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 Samuel 15:21
I cannot tell you how many times I have read the Bible, cover to cover. I can tell you that the Word of God, consistently reveals new things and speaks new truths to me. While preparing for this blog, I had one of those WOW moments.
In 2 Samuel 15, we read that king David is fleeing from his own son (Absalom) who has schemed and gotten himself proclaimed king. (Then David said to all his officials, who were with him in Jerusalem, “Come! We must flee, or none of us will escape from Absalom. We must leave immediately, or he will move quickly to overtake us and bring ruin on us and put the city to the sword.” 2 Samuel 15:14)
David was not just fleeing for his own safety, he fled so that his son would not destroy the city as well, and for the safety of his household and his followers, so he called for them as well. He was a good king, still a sinner, but a good king (the king set out, with his entire household following him; but he left ten concubines to take care of the palace. So the king set out, with all the people following him, and they halted at the edge of the city. 2 Samuel 15:16-17).
Then we meet someone that I have given very little regard to in my previous readings of the scripture…Ittai the Gittite. Ittai the Gittite is a man from Gath who is in exile, along with 600 other Gittites and who had just arrived in the kingdom the day before. (All his men marched past him, along with all the Kerethites and Pelethites; and all the six hundred Gittites who had accompanied him from Gath marched before the king. 2 Samuel 18). But we quickly see that he has great loyalty toward king David.
King David tells Ittai that he should go back to the Kingdom, that because he is a foreigner it doesn’t make sense for Ittai to wander around following after him when he doesn’t even know where he is going. And then, king David says, in verse 15:20, “and may the LORD show steadfast love and faithfulness to you.”. This is a picture of David’s heart. He doesn’t really know this man, he just said “you only came yesterday.” Yet he desires that Ittai and his brothers should be safe and that God would love and bless them. Who doesn’t want to follow a king like that?
Then we see Ittai’s heart for king David, when he responds “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.” Ittai doesn’t personally know king David any more than king David knew him, yet he knows that David is a man of God and as long as God and king David live, he will be David’s servant.
King David then relents and not only allows Ittai and his men to come along but later on puts him in charge of 1/3 of his forces when they combat Absalom (David sent out his troops, a third under the command of Joab, a third under Joab’s brother Abishai son of Zeruiah, and a third under Ittai the Gittite. The king told the troops, “I myself will surely march out with you.” 2 Samuel 18:2). This makes perfect sense as Gittites were the same people group that Goliath was from and whom king David had slain (I never noticed this before). They were very large people even called giants in the scripture (And when he taunted Israel, Jonathan the son of Shimea, David’s brother, struck him down. These were descended from the giants in Gath, and they fell by the hand of David and by the hand of his servants. 1 Chronicles 20:7-8.). They certainly sound like a group of people I’d want in my army ; ).
There are several things about this section of scripture that caused an AHHHA moment for me. The 1st being – the similarity between king David and our Precious Savior. Both were Kings chosen by God, David over Israel and Jesus over the world. The heart of king David was tender even toward complete strangers, he loved the way that Jesus did, deeply, we see that in verse 15:20. He sought God’s will even if it meant his death, just like Jesus did, (“But if he says, ‘I have no pleasure in you, ‘ behold, here I am, let him do to me what seems good to him.” 2 Samuel 15:26). He even crossed over the very same “Brook of Cedron” that Jesus crossed enroute to to the Garden of Gethsemene where He would be betrayed as well (When Jesus had spoken these words, he went forth with his disciples over the brook Cedron, where was a garden, into the which he entered, and his disciples. John 18:1).
The 2nd thing that was an AHHHA moment for me was the loyalty of Ittai. This man, who comes face to face with the king, says whether in death or life, I (your servant) will be with you. That is what happens when we come face to face with The King, King Jesus!! Once we let our guard down and open our hearts to Him we cannot resist the urge to follow after Him, never leave him and to rage with Him in this war against the enemy.
I pray that today we would follow The Leader (Jesus) and that we would look into the precious face of our Savior. I pray that the mercy, grace and love that we see there would take our breath away. That we would be awestruck and deeply in love with Him. So much so that we would follow The Leader, the King, the Savior of the world and say “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.” I pray that we would be fierce soldiers in this war against the enemy, winning an incredible number of souls for Him. And, I pray that the evidence of His love for us and our love for Him would be so strikingly obvious that others would HUNGER for more of whatever it is that we have and they don’t….JESUS!
If you have never let your guard down and opened your heart to Jesus, I pray that you would do it right now and go to our Life Preserver page, open your heart to Him and pray the prayer that is outlined there. I promise you that you will never know a love, like the incredible love of Jesus. Once you have prayed that prayer, please reach out to me at admin@Forgiven-N-Loved.com and let me know, so that I can be in prayer for you and help you grow in your knowledge of, and personal relationship with, our Precious Savior – Jesus Christ.
Luv ya!
