger of being sacrificed to any possible reconciliation between the father and son: an advice for the present, and in appearance, wise, but in reality pernicious. Could not this long-headed, sagacious statesman forsee, that this action (for which some men would now become more attached to Absalom) must one day make him detestable in their eyes, when they reflected upon the horror of it: a guilt made mortal by the law of God, Leviticus 20:11 and not named even among the Gentiles; a guilt, for which they must one day judge him more worthy to lose his crown, than Reuben his birth-right. 1 Chronicles 5:1. However, this hellish advice was immediately adopted; for Ahithophel's advice was then deemed as unerring as if the oracle of God had dictated it: 2 Samuel 16:23. Thus was David's adultery (planned, and, it may be, perpetrated in the same place) judicially chastized, and God's vengeance denounced upon him by his prophet signally executed. See ch. 2 Samuel 12:11.

Reflections respecting David's conduct under the curse of Shemi.

They who have with very signal patience behaved themselves well under a great persecution, and undergone adversity with proper courage, have not found so great difficulty in any part of it, as when they have met with the contempt of proud standers-by; when they, who have no hand in bringing their afflictions upon them, have, out of the haughtiness of their natures, derided them for being in affliction, and insulted their misfortunes, only because they were unfortunate. We have never more need of the immediate influence of God's Spirit, than in such assaults; when those who oppress us add contempt and scorn to their injustice, and when the spectators of our miseries take occasion from thence to deride and despise our persons: nor can any thing preserve us in those cases from some unwarrantable conduct, but the casting up our eyes to the hand whence the strokes come, and concluding, that as the weight of the affliction comes from God upon us, so every circumstance that accompanies it, whether in the proud and disdainful smiles of men, or in the louder reproaches of those who are delighted in what we suffer, is sent likewise by him to increase our mortification, and to try whether we can master those lesser unwary passions, as well as conform ourselves in the more weighty and deliberate temptations. Because the Lord hath said unto him, Curse David; who then shall say, Wherefore hast thou done so? was the recollection of that devout prince, and strong enough to restrain the son of Zeruiah from taking vengeance upon Shimei, in the moment of his insolently cursing the king. If in the scoffs and derision of our enemies, who make themselves sport at our calamities, we did but consider, that every insolence of theirs, every unsavoury jest that they break upon us to render us more contemptible to those who behold us, are so many emissaries permitted of God to be sent to visit us, and to manifest how we behave ourselves in those provocations; we should be better prepared for their reception, and drive away all their pride and insolence with a contempt which would both disappoint and incense them, turn the edge and rancour of their own weapons upon themselves, and make them penetrate their own souls because they could not pierce ours. It is for want only of this recollection, of this diligent attention and submission to the hand of Divine Providence, that our passions too often prevail over us; and, when the power and menaces of our superiors have not been able to terrify us from doing our duty, the scurrilous jests and impudent revilings of our equals or inferiors have made us to be less in love with our innocence, and even to sacrifice that to indecent murmur, or to avowed anger and revenge.