For Teaching

2 Samuel 17: What the Passage Says

109 claims across 29 verses, in the order the chapter makes them.

Not a sermon outline. What 2 Samuel 17 says, and what its hard words meant. The reading of it is yours.

The Chapter in a Sentence

Ahithophel advises Absalom to chase David immediately with a small force and kill only the king. Absalom also asks Hushai, David's secret ally, who argues instead for gathering all Israel with Absalom leading it himself, and his advice wins. Hushai sends word to David through the priests and two messengers, who are hidden in a well along the way, and David crosses the Jordan by morning. Ahithophel goes home and hangs himself; David reaches Mahanaim, where three men bring food and supplies to him and his people.

Claim by Claim

17:1
- Ahithophel spoke to Absalom.
- Ahithophel asked to choose out twelve thousand men.
- Ahithophel said he would arise and pursue after David that night.
17:2
- Ahithophel said he would come upon David while David was weary and weak-handed.
- Ahithophel said he would make David terrified.
- Ahithophel said all the people with David would flee.
- Ahithophel said he would strike down the king alone.
17:3
- Ahithophel said he would bring all the people back to Absalom.
- Ahithophel said the return of all the people depends on the one man Absalom seeks; the wording of this comparison is obscure.
- Ahithophel said all the people would then be at peace.
17:4
- The proposal seemed right to Absalom.
- The proposal seemed right to all the elders of Israel.
17:5
- Absalom said to call Hushai the Archite as well.
- Absalom said they should hear what Hushai also had to say.
17:6
- Hushai came to Absalom.
- Absalom told Hushai that Ahithophel had spoken in this manner.
- Absalom asked whether they should act on Ahithophel's word.
- Absalom told Hushai to speak if they should not.
17:7
- Hushai said to Absalom that the counsel Ahithophel had given was not good this time.
17:8
- Hushai said Absalom knew his father and his father's men.
- Hushai said they were mighty men.
- Hushai said they were bitter in spirit, like a bear bereaved of her cubs in the field.
- Hushai said Absalom's father was a man of war.
- Hushai said Absalom's father would not spend the night with the people.
17:9
- Hushai said David was at that moment hidden in one of the pits or in one of the other places.
- Hushai said that when some of Absalom's men fell at the first attack, whoever heard of it would say there was a slaughter among the people following Absalom.
17:10
- Hushai said that even the valiant man whose heart is like the heart of a lion would utterly melt.
- Hushai said all Israel knows that Absalom's father is a mighty man.
- Hushai said all Israel knows that those with Absalom's father are valiant men.
17:11
- Hushai counselled that all Israel be gathered to Absalom, from Dan to Beersheba.
- Hushai said they would be as numerous as the sand by the sea.
- Hushai counselled that Absalom himself go into the battle.
17:12
- Hushai said they would come upon David in whichever place he was found.
- Hushai said they would settle on David as dew falls on the ground.
- Hushai said not even one would be left of David and of all the men with him.
17:13
- Hushai said that if David withdrew into a city, all Israel would bring ropes to that city.
- Hushai said they would drag that city down to the valley.
- Hushai said they would do so until not even a pebble was found there.
17:14
- Absalom and all the men of Israel said Hushai the Archite's counsel was better than Ahithophel's counsel.
- The LORD had ordered that the good counsel of Ahithophel be frustrated.
- The purpose was that the LORD might bring disaster upon Absalom.
17:15
- Hushai spoke to Zadok and Abiathar the priests.
- Hushai said Ahithophel had counselled Absalom and the elders of Israel in such and such a way.
- Hushai said he himself had counselled in such and such a way.
17:16
- Hushai told the priests to send quickly and tell David.
- The message was that David should not spend the night in the desert flats; the term names either the plains or the crossing places of the wilderness.
- The message was that David should certainly cross over.
- The reason given was lest the king be swallowed up, along with all the people with him.
17:17
- Jonathan and Ahimaaz were staying at En-rogel.
- A maidservant would go and tell them.
- They would go and tell King David.
- They could not be seen entering the city.
17:18
- A young man saw Jonathan and Ahimaaz.
- The young man told Absalom.
- The two of them went quickly away.
- They came to the house of a man in Bahurim.
- That man had a well in his courtyard.
- They went down into the well.
17:19
- The woman took a covering and spread it over the mouth of the well.
- She spread crushed grain on top of the covering.
- The matter was not discovered.
17:20
- Absalom's servants came to the woman at the house.
- They asked where Ahimaaz and Jonathan were.
- The woman told them the two had crossed over the stream of water.
- The servants searched and did not find them.
- The servants returned to Jerusalem.
17:21
- After the servants had gone, Ahimaaz and Jonathan came up out of the well.
- They went and told King David.
- They told David to arise and cross the water quickly.
- They told David that Ahithophel had counselled thus against them.
17:22
- David arose, with all the people who were with him.
- They crossed the Jordan.
- By morning light not one of them was missing who had not crossed the Jordan.
17:23
- Ahithophel saw that his counsel had not been carried out.
- Ahithophel saddled his donkey.
- Ahithophel arose and went to his house, to his city.
- Ahithophel gave orders concerning his household.
- Ahithophel hanged himself.
- Ahithophel died.
- Ahithophel was buried in the tomb of his father.
17:24
- David came to Mahanaim.
- Absalom crossed the Jordan.
- All the men of Israel were with Absalom.
17:25
- Absalom set Amasa over the army in place of Joab.
- Amasa was the son of a man named Ithra the Israelite.
- Ithra had gone in to Abigail the daughter of Nahash.
- Abigail was the sister of Zeruiah.
- Zeruiah was the mother of Joab.
17:26
- Israel and Absalom camped in the land of Gilead.
17:27
- David came to Mahanaim.
- Shobi son of Nahash was from Rabbah of the Ammonites.
- Machir son of Ammiel was from Lo-debar.
- Barzillai the Gileadite was from Rogelim.
17:28
- They brought bedding.
- They brought basins.
- They brought earthen vessels.
- They brought wheat.
- They brought barley.
- They brought flour.
- They brought parched grain.
- They brought beans.
- They brought lentils.
- They brought parched grain a second time.
17:29
- They brought honey.
- They brought curds.
- They brought sheep.
- They brought cheese from the herd.
- They presented these to David and to the people with him to eat.
- They said the people were hungry, weary, and thirsty in the wilderness.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

17:1: The background: Absalom, David's son, has led a revolt, and David has fled Jerusalem with his household and soldiers. Ahithophel had been David's own most trusted adviser before going over to Absalom; his reputation for counsel was such that his advice was treated almost as an oracle. His plan here is to strike immediately, overnight, before David can regroup.
17:2: "Weak handed" is old English for exhausted, with no strength left in the arms. David and his men had just fled Jerusalem on foot. Ahithophel's logic is that a rebellion ends the instant the rival king is dead, so there is no need for a war at all.
17:3: The Hebrew of this clause is difficult and the ancient versions differ. The King James takes it as "the man you want is worth all the rest, kill him and everyone comes back." The Greek Old Testament reads instead "as a bride returns to her husband," a picture of the nation coming back to Absalom willingly. Both readings survive in modern translations.
17:4: The elders of Israel were the heads of leading families and clans, who together spoke for the tribes in public decisions. Absalom needed their backing to make his claim to the throne look legitimate.
17:5: Hushai the Archite was a long-standing friend of David. He had gone over to Absalom at David's own instruction, in order to stay in the capital and undermine Ahithophel's advice from inside, which is what he is doing here. Absalom does not know this.
17:8: The KJV "chafed in their minds" means enraged, worked up to a fury; it has nothing to do with the modern sense of rubbing. A mother bear robbed of her cubs was the standard image in this part of the world for blind, unstoppable rage.
17:9: The KJV "pit" here means a cave or hollow in the rock. The hill country David was crossing is riddled with them, and a small experienced force hidden in one could strike a passing column and vanish.
17:10: Melting is the standard Hebrew image for courage draining away, the way wax loses its shape near heat. It describes nerve failing, not the body.
17:11: "From Dan to Beersheba" was the standard way of saying "the whole country": Dan was the northernmost Israelite town and Beersheba the southernmost, so the phrase covers everything in between.
17:12: Dew settles silently and everywhere at once, covering the whole surface of the ground. The image is of an attack that arrives without warning and leaves nothing uncovered.
17:13: Deliberate exaggeration, of the kind used in war talk. Towns were built on high ground with a ravine or valley below; the boast is that the army would be so large it could pull the town's walls down the slope stone by stone.
17:14: Where the King James prints LORD in capital letters, the Hebrew has the personal name of Israel's God, which Jewish readers did not pronounce aloud; "LORD" is the traditional substitute.
17:15: Zadok and Abiathar were the two chief priests, who had stayed in Jerusalem with the ark at David's request precisely so they could pass information out to him. Their sons Jonathan and Ahimaaz served as the couriers.
17:16: The fords were shallow places where the Jordan could be waded across. Hushai's warning is that David should not camp on the near bank overnight but put the river between himself and any pursuit.
17:17: En-rogel was a spring just outside Jerusalem, at the foot of the valley south of the city. The two men waited there because they were known as priests' sons and would have been arrested if seen coming and going through the city gate.
17:18: Bahurim was a village on the road running east from Jerusalem down toward the Jordan. The "well" was a cistern, a bottle-shaped pit dug in a courtyard to catch rainwater, dry enough in the summer months to hide in.
17:19: Spreading grain out to dry on a courtyard surface was an everyday sight, so the covered cistern mouth looked like ordinary household work rather than a hiding place.
17:22: The Jordan runs fast and deep in places and can only be crossed at certain fords, so putting it behind them turned the river into a defensive line. Moving several thousand people across in darkness, and being clear before daylight showed pursuers where they had gone, is why the warning had to arrive that night.
17:23: "Put his affairs in order" translates a phrase meaning he gave instructions to his household, settling his property and family arrangements, in effect making a will. Being buried in his father's tomb, the family burial cave, means he received an honorable burial despite how he died.
17:24: Mahanaim was a fortified town east of the Jordan in the region of Gilead. It had served as a royal seat before, and lay well outside Absalom's reach in the western hill country.
17:25: Amasa was Absalom's replacement for Joab, David's long-serving army commander, who had stayed loyal to David. The genealogy matters because it makes Amasa and Joab cousins, and both of them nephews of David through his sisters. Some Hebrew manuscripts and the Greek version call Ithra an Ishmaelite rather than an Israelite; the name Nahash here is also uncertain, since elsewhere Amasa's grandfather is Jesse.
17:26: Gilead was the hill country east of the Jordan, good grazing land, held by Israelite tribes but remote from Jerusalem.
17:27: All three men had reason to help David. Shobi came from the Ammonite royal house at Rabbah, a foreign city David had captured; Machir of Lo-debar had sheltered the surviving family of Saul; Barzillai was a wealthy landowner of Gilead. Between them they could supply an army in the field.
17:28: "Beds" here means bedding, mats and coverings rather than furniture. Roasted grain was fresh grain parched over a fire, ready to eat without milling or cooking, the standard traveling food. The King James "parched pulse" repeats the word for roasted grain a second time; the Hebrew text is uncertain at this point, and the item may simply be a duplication.
17:29: The King James "butter" is curdled or soured milk, closer to yogurt than to churned butter. "Cheese of kine" means cheese made from cows' milk, though the Hebrew word occurs only here and its exact sense is not certain.

Read 2 Samuel 17