664
Patriarchs and Prophets
will tarry in the plain of the wilderness, until there come word from
you to certify me.” In the city the priests might do him good service
by learning the movements and purposes of the rebels, and secretly
communicating them to the king by their sons, Ahimaaz and Jonathan.
As the priests turned back toward Jerusalem a deeper shadow fell
upon the departing throng. Their king a fugitive, themselves outcasts,
forsaken even by the ark of God—the future was dark with terror and
foreboding. “And David went up by the ascent of Mount Olivet, and
wept as he went up, and had his head covered, and he went barefoot:
and all the people that was with him covered every man his head, and
they went up, weeping as they went up. And one told David, saying,
Ahithophel is among the conspirators with Absalom.” Again David
was forced to recognize in his calamities the results of his own sin.
The defection of Ahithophel, the ablest and most wily of political
leaders, was prompted by revenge for the family disgrace involved in
the wrong to Bathsheba, who was his granddaughter.
“And David said, O Lord, I pray Thee, turn the counsel of
Ahithophel into foolishness.” Upon reaching the top of the mount,
the king bowed in prayer, casting upon God the burden of his soul and
humbly supplicating divine mercy. His prayer seemed to be at once
answered. Hushai the Archite, a wise and able counselor, who had
proved himself a faithful friend to David, now came to him with his
robes rent and with earth upon his head, to cast in his fortunes with the
dethroned and fugitive king. David saw, as by a divine enlightenment,
that this man, faithful and truehearted, was the one needed to serve the
interests of the king in the councils at the capital. At David’s request
Hushai returned to Jerusalem to offer his services to Absalom and
defeat the crafty counsel of Ahithophel.
[736]
With this gleam of light in the darkness, the king and his followers
pursued their way down the eastern slope of Olivet, through a rocky and
desolate waste, through wild ravines, and along stony and precipitous
paths, toward the Jordan. “And when King David came to Bahurim,
behold, thence came out a man of the family of the house of Saul,
whose name was Shimei, the son of Gera: he came forth, and cursed
still as he came. And he cast stones at David, and at all the servants
of King David: and all the people and all the mighty men were on his
right hand and on his left. And thus said Shimei when he cursed, Come
out, come out, thou bloody man, and thou man of Belial. The Lord