2 Samuel 17:23 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

And put his household in order Disposed of his property by will. See Isaiah 38:1. And hanged himself Partly because he could not bear to outlive his disgrace, and the rejection of his counsel; and partly because he saw that by this means, David would gain time and strength, and, in all probability, prove victorious; and that then the storm would fall most heavily upon his own head, as the main author and pillar of the rebellion, and the contriver of the pernicious counsels above mentioned. “See here,” says Henry, “contempt poured upon the wisdom of man! He that was more renowned for policy than ever any man was, played the fool with himself more than any man ever did. Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, when he sees him that was so great an oracle dying as a fool dies!” See, likewise, honour done to the justice of God: the wicked is snared in the work of his own hands, and sunk in a pit of his own digging. “When he had contrived, inspired, diffused, and propagated evil, through an innumerable multitude, and loaded his soul with all the horrors of complicated guilt that hell could devise; treachery, rebellion, incest, parricide! he hurried it to all the vengeance due to it from eternal justice; to prevent all possibility of reparation and repentance, he died in the act of self-murder. So perished the great Machiavel of that age; the very wisest of the very wise!” Delaney.