In this chapter, and the next three chapters, we see that David’s troubles and the trouble for his household are continued to be lived out as Nathan the prophet told him earlier, 2 Samuel 12:10.
After all the evil acts that Absalom done over the years, in his rebellion against his father, David, in this chapter we read the events building up to Absalom’s death.
It appears that Ahithophel’s advice to Absalom to defeat David and his men was far too ambitious, and so Absalom goes to Hushai for his opinion. Hushai then takes this moment to turn the advice of Ahithophel against Absalom.
He then suggests that David’s men were far too smart when it comes to war because David and his men would be expecting Absalom and his men to come to them.
The stakes were high here for Absalom because if he lost this battle, then everyone would turn against him and so, Hushai advices Absalom to wait until he got a great army behind him so he would have enough men to defeat David and his men. Absalom decided to take this advice, which as we shall read in a moment was going to lead to his death.
Notice Absalom and his men say, ‘for the LORD had determined to frustrate the good advice of Ahithophel in order to bring disaster on Absalom.’ Ahithophel’s plan were far too ambitious and far from being perfect, and Hushai had exposed some flaws in his plan, but for Absalom it was the best option he had, Job 5:13.
Why did Absalom reject the advice that could have given him the victory? Because it was simply God’s will that he would do so. The advice of Hushai was part of the chain of events that caused it, and David’s earlier prayer was another part, 2 Samuel 15:31.
Hushai warns David not to stay at the night at the fords, it appears that Hushai isn’t aware if Absalom took his advice or the advice of Ahithophel. It also appears that David has secret informants who were keeping him up to date with what Absalom was doing.
Notice that messengers were sent to David but they were kept in hiding by some of those who lived in Jerusalem. This tells us that not everyone favoured Absalom.
David needed time to gather together all those who weren’t a part of Absalom’s rebellion and it’s clear that David had a greater following than Absalom and so because of the delay, this fell to David’s advantage.
We can imagine how much effort, organisation and time it must have taken David to move twelve thousand men with all their supplies and equipment across the Jordan, Psalms 42:6. The time and effort was necessary for David and his men to go to war against Absalom and his men.
When Ahithophel came to realise that Hushai’s advice would lead to the victory of David over Absalom, he knew that David would punish him for his betrayal, this is why he commits suicide by hanging himself.
Ahithophel is one of four people who are recorded in the Scriptures to have committed suicide, Judas Iscariot, Matthew 27:5, Zimri, 1 Kings 16:18, and King Saul, 1 Samuel 31:5.
Some believe because Ahithophel was buried in the family tomb, this meant that the Jews of that period accepted suicide as much as any other form of death, but no one can be sure if that’s what they believed or not.
As soon as news about what Absalom was doing, David went to Mahanaim, it appears that a large number of people were loyal to David and wanted to support him in his war against Absalom.
David then get his men to gather east of the Jordan because he knows that Absalom would follow him and attack. Because of the foolish decision of Absalom, a bloody civil war was now about to happen which would involve everyone.
Both Abigal and Zeruiah were David’s sisters, daughters of Jesse, 1 Chronicles 2:16-17, which possibly means that Nahash was Jesse’s wife. If Zeruiah and Abigal were David’s sisters only by the mother, then Nahash might possibly be the name of her first husband.
All of the men mentioned here were powerful warriors of Israel who graciously supplied David’s men with much needed provisions. Shobi, the Ammonite’s father was possibly the king of the Ammonites, who David may have possibly appointed him as governor or Ammon after he took Rabbah, 2 Samuel 12:29.
Ammiel who was from Lo Debar was the son of Ahithophel and the father of Bathsheba, which makes Machir Bathsheba’s brother. Barzillai the Gileadite was from Rogelim, he was an ancestor through a daughter of a family of priests, who were called after him, ‘Sons of Barzillai’. They returned from the Babylonian captivity with Ezra, Ezra 2:61-63 / Nehemiah 7:63.
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