And there happened to be a man of Belial
A wicked man, as the Targum, a lawless, yokeless man, that had cast off the yoke of the law, and was without it, as Belial is by some interpreted; or one unprofitable and useless, yea, noxious and pernicious: this man, though, with respect to second causes, may be said to be there by chance, yet it was so ordered by the providence of God that he should be present at this time for the further fulfilment of the threatening to David, that the sword should not depart from his house:
whose name [was] Sheba, the son of Bichri, a Benjamite;
one perhaps that had been in the rebellion of Absalom, and had a grudge against David for the removal of the kingdom out of that tribe:
and he blew a trumpet;
which was done to draw off the Israelites from David, and gather a party to himself:
and said, we have no part in David;
so he interpreted what the men of Judah said, because they claimed kindred to David, the rest of the Israelites had no interest in him; thus they, who just before said they had ten parts in him, now had none at all:
neither have we inheritance in the son of Jesse;
so he calls David by way of contempt, as if he was no king, but a private person, and a descendant from a mean family:
every man to his tent, O Israel;
there to consider what to do, and whom to choose to be their king, and let Judah take David for their king, and enjoy him alone, since they had so slighted, and dealt so injuriously and roughly with the rest of the tribes.