(1) В¶ Moreover Ahithophel said unto Absalom, Let me now choose out twelve thousand men, and I will arise and pursue after David this night: (2) And I will come upon him while he is weary and weak handed, and will make him afraid: and all the people that are with him shall flee; and I will smite the king only: (3) And I will bring back all the people unto thee: the man whom thou seekest is as if all returned: so all the people shall be in peace. (4) And the saying pleased Absalom well, and all the elders of Israel.
No doubt the advice of Ahithophel was founded in strong human policy. Poor David, considered in himself and his little army, could have made but feeble resistance. But what a wretch was Absalom, and how lost to all grace the elders of Israel, to be pleased with such an infamous counsel. Reader! do pause here, to remark how different the conduct of the father and the son in the pursuit of a kingdom. David, though anointed by the LORD's command to the kingdom many years before Saul's death, yet waited patiently his death, and even after that, was content to reign only in Hebron, until the LORD should bring him over the whole kingdom. But Absalom, an usurper, and an usurper against the throne and life of his own father, hastens to universal monarchy in defiance of the LORD. But, Reader, let us drop David and his history, to attend to David's LORD. As David was an eminent type of JESUS, we may safely look for the outlines of JESUS'S history, upon all occasions of importance which we meet with in David's life. Was not then this persecution of David by his own son, a lively resemblance of the persecution of the LORD JESUS, by his own people the Jews? And as to the personal attack on David, according to Ahithophel's advice, I will smite the king only; can there be a more striking circumstance of the personal hatred the Jews had to our dear LORD, whose dislike the LORD figured out, under the similitude of the parable; Come, let us kill the heir, and the inheritance shall be ours. Matthew 21:38. And who is there that can read the counsel of Ahithophel, that all the people should have peace, if the man whom Absalom sought alone to destroy was taken off; who is there that can read this, and overlook the striking affinity between this advice of Ahithophel, and Caiaphas's prophetical declaration, though unconscious what he said, that it was expedient that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not. Precious JESUS! of what infinite importance must have been thy death, that the HOLY GHOST in glorifying of thee, was graciously pleased to sketch the outlines of it in so gracious a manner! Oh! LORD! fulfil the precious part of this prophecy yet to be fulfilled; and as thou art the Shiloh, to whom Jacob, when dying, prophesied that the gathering of the people should be; do thou hasten, LORD, the hour, and gather together in one the people of GOD which are yet scattered abroad. John 11:49-52, compared with Genesis 49:10.