10 And the king [HaMelech] said, What have I to do with you, ye sons of Zeruiah [ Bnei Tzeruyah]? So let him curse, because Yahweh hath said unto him, Curse David [Dovid]. Who shall then say, Wherefore [why] hast thou done so?

'...a thing may be of God and not of God at one and the same time. This is not hard to receive, where the two sides of an action are taken into account. Those who recognise only man in the case, will doubtless find it impossible to receive it; but where a man sees the two actors, —man with his objects, and God using and over-ruling man's action with other objects altogether, the proposition seems simplicity itself.

The crucifixion of Christ, so far as man was concerned, was a deed of pure wickedness. It is always set forth in this light (Acts 2: 23; 7: 52; 13: 27-29). Yet it was a matter of divine arrangement and execution, as is still more plainly and frequently declared (Acts 4: 27-28; Romans 3: 25). The afflictions of the Jewish race are referable on the human side to human malice and rapacity, as everyone knows by experience and as the Scriptures declare (Zechariah 1: 1-15; Obadiah 10-16). On the divine side, they were the designed punishment of Israel's iniquities.

This double-sidedness of events will be found running through the whole course of scriptural narrative. Considering that these things were "written for our instruction," the value of this fact is apparent. It helps us rightly to interpret our experience if we be of those who commit their way to God in well doing and constant prayer.

It enables us to take suffering from the hand of God even when nothing but a human cause is discernible to the natural eye. Successful malice and pitiless disaster are thus deprived of half their sting. We can say of the Shimeis, "Let them alone: God has sent them"; or of the prevailing trouble, "It is of the Lord."

"It may be the Lord will look on my affliction and bring me again to His habitation."

Ways of Providence Ch 19.

11 And David said to Abishai [Dovid said to Avishai], and to all his servants [avadim], Behold, my son [Hinei, beni], which came forth of my bowels [from within me], seeketh my life [nefesh]: how much more now may this Benjamite [Bin-Hayemini] do it? Let him alone, and let him curse; for Yahweh hath bidden him.

When we consider how much depends, both in public and private matters, upon the moods and desires of particular individuals, and how easy it is for divine power to affect those moods without the person being aware of the cause, or that any cause at all is in operation, it is easy to realise how God can raise trouble or give peace without any apparent interference with the order of nature.

A man has not yet learnt the ways of God thoroughly, who does not recognise that most of His dealings with the children of men in the present state of racial alienation, are performed with hidden hand, and from within the veil so to speak, by means of regulated natural circumstances which are none the less the work of God because under a mask.

That God had not, in the specific sense, commissioned Shimei to curse David, is evident from the fact that on David's return, Shimei made a very servile apology, and confessed having sinned in the matter. His words were:

"Let not my lord impute iniquity unto me, neither do thou remember that which thy servant did perversely the day that my lord the king went out of Jerusalem, that the king should take it to his heart. For thy servant doth know that I have sinned. Therefore, behold, I am come the first this day of all the house of Joseph, to go down to meet my lord the king."

If Shimei's anathema of David had been in compliance with a divine command, it would have been no sin and Shimei would not have taken this attitude in the matter. David afterwards indicated the true nature of Shimei's procedure as far as Shimei's personal objects were concerned. (cp.1 Kings 2: 8-9)

Ways of Providence Ch 17.