We do not miss the loyalty
of David's mercenary troops (15: 19 - 21); the narrator's conviction
of the mature quality
of David's
faith (15:25 f.; 16:12); the essential gentleness
of David in these most wretched hours (16:5 - 14); the brilliant, carnal symbol
of Absalom's irrevocable usurpation (16:20 - 22) and its portentous recall
of the David - Nathan encounter (II 12:11 - 12); the arch Old Testament realist, the remarkable pragmatist Ahitophel (17: 1 - 23); Joab, who always
acts like Joab (18:10 - 15; 19:1 - 7; 20A - 13); David's pathetic concern, implicit throughout, for the
defiant son (18:1 - 5); the moving grief
of a father's utter brokenness in the loss
of his son (18:33); the reassertion in this critical time
of the old and always fundamental north - south cleavage (19:11,41 - 43); David's profound and probably chronic annoyance with the crude, brash, «muscular» ways
of Joab and his brothers, the sons
of Zeruiah (16:10; 19:22; see also 3:34 b; 3:38 f.); and finally, in a kind
of pausal summary before the last scene
of David's reign in I Kings 1 - 2, the statement
of David's very modest bureaucracy (20:23 - 26; cf. the extensive elaboration
of this structure under Solomon, I Kings 4:1 ff.).