CRITICAL AND EXPOSITORY NOTES.—
2 Samuel 16:20. “Give counsel,” etc. This is the first cabinet council on record.” (Jamieson).
2 Samuel 16:21. “Go in unto,” etc. “This advice was sagacious enough. Lying with the king’s concubines was an appropriation of the royal harem, and, as such, a complete usurpation of the throne (see at 2 Samuel 3:7) which would render any reconciliation between Absalom and his father utterly impossible, and therefore would of necessity instigate the followers of Absalom with all the greater firmness. This was what Ahithophel hoped to attain by his advice. For unless the breach was too great to be healed, with the affection of David towards his sons, which might in reality be called weakness, it was always a possible thing that he should forgive Absalom, and in this case Ahithophel would be the one to suffer. But under the superintendence of God this advice was to effect the fulfilment of the threat held over David in 2 Samuel 12:8.” (Keil.) Perhaps Ahithophel was also avenging the wrong done to Bathsheba. (See note on 2 Samuel 11:3.)
2 Samuel 16:22. “The top of the house.” The same roof where David’s look at Bathsheba led him into the path of sin.
2 Samuel 16:23. “The oracle of God.” That is, the counsel of Ahithophel had almost the weight of a Divine command with both father and son.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— 2 Samuel 16:20-23
AHITHOPHEL’S COUNSEL
I. When all the plans of the wicked have been worked out, God’s counsel will be found to prevail. Sometimes a man may permit a thief to escape from his grasp and run away from him because he knows that in front of him is a precipice, and that every step he takes brings him nearer to his final fall. He has only to let him pursue his own course and he will be the author of his own ruin. So, when men break away from God, and seem to think they can leave Him out of their calculations, He sometimes leaves them entirely to their own devices, and they become their own destroyers, and at the same time fulfil the Divine purposes. At this crisis in the history of the people of Israel it might have seemed to some good men that God had entirely withdrawn from the nation, and that these bad men were having their own way in everything. The last assumption was true, but not the first—Ahithophel and Absalom met with no hindrance as yet in the execution of their designs, but God was looking on and seeing in them the instruments of His will, as they unconsciously executed a part of the sentence against David. (2 Samuel 12:11).
II. The sin which the parent commits in secret will probably be committed openly by the child. Children show themselves apt pupils in the school of vice, and often go far beyond their teachers in the wrong direction. None of David’s virtues were reproduced in Absalom, but his deed of sin was not only closely imitated but far exceeded, and what the father did in secret the son did not blush to do in the sight of all Israel. Let no parent or any man deceive himself by thinking that those under his influence will stop in the path of sin just where he stopped—it is a downward road and they who set out upon it neither know where they will stop themselves, nor can they stay the course of those who may follow in their steps. Let the father or mother who breaks God’s law and blushes for the sin, think how likely it is that their child may make a boast of the same deed of shame.
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS
It is not improbable that Ahithophel remembered God’s denunciation against David by the prophet Nathan, and therefore considered it a deep stroke of policy thus to take advantage of existing circumstances, to establish the Divine purposes. He might hope perhaps, thus to encourage a belief, that Absalom was a chosen instrument in the hands of God for the execution of His judgments, and consequently, that all opposition to him was both wicked and fruitless. But Ahithophel with all his wisdom, was not wise enough to know that the rule of man’s conduct is not the secret purposes, but the revealed precepts of God; that a man may be fulfilling the former, yet incurring God’s severe displeasure by transgressing the latter.—Lindsay.
2 Samuel 16:23. David’s chief counsellors were God’s testimonies (Psalms 119:24) to these as to the test he brought all counsel given him, whether by Ahithophel or any other … Absalom and his adherents followed Ahithophel’s counsel, howsoever, as infallible, because it was for their purpose.—Trapp.