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2 Samuel 17 of 24

2 Samuel 17

A brilliant tactical plan is overruled by a spy's counter-argument, and the thwarted advisor goes home and hangs himself.

Summary

Ahithophel says to Absalom: let me choose out twelve thousand men, and I will arise and pursue after David this night. I will come upon him while he is weary and weak-handed and make him afraid, and all the people that are with him shall flee; I will smite the king only. He will bring back all the people to thee as the bride is returned unto her husband. Absalom and all the elders of Israel are pleased with this plan. But Absalom says: call now Hushai the Archite also, and let us hear what he saith. Hushai comes in. Absalom tells him Ahithophel's plan. Hushai says: the counsel of Ahithophel is not good at this time. He argues that David is a man of war and will not sleep with the people; he is hidden in a pit or elsewhere. If David's men fall upon them first, the rumour will spread that a slaughter is begun among Absalom's people. But if Hushai's alternative is taken — gathering all Israel from Dan to Beersheba, as the sand by the sea for multitude, and Absalom himself going into battle — then they shall light upon David wherever he shall be found, and they shall fall upon him as the dew falleth on the ground.

Absalom and all Israel say that Hushai's counsel is better — for the Lord had purposed to defeat the good counsel of Ahithophel, in order to bring evil upon Absalom. Hushai tells the priests Zadok and Abiathar the danger and says: send quickly and tell David, do not lodge this night in the plains of the wilderness but cross the Jordan. Jonathan and Ahimaaz are waiting at En-rogel; a wench goes and tells them and they set out for David, but a lad sees them and tells Absalom. They come to a man's house at Bahurim and hide in a well; the man's wife spreads a covering over the well's mouth and spreads ground corn on it. Absalom's servants search, find nothing, and leave. The messengers climb out and reach David; he crosses the Jordan by morning. Ahithophel, seeing his counsel not followed, saddles his ass and goes home to his city, puts his house in order, and hangs himself. He is buried in his father's sepulchre. Absalom crosses the Jordan and encamps in Gilead with Amasa over his army.

Appears
David Absalom Joab
Themes
Counsel and Counter-Counsel Intelligence and Espionage Divine Providence
All 24 chapters — click to jump
  1. 2 Samuel 1Chapter 1 is the hinge between 1 Samuel and 2 Samuel.
  2. 2 Samuel 2Chapter 2 opens the period of civil war that will occupy much of the first half of the book.
  3. 2 Samuel 3Chapter 3 is one of the most politically complex chapters in the book.
  4. 2 Samuel 4Chapter 4 closes the civil war with a brief, ugly episode.
  5. 2 Samuel 5Chapter 5 is the pivotal chapter of the book's first half.
  6. 2 Samuel 6Chapter 6 is one of the most dramatically charged chapters in 2 Samuel, covering two episodes that frame the ark's arrival in Jerusalem.
  7. 2 Samuel 7Chapter 7 is the theological centre of the entire David narrative and one of the most consequential passages in the Hebrew Bible for later Jewish and Christian thought.
  8. 2 Samuel 8Chapter 8 reads differently from everything around it.
  9. 2 Samuel 9Chapter 9 is the chapter the Court History uses to establish one key dimension of David's character before the crisis arrives.
  10. 2 Samuel 10Chapter 10 establishes the military context of the Bathsheba episode.
  11. 2 Samuel 11Chapter 11 is the turning point of 2 Samuel and one of the most consequential chapters in biblical narrative.
  12. 2 Samuel 12Chapter 12 contains the most famous confrontation in the book.
  13. 2 Samuel 13Chapter 13 is the first fulfilment of Nathan's sentence in chapter 12.
  14. 2 Samuel 14Chapter 14 covers the three years in which David longs for Absalom but will not recall him, and Joab's intervention to change that.
  15. 2 Samuel 15Chapter 15 is the emotional nadir of the first movement of the Absalom crisis.
  16. 2 Samuel 16Chapter 16 covers three encounters as David makes his way out of Jerusalem.
  17. 2 Samuel 17Chapter 17 is the intelligence chapter of the Absalom revolt and turns on a moment of competitive counsel.
  18. 2 Samuel 18Chapter 18 is the emotional climax of 2 Samuel.
  19. 2 Samuel 19Chapter 19 covers David's return to Jerusalem and the political settlements it requires.
  20. 2 Samuel 20Chapter 20 is the coda to the Absalom crisis.
  21. 2 Samuel 21Chapter 21 opens the appendix section of 2 Samuel — chapters 21-24 are not chronological narrative but supplementary materials: two episodes of famine and plague bracketing two poems and two hero lists.
  22. 2 Samuel 22Chapter 22 is an extended psalm, found also as Psalm 18 in the Psalter, which the editors of 2 Samuel have placed near the end of the book as David's retrospective meditation on his life.
  23. 2 Samuel 23Chapter 23 contains two distinct sections.
  24. 2 Samuel 24Chapter 24 is the second appendix episode bracketing the poems of chapters 22-23, and it closes the book on an unexpected note.
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2 Samuel 16
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2 Samuel 18
The book itself
Summary & story
What 2 Samuel is, why it matters.
Analysis
Themes
Power, consequence, grief, the dynastic promise, and the realism of the prose.
Who's who
David's court
The household of a king who has everything and gives most of it away.

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