2 Samuel 16:10

10. Ye sons of Zeruiah Perhaps Joab joined with Abishai in the request to avenge the king.

The Lord hath said unto him, Curse David By this we are not to understand that God personally communicated with Shimei, and by direct revelation ordered him to curse David; but that David recognised in Shimei’s cursing one method of receiving the divine judgments upon himself for his past sins. It was an instance where God made the wrath of one man an instrument of scourging another for his crimes. David felt that the hand of God was in it.

Pure from the blood of Saul in vain,

He dares not to the charge reply;

Uriah’s doth the charge maintain,

Uriah’s doth against him cry.

Let Shimei curse: the rod he bears

For sins which Mercy had forgiven,

And in the wrongs of man reveres

The awful righteousness of Heaven.

Lord, I adore thy gracious will

Through every instrument of ill

My Father’s goodness see;

Accept the complicated wrong

Of Shimei’s hand and Shimei’s tongue

As kind rebukes from thee. C. Wesley.