should not have discouraged any from joining and following him, when his numbers were not very large, and the in such fear on account of Absalom: return to this place; to Jerusalem, where his station was: and abide with the king; with Absalom, who set himself up for king, and whom the people perhaps had proclaimed as such in Hebron, where the conspiracy began: for thou art a stranger, and also an exile; not a native of Israel, but of another nation, and at a distance from it, and therefore not altogether under the same obligations to attend David in his troubles as others were; and by this it seems that he was a Gittite by nation, whatever the six hundred men were, and rather favours the first sense given of them in Sa2 15:18 .