Matthew Henry on 2 Samuel 16:5-14
We here find how David bore Shimei's curses much better than he had borne Ziba's flatteries. By the latter he was brought to pass a wrong judgment on another, by the former to pass a right judgment on himself. The world's smiles are more dangerous than its frowns. Observe here,
I. How insolent and furious Shimei was, and how his malice took occasion from David's present distress to be so much the more outrageous. David, in his flight, had come to Bahurim, a city of Benjamin in or near which this Shimei lived, who, being of the house of Saul (with the fall of which all his hopes of preferment fell), had an implacable enmity to David, unjustly looking upon him as the ruin of Saul and his famil…
Read the whole note in the consoleJamieson-Fausset-Brown on 2 Samuel 16:5
SHIMEI CURSES DAVID. (Sa2 16:5-19)
when king David came to Bahurim--a city of Benjamin (Sa2 3:16; Sa2 19:16). It is, however, only the confines of the district that are here meant.
Shimei, . . . a man of the family of Saul--The misfortune of his family, and the occupation by David of what they considered their rightful possessions, afforded a natural, if not a justifiable cause for this ebullition of rude insults and violence. He upbraided David as an ambitious usurper, and charged him, as one whose misdeeds had recoiled upon his own head, to surrender a throne to which he was not entitled. His language was that of a man incensed by the wrongs that he conceived had been done to his house.…
Read the whole note in the consoleAdam Clarke on 2 Samuel 16:5
David came to Bahurim - This place lay northward of Jerusalem, in the tribe of Benjamin. It is called Almon, Jos 21:18; and Alemeth, Ch1 6:60. Bahurim signifies youths, and Almuth youth; so the names are of the same import.
Cursed still as he came - Used imprecations and execrations.
John Gill on 2 Samuel 16:6
And he cast stones at David, and at all the servants of King David,.... Not that he was within the reach of them, or could hurt them, by casting them at them; but this he did to show his contempt of them, and to intimate that they deserved to be stoned, and especially David, at whose adultery he might point by it:
and all the people, and all the mighty men were on his right hand,
and on his left; that is, of David; which is observed, not so much to indicate the safety of David's person, as the impudence and madness of Shimei, to cast stones at David when so guarded.
