17:1 Moreover Ahithophel said to Absalom, Let me now choose out twelve thousand men and I will arise and pursue after David this night. 17:2 And I will come upon him while he is weary and weak-handed and will make him afraid. And all the people who are with him will flee. And I will only strike the king,17:3 and I will bring back all the people to you. The man whom you seek is as if all returned, so all the people will be in peace. 17:4 And the saying pleased Absalom well and all the elders of Israel.
17:5 Then Absalom said, Call now Hushai the Archite also and let us hear likewise what he says.17:6 And when Hushai came to Absalom, Absalom spoke to him, saying, Ahithophel has spoken after this manner. Shall we do after his saying? If not, speak.
17:7 And Hushai said to Absalom, The counsel that Ahithophel has given this time is not good. 17:8Hushai said moreover, You know your father and his men, that they are mighty men and they are chafed in their minds, as a bear robbed of her cubs in the field. And your father is a man of war and will not lodge with the people.
17:9 Behold, he is hid now in some pit, or in some other place. And it will happen, when some of them have fallen at the first, that whoever hears it will say, There has been a slaughter among the people who follow Absalom. 17:10 And even he who is valiant, whose heart is as the heart of a lion, will utterly melt, because all Israel knows that your father is a mighty man and those who are with him are valiant men.
17:11 But I counsel that all Israel be gathered together to you, from Dan even to Beer-sheba, as the sand that is by the sea for a multitude and that you go to battle in your own person. 17:12 So we will come upon him in some place where he will be found and we will light upon him as the dew falls on the ground and of him and of all the men who are with him we will not leave so much as one.
17:13 Moreover, if he is gathered into a city, then all Israel will bring ropes to that city and we will draw it into the river until one small stone is not found there.
17:14 And Absalom and all the men of Israel said, The counsel of Hushai the Archite is better than the counsel of Ahithophel. And Jehovah had commanded to defeat the good counsel of Ahithophel, to the intent that Jehovah might bring evil upon Absalom.
{2Sa 17:15-29; Psa 3, 63}
17:15 Then Hushai said to Zadok and to Abiathar the priests, Thus and thus Ahithophel counseled Absalom and the elders of Israel and thus and thus I have counseled. 17:16 Now therefore send quickly and tell David, saying, Do not lodge this night 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.
17:17 Now Jonathan and Ahimaaz were staying by En-rogel. And a maid-servant used to go and tell them and they went and told king David, because they might not be seen to come into the city.
17:18 But a lad saw them and told Absalom. And they went away quickly, both of them and came to the house of a man in Bahurim who had a well in his court and they went down there. 17:19 And the woman took and spread the covering over the well's mouth and spread ground grain on it. And nothing was known.
17:20 And Absalom's servants came to the woman to the house and they said, Where are Ahimaaz and Jonathan? And the woman said to them, They have gone over the brook of water. And when they had sought and could not find them, they returned to Jerusalem.
17:21 And it happened, after they were departed, that they came up out of the well and went and told king David. And they said to David, Arise and pass quickly over the water, because Ahithophel has counseled thus against you*.
17:22 Then David arose and all the people who were with him and they passed over the Jordan. By the morning light, not one of them lacked who had not gone over the Jordan.
17:23 And when Ahithophel saw that his counsel was not followed, he saddled his donkey and arose and got home to his city and set his house in order and hanged himself. And he died and was buried in the sepulcher of his father.
17:24 Then David came to Mahanaim. And Absalom passed over the Jordan, he and all the men of Israel with him. 17:25 And Absalom set Amasa over the army instead of Joab. Now Amasa was the son of a man, whose name was Ithra {Jithra or Jether} the Israelite, who went in to Abigal the daughter of Nahash, sister to Zeruiah, Joab's mother. 17:26 And Israel and Absalom encamped in the land of Gilead.
17:27 And it happened, when David came to Mahanaim, that Shobi the son of Nahash of Rabbah of the sons of Ammon and Machir the son of Ammiel of Lo-debar and Barzillai the Gileadite of Rogelim, 17:28 brought beds and basins and earthen vessels and wheat and barley and meal and roasted grain and beans and lentils and roasted pulse, 17:29and honey and butter and sheep and cheese of the herd, for David and for the people who were with him, to eat. Because they said, The people are hungry and weary and thirsty, in the wilderness.