2 Samuel 3:35

35 And all the people come to cause David to eat bread while yet day, and David sweareth, saying, `Thus doth God to me, and thus He doth add, for -- before the going in of the sun, I taste no bread or any other thing.'

2 Samuel 3:35 Meaning and Commentary

2 Samuel 3:35

And when all the people came to cause David to eat meat while
it was yet day
The custom was to bury in the daytime, and after the funeral was over to provide and send in food to the relations of the deceased, and come and eat with them; as was also the usage with the Greeks and Romans ^F23; (See Gill on Jeremiah 16:5) and (See Gill on Jeremiah 16:7); and kings themselves used to attend those feasts; for the Jews say ^F24,

``when they cause him (the king) to eat, all the people sit upon the ground, and he sits upon the bed;''

but in this case David refused to eat with them:

David sware, saying, so do God to me, and more also;
may the greatest evils, and such as I care not to mention, befall me; and even more and worse than I can think of and express:

if I taste bread, or ought else, till the sun be down;
perhaps the funeral was in the morning, as funerals with the Jews generally now are; for otherwise if it was now towards evening, his abstinence from food till that time would not have seemed so much, nor required much notice, and still less an oath.

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FOOTNOTES:

F23 Vid. Kirchman. de Funer. Roman, l. 4. c. 5. & 6.
F24 Misn. ut supra. (Sanhedrin, c. 2. sect. 3.) David de Pomis ut supra. (Lexic. fol. 119. 4.)

2 Samuel 3:35 In-Context

33 and the king lamenteth for Abner, and saith: -- `As the death of a fool doth Abner die?

34 Thy hands not bound, And thy feet to fetters not brought nigh! As one falling before sons of evil -- Thou hast fallen!' and all the people add to weep over him.

35 And all the people come to cause David to eat bread while yet day, and David sweareth, saying, `Thus doth God to me, and thus He doth add, for -- before the going in of the sun, I taste no bread or any other thing.'

36 And all the people have discerned [it], and it is good in their eyes, as all that the king hath done is good in the eyes of all the people;

37 and all the people know, even all Israel, in that day, that it hath not been from the king -- to put to death Abner son of Ner.