Scripture Daily

Context No. 1579 of 4322 · 2 Samuel

Context · Reflection

2 Samuel 17:14-20: in context

14Absalom 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 to defeat the good counsel of Ahithophel, to the intent that the LORD might bring evil on Absalom. 15Then Hushai said to Zadok and to Abiathar the priests, “Ahithophel counseled Absalom and the elders of Israel that way; and I have counseled this way. 16Now therefore send quickly, and tell David, saying, ‘Don’t lodge tonight at the fords of the wilderness, but by all means pass over, lest the king be swallowed up, and all the people who are with him.’” 17Now Jonathan and Ahimaaz were staying by En Rogel; and a female servant used to go and report to them, and they went and told King David; for they couldn’t risk being seen coming into the city. 18But a boy saw them, and told Absalom. Then they both went away quickly and came to the house of a man in Bahurim, who had a well in his court; and they went down there. 19The woman took and spread the covering over the well’s mouth, and spread out crushed grain on it; and nothing was known. 20Absalom’s servants came to the woman to the house; and they said, “Where are Ahimaaz and Jonathan?” The woman said to them, “They have gone over the brook of water.” When they had sought and could not find them, they returned to Jerusalem.

Absalom, in rebellion against his father David, must choose between two counselors. Ahithophel, whose advice was famously sound, urges an immediate pursuit of David. But Hushai, secretly loyal to David, gives contrary advice, and Absalom and the elders decide Hushai's counsel is better than Ahithophel's. The text tells us why: the LORD had ordained to defeat the good counsel of Ahithophel, in order to bring disaster on Absalom. Hushai gets word to David through messengers, who are hidden by a woman in Bahurim under a covering spread over her well, and David is warned in time to escape.

The telling line is the explanation of why the worse counsel was chosen: the LORD had ordained to defeat the good counsel of Ahithophel. Ahithophel's advice was actually the sounder of the two; had Absalom followed it, David might have been lost. But God was at work behind the human deliberation, and he ordained that the good counsel be rejected and the poorer one followed, in order to protect David and bring Absalom's rebellion down. Absalom and his elders thought they were weighing the advice and making their own free choice; and they were, but God was working through their choosing to accomplish his purpose. There is a glimpse here of how God governs events, often unseen, behind the ordinary human process of counsel and decision. People deliberate, weigh options, choose what seems best to them, and all the while God is at work within and behind the process, turning it toward his ends. This does not make the human choosing unreal; Absalom really chose. But it means that God is not absent from our deliberations and decisions, or from those of others that affect us; his hand can turn the outcome of a decision toward his purpose even through people acting freely. And notice too the ordinary, brave people God used, the woman who hid the messengers in her well. God's hidden governance runs through both the great decision and the small courage. There is comfort in it for the times our fate seems to hang on other people's decisions we cannot control: the God who turned Absalom's council to protect David is at work behind the decisions that affect us too.

Can I trust that God is at work, often unseen, behind the human decisions and deliberations that affect my life, turning their outcome toward his purpose even through people acting freely, as he turned Absalom's council to protect David?

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