2 Samuel17chapter 17

2 Samuel 17:1-3

Ahithophel proposes a narrow strike: twelve thousand men, one night, one target. His plan is surgical rather than a general war, smite the king only and bring all the people back in peace, and Matthew Henry hears the shape of Caiaphas at John 11:50 in it, one man dying so the nation need not perish. This is Ahithophel's second counsel in as many chapters; his first, the seizing of David's concubines at 16:21, had already been carried out exactly as he gave it.

2 Samuel 17:4-6

The saying pleases Absalom, but he still calls for Hushai's word before acting on it, a fickleness Barnes reads as providence keeping the door open a second time. Hushai's presence in the council chamber is no accident: David had sent him back from the ascent of Olivet at 15:32-37 with one assignment, to defeat the counsel of Ahithophel, and this is the moment that assignment is tested. Absalom's own question, if not, speak thou, invites the very contradiction that will undo him.

2 Samuel 17:7-13

Hushai concedes what everyone in the room already knows, that Ahithophel's counsel has generally been sound, and stakes his objection only on this time, which gives his dissent the appearance of fairness rather than rivalry. His argument is picture and flattery together: David and his mighty men are a bear robbed of her whelps, too dangerous to be caught by surprise, so let Absalom instead gather all Israel from Dan to Beersheba and lead the host himself, as the sand of the sea for multitude. Every word plays to the young man's vanity and buys David the one thing Ahithophel's plan would have denied him, time.

2 Samuel 17:14

The narrator states the theology of the whole rebellion in one clause: the Lord had appointed to defeat the good counsel of Ahithophel, to the intent that the Lord might bring evil upon Absalom. Hushai's flattering speech works because Absalom wants it to work, and the text credits the outcome to God rather than to Hushai's rhetoric. It is the answer to David's prayer at 15:31, O Lord, I pray thee, turn the counsel of Ahithophel into foolishness, given almost word for word.

2 Samuel 17:15-16

Hushai reports both counsels to Zadok and Abiathar the priests, still stationed in Jerusalem watching the city for David, and sends them running with the one order that matters, do not lodge in the plains of the wilderness tonight. The urgency is deliberate: Hushai has bought time with his speech, but he does not trust Absalom to stay talked out of Ahithophel's plan for long. The priests become the relay in a chain that already includes their own sons waiting outside the city walls.

2 Samuel 17:17-21

Jonathan and Ahimaaz, the priests' sons, wait outside the city at En-rogel because they cannot risk being seen going in, and a servant girl carries the message to them, an ordinary courier for word that will decide whether David lives. Discovered by a boy and pursued to Bahurim, they go down into a well in a man's courtyard, and the woman of the house spreads a covering and ground corn over the mouth of it, hiding two fugitives under a household chore. Barnes notes that had Absalom's servants found her still in the courtyard the spread grain might have given her away; instead they search, find nothing, and go home.

2 Samuel 17:22

All of David's company crosses the Jordan by morning light, and the narrator adds a detail he did not owe the reader, there lacked not one of them. Henry reads the completeness of the crossing as a figure of the greater Son of David, who said of those the Father gave him, of all that thou hast given me have I lost none, a likeness he draws rather than a citation the text itself makes. The flight becomes an orderly deliverance rather than a rout, every person accounted for on the far bank.

2 Samuel 17:23

Ahithophel sets his affairs in order and hangs himself, the only such death recorded in the Old Testament. The only other self-hanging in Scripture is Judas at Matthew 27:5, and the two men share more than a method. Psalm 41:9, mine own familiar friend which did eat of my bread hath lifted up his heel against me, is read by the church as David's word for Ahithophel, and John 13:18 has Jesus quote the same verse of Judas. Henry notes that Ahithophel was still buried in his father's tomb, an honor his own end did not forfeit.

2 Samuel 17:24-26

David reaches Mahanaim, the strong city across Jordan that had already sheltered Ish-bosheth in the civil war after Saul's death, while Absalom crosses behind him with the levy Hushai's counsel raised. Absalom replaces Joab with Amasa as captain of the host; the two commanders are cousins, Amasa's mother Abigail and Joab's mother Zeruiah both counted among Jesse's household, so the rebellion is a family quarrel fought with family generals on both sides. The appointment does not survive the war: Joab kills Amasa at Gibeon in chapter 20.

2 Samuel 17:27-29

Shobi son of the Ammonite king, Machir who had sheltered Mephibosheth at Lo-debar, and Barzillai the Gileadite meet the fleeing king with beds, basins, grain, honey, cheese and flocks, for they said the people is hungry, and weary, and thirsty, in the wilderness. None of the three owes David an oath the way Jonathan's household does; their kindness comes from outside Israel's own rebellion, an Ammonite, a man from the town that once hid Saul's grandson, and an old Gileadite of great wealth. Barzillai's welcome here is repaid at 19:31-39, when David offers to carry him to Jerusalem and Barzillai sends his son Chimham in his place.