The original Korean text: https://blog.naver.com/stevision/220227549265
>> Then the king said to Ittai the Gittite, "Why do you also go with us? Go back, and stay with the king; for you are a foreigner, and also an exile from your home. You came only yesterday, and shall I today make you wander about with us, seeing I go I know not where? Go back, and take your brethren with you; and may the Lord show steadfast love and faithfulness to you." But Ittai answered the king, "As the Lord lives, and as my lord the king lives, wherever my lord the king shall be, whether for death or for life, there also will your servant be." (2 Sam 15:19-21) <<
Saul, the first king of Israel, had a cousin, Abner, and Saul made him the commander-in-chief of the army. But Abner was very disloyal to his lord Saul.
Abner luckily(!) survived the war with the Philistines, where Saul died. Actually, isn't this a shame? (Shouldn't he, as a man of Saul, have died instead of his king?) Abner made Saul's son Ishbosheth king. However, Abner dealt with him as a dummy king, and behaved as he liked as a man who had the real power over the army. Abner kept a secret love with Rizpah, a concubine of his lord Saul. Have you ever seen such an unfaithful man who dishonored his lord like Abner? At last Abner decided to betray Saul and to hand over the kingdom of Ishbosheth son of Saul to David, and met David and concluded an agreement. What an unfaithful subordinate! On the way back, Abner was killed by David's man Joab. Saul's son, Ishbosheth, was killed by his disloyal people, with his head cut off ㅡ what a shame to him! With this, Saul's house was completely ruined.
In the text of the Bible above, Ittai the Gittite was a loyal officer of David. As David did before, Ittai was driven away by his native people and fled to another country, to David. Like David, he came with his soldiers following him. This means that he was a head of a small military group who was pushed out of the mainstream. Ittai came to David and maybe said, "Please take care of this poor man!" David, remembering his past, felt sorry for him and made him his subordinate. Thinking David's power would be long and strong, he came to David, but the next day (or several days later) David's son Absalom rebelled and David had to flee miserably. What a bad fate!
David said to Ittai, "Do not follow me, a miserable man, but think of your men and go to the new king." (It is unclear whether the king David refers to was Absalom or the king of Ittai's homeland. Judging from the context, it seems to be Absalom.) But Ittai answered that he would keep his fidelity to King David. As a matter of fact, Ittai must have sworn an oath of allegiance to David when he came to David. However it would ill befit him, an honorable warrior, to change his mind so easily because David got in difficult situations.
God gave a lot of loyal men to David while he sent traitors to Saul. Saul was the one who brutally slaughtered servants of God. David committed a couple of sins against God, but later repented thoroughly, and David's life as a whole was very loyal to God.
Absalom, of course, who betrayed his father, was severely punished and met death.
It is God's law to reap what you sow.
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