464
From Eternity Past
Hushai Suggests Alternate Plan
He suggested a plan attractive to a vain and selfish nature: “I
counsel that all Israel be generally gathered together unto thee, from
Dan even to Beersheba, as the sand that is by the sea for multitude;
and that thou go to battle in thine own person. So shall we come upon
him in some place where he shall be found, and we will light upon
him as the dew falleth on the ground: and of him and of all the men
that are with him there shall not be left so much as one. Moreover, if
he be gotten into a city, then shall all Israel bring ropes to that city,
and we will draw it into the river, until there be not one small stone
found there.”
“And Absalom and all the men of Israel said, The counsel of Hushai
the Archite is better than the counsel of Ahithophel.”
But there was one who clearly foresaw the result of this fatal
mistake of Absalom’s. Ahithophel knew that the cause of the rebels
was lost. And he knew that whatever might be the fate of the prince,
there was no hope for the counselor who had instigated his greatest
crimes. Ahithophel had encouraged Absalom in rebellion; he had
counseled him to the most abominable wickedness, to the dishonor of
his father; he had advised the slaying of David; he had cut off the last
possibility of his own reconciliation with the king; and now another
[538]
was preferred before him by Absalom. Jealous, angry, and desperate,
Ahithophel “gat him home to his house, ... and hanged himself, and
died.” Such was the result of the wisdom of one who did not make
God his counselor.
Hushai lost no time in warning David to escape beyond Jordan
without delay: “Lodge not this night in the plains of the wilderness, but
speedily pass over; lest the king be swallowed up, and all the people
that are with him.”
David, spent with toil and grief after that first day of flight, received
the message that he must cross the Jordan that night, for his son was
seeking his life. What were the feelings of the father and king in this
terrible peril? In the hour of his darkest trial, David’s heart was stayed
upon God, and he sang: