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📚Moreover Ahithophel said to Absalom, “Let me now choose twelve thousand men, and I will arise and pursue David tonight. 17:1 Both David and Absalom recognized the wisdom of Ahitophel (2 Sam 16:23).⚜
2 📚And I will come on him while he is weary and his hands weak, and I will put fear into him. And all the people who are with him will flee, and I will strike down only the king. 3 📚And I will bring all the people back to you. When all return, except the man you are seeking, all the people will be in peace”. 4 📚And the suggestion pleased Absalom and all the elders of Israel.
17:4 From a military point of view his advice was shrewd and, if followed, might well have succeeded.⚜
5 📚Then Absalom said 📖, “Now call Hushai the Archite too, and let us hear what he says also”. 6 And when Hushai came to Absalom, Absalom spoke to him, saying, “Ahithophel has spoken like this. Shall we follow his suggestion? If not, you speak out”.
7 📚And Hushai said to Absalom, “The counsel that Ahithophel has given is not good at this time. 8 📚For”, said Hushai, “you know your father and his men, that they are mighty men, and their minds are embittered. They are like a bear robbed of its cubs in the field. And your father is a warrior, and will not spend the night with the people. 9 📚Look, he is hidden now in some cave or in some other place. And when some of your men fall at the first attack, it will happen that whoever hears it will say, ‘There is a slaughter among the people who follow Absalom.’ 10 📚And even the one who is valiant, whose heart is like the heart of a lion, will melt away. For all Israel knows that your father is a mighty man and that those who are with him are valiant men.
11 📚“Therefore, I counsel that all Israel should be gathered to you, from Dan to Beersheba, in number like the sand that is by the sea, and that you personally go to the battle. 12 📚So we can come on him in some place, wherever he is to be found, and we will fall on him like dew falls on the ground; and neither he nor all the men who are with him, not one, will be left. 13 📚Moreover, if he has gone into a city, then all Israel can bring ropes to that city, and we will draw it into the river until not even a small stone will be found there”.
17:5-13 Hushai shows his knowledge of Absalom’s character and state of mind, and how to use them to help David. Absalom was in doubt what to do, was afraid of his father’s skill in battle, wanted to be thought a great man, and liked a big show (2 Sam 15:1; 2 Sam 18:18).⚜
14 📚And Absalom and all the men of Israel said, “The counsel of Hushai the Archite is better than the counsel of Ahithophel”. For the LORD had ordained that the good counsel of Ahithophel be defeated, to the intent that the LORD might bring disaster on Absalom.
The priests send word to David about Absalom’s plans
15 📚Then Hushai said to Zadok and to Abiathar the priests, “This is the counsel Ahithophel gave to Absalom and the elders of Israel, and this is what I counselled. 16 📚Now therefore send quickly and tell David, saying, ‘Do not spend tonight in the plains of the wilderness, but quickly cross over the Jordan, so that the king and all the people who are with him will not be destroyed.’ ”
17 📚Now Jonathan and Ahimaaz were staying at Enrogel, for they could not be seen entering the city. And a servant girl went and reported to them, and they went and told King David. 18 📚However a lad saw them and told Absalom. But both of them went away quickly, and at Bahurim came to a man’s house who had a well in his compound, and they went down into it. 19 📚And the woman took a covering and spread it over the well’s mouth, and scattered crushed grain on it; and the matter was not known.
20 📚And when Absalom’s servants came to the woman at the house, they said, “Where are Ahimaaz and Jonathan?” And the woman said to them, “They have gone over the water brook”. And when they had looked and could not find them, they returned to Jerusalem.
21 📚And it came about, after they had left, that they came up out of the well, and went and told King David and said to David, “Arise and quickly cross over the water, for this is what Ahithophel counselled against you”. 22 📚Then David and all the people who were with him arose and crossed the Jordan. At the morning light there was not a one of them who had not gone over the Jordan.
Ahithophel’s suicide
23 📚And when Ahithophel saw that his counsel was not followed, he saddled his donkey and got up and went to his house in his city, put his household in order, and hanged himself 📖 and died. And he was buried in the tomb of his father.
24 📚Then David came to Mahanaim. And Absalom crossed the Jordan, he and all the men of Israel with him. 25 📚And Absalom made Amasa commander of the army instead of Joab. This Amasa was the son of a man whose name was Ithra, an Israelite who went in to Abigail the daughter of Nahash, the sister of Joab’s mother Zeruiah.
17:25 Amasa was David’s nephew.⚜
26 📚So Israel and Absalom camped in the land of Gilead.
27 📚And this is what happened when David came to Mahanaim: Shobi, the son of Nahash of Rabbah of the children of Ammon, and Machir, the son of Ammiel of Lo-debar, and Barzillai, the Gileadite of Rogelim, 28 📚brought beds and basins and clay pots and wheat and barley and flour and roasted grain and beans and lentils and parched pulse,
17:27-28 God can provide for His own, no matter where they may have to flee.⚜
29 📚and honey and butter and sheep and cheese from cows’ milk, for David and for the people who were with him to eat, for they said, “The people are hungry and weary and thirsty in the wilderness”.