_ABSALOM IN COUNCIL._
2 SAMUEL xvi. 15-23; xvii. 1-14, and ver. 23.
We must now return to Jerusalem, and trace the course of events
there on that memorable day when David left it, to flee toward the
wilderness, just a few hours before Absalom entered it from Hebron.
When Absalom came to the city, there was no trace of an enemy to
oppose him. His supporters in Jerusalem would no doubt go out to
meet him, and conduct him to the palace with great demonstrations
of delight. Eastern nations are so easily roused to enthusiasm that
we can easily believe that, even for Absalom, there would be an
overpowering demonstration of loyalty. Once within the palace, he
would receive the adherence and congratulations of his friends.
Among these, Hushai the Archite presents himself, having returned
to Jerusalem at David's request, and it is to Hushai's honour that
Absalom was surprised to see him. He knew him to be too good a
man, too congenial with David "his friend," to be likely to follow
such a standard as his. There is much to be read between the lines
here. Hushai was not only a counsellor, but a friend, of David's.
They were probably of kindred feeling in religious matters, earnest
in serving God. A man of this sort did not seem to be in his own
place among the supporters of Absalom. It was a silent confession by
Absalom that his supporters were a godless crew, among whom a man of
godliness must be out of his element. The sight of Hushai impressed
Absalom as the sight of an earnest Christian in a gambling saloon or
on a racecourse would impress the greater part of worldly men. For
even the world has a certain faith in godliness,--to this extent,
at least, that it ought to be consistent. You may stretch a point
here and there in order to gain favour with worldly men; you may
accommodate yourselves to their ways, go to this and to that place
of amusement, adopt their tone of conversation, join with them in
ridiculing the excesses of this or that godly man or woman; but you
are not to expect that by such approaches you will rise in their
esteem. On the contrary, you may expect that in their secret hearts
they will despise you. A man that acts according to his convictions
and in the spirit of what he professes they may very cordially
hate, but they are constrained to respect. A man that does violence
to the spirit of his religion, in his desire to be on friendly
terms with the world and further his interests, and that does many
things to please them, they may not hate so strongly, but they will
not respect. There is a fitness of things to which the world is
sometimes more alive than Christians themselves. Jehoshaphat is not
in his own place making a league with Ahab, and going up with him
against Ramoth-gilead; he lays himself open to the rebuke of the
seer--"Shouldest thou help the ungodly, and love them that hate the
Lord? therefore is wrath upon thee from before the Lord." There is no
New Testament precept needing to be more pondered than this--"Be ye
not unequally yoked with unbelievers; for what communion hath light
with darkness? or what fellowship hath Christ with Belial? or what
communion hath he that believeth with an infidel?"
But Hushai was not content with putting in a silent appearance for
Absalom. When his consistency is challenged, he must repudiate the idea
that he has any preference for David; he is a loyal man in this sense,
that he attaches himself to the reigning monarch, and as Absalom has
received overwhelming tokens in his favour from every quarter, Hushai
is resolved to stand by him. But can we justify these professions of
Hushai? It is plain enough he went on the principle of fighting Absalom
with his own weapons, of paying him with his own coin; Absalom had
dissembled so profoundly, he had made treachery, so to speak, so much
the current coin of the kingdom, that Hushai determined to use it for
his own purposes. Yet, even in these circumstances, the deliberate
dissembling of Hushai grates against every tender conscience, and more
especially his introduction of the name of Jehovah--"Nay, but whom the
Lord, and this people, and all the men of Israel choose, his will I
be, and with him will I abide." Was not this taking the name of the
Lord his God in vain? The stratagem had been suggested by David; it
was not condemned by the voice of the age; and we are not prepared to
say that stratagem is always to be condemned; but surely, in our time,
the claims of truth and fair dealing would stamp it as a disreputable
device, not sanctified by the end for which it was resorted to, and not
worthy the followers of Him "who did no sin, neither was guile found in
His mouth."
Having established himself in the confidence of Absalom, Hushai gained
a right to be consulted in the deliberations of the day. He enters
the room where the new king's counsellors are met, but he finds it
a godless assemblage. In planning the most awful wickedness, a cool
deliberation prevails that shows how familiar the counsellors are with
the ways of sin. "Give counsel among you," says the royal president,
"what we shall do." How different from David's way of opening the
business--"Bring hither the ephod, and enquire of the Lord." In
Absalom's council help of that kind is neither asked nor desired.
The first to propose a course is Ahithophel, and there is something
so revolting in the first scheme which he proposed that we wonder
much that such a man should ever have been a counsellor of David. His
first piece of advice, that Absalom should publicly take possession
of his father's concubines, was designed to put an end to any
wavering among the people; it was, according to Eastern ideas, the
grossest insult that could be offered to a king, and that king a
father, and it would prove that the breach between David and Absalom
was irreparable, that it was vain to hope for any reconciliation.
They must all make up their minds to take a side, and as Absalom's
cause was so popular, it was far the most likely they would side with
him. Without hesitation Absalom complied with the advice. It is a
proof how hard his heart had become, that he did not hesitate to mock
his father by an act which was as disgusting as it was insulting. And
what a picture we get of the position of women even in the court of
King David! They were slaves in the worst sense of the term, with no
right even to guard their virtue, or to protect their persons from
the very worst of men; for the custom of the country, when it gave
him the throne, gave him likewise the bodies and souls of the women
of the harem to do with as he pleased!
The next piece of Ahithophel's counsel was a masterpiece alike of
sagacity and of wickedness. He proposed to take a select body of twelve
thousand out of the troops that had already flocked to Absalom's
standard, and follow the fugitive king. That very night he would set
out; and in a few hours they would overtake the king and his handful of
defenders; they would destroy no life but the king's only; and thus, by
an almost bloodless revolution, they would place Absalom peacefully on
the throne. The advantages of the plan were obvious. It was prompt, it
seemed certain of success, and it would avoid an unpopular slaughter.
So strongly was Ahithophel impressed with the advantages that it
seemed impossible that it could be opposed, far less rejected. One
element only he left out of his reckoning--that "as the mountains are
round about Jerusalem, so the Lord God is round about His people from
henceforth even for ever." He forgot how many methods of protecting
David God had already employed. From the lion and the bear He had
delivered him in his youth, by giving strength to his arm and courage
to his heart; from the uncircumcised Philistine He had delivered him
by guiding the stone projected from his sling to the forehead of the
giant; from Saul, at one time through Michal letting him down from a
window; at another, through Jonathan taking his side; at a third, by an
invasion of the Philistines calling Saul away; and now He was preparing
to deliver him from Absalom by a still different method: by causing
the shallow proposal of Hushai to find more favour than the sagacious
counsel of Ahithophel.
It must have been a moment of great anxiety to Hushai when the
man whose counsel was as the oracle of God sat down amid universal
approval, after having propounded the very advice of which he was
most afraid. But he shows great coolness and skill in recommending
his own course, and in trying to make the worse appear the better
reason. He opens with an implied compliment to Ahithophel--his
counsel is not good _at this time_. It may have been excellent on all
other occasions, but the present is an exception. Then he dwells on
the warlike character of David and his men, and on the exasperated
state of mind in which they might be supposed to be; probably they
were at that moment in some cave, where no idea of their numbers
could be got, and from which they might make a sudden sally on
Absalom's troops; and if, on occasion of an encounter between the
two armies, some of Absalom's were to fall, people would take it
as a defeat; a panic might seize the army, and his followers might
disperse as quickly as they had assembled.
But the concluding stroke was the masterpiece. He knew that vanity
was Absalom's besetting sin. The young man that had prepared chariots
and horses, and fifty men to run before him, that had been accustomed
to poll his head from year to year and weigh it with so much care,
and whose praise was throughout all Israel for beauty, must be
flattered by a picture of the whole host of Israel marshalled around
him, and going forth in proud array, with him at its head. "Therefore
I counsel that all Israel be generally gathered unto thee, from Dan
even to Beersheba, as the sand that is by the sea for multitude, and
that thou go to battle in thine own person. So shall we come upon him
in some place where he may be found, and we will light upon him as
the dew falleth on the ground; and of him and of all the men that
are with him there shall not be left so much as one. Moreover, if
he be gotten into a city, then shall all Israel bring ropes to that
city, and we will draw it into the river until there shall not be one
small stone left there."
It is with counsel as with many other things: what pleases best is
thought best; solid merit gives way to superficial plausibility. The
counsel of Hushai pleased better than that of Ahithophel, and so it
was preferred. Satan had outwitted himself. He had nursed in Absalom
an overweening vanity, intending by its means to overturn the throne
of David; and now that very vanity becomes the means of defeating
the scheme, and laying the foundation of Absalom's ruin. The
turning-point in Absalom's mind seems to have been the magnificent
spectacle of the whole of Israel mustered for battle, and Absalom
at their head. He was fascinated by the brilliant imagination. How
easily may God, when He pleases, defeat the most able schemes of
His enemies! He does not need to create weapons to oppose them;
He has only to turn their own weapons against themselves. What an
encouragement to faith even when the fortunes of the Church are
at their lowest ebb! "The kings of the earth set themselves, and
the rulers take counsel together against the Lord, and against His
anointed, saying, Let us break their bonds asunder, and cast away
their cords from us. He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh; the
Lord shall have them in derision. Then shall He speak to them in
wrath, and vex them in His sore displeasure. Yet have I set my king
upon my holy hill of Zion."
The council is over; Hushai, unspeakably relieved, hastens to
communicate with the priests, and through them send messengers to
David; Absalom withdraws to delight himself with the thought of
the great military muster that is to flock to his standard; while
Ahithophel, in high dudgeon, retires to his house. The character of
Ahithophel was a singular combination. To deep natural sagacity he
united great spiritual blindness and lack of true manliness. He saw
at once the danger to the cause of Absalom in the plan that had been
preferred to his own; but it was not that consideration, it was the
gross affront to himself that preyed on him, and drove him to commit
suicide. "When Ahithophel saw that his counsel was not followed,
he saddled his ass and arose and gat him home to his house, to his
city, and put his household in order, and hanged himself and died,
and was buried in the sepulchre of his father." In his own way he
was as much the victim of vanity as Absalom. The one was vain of
his person, the other of his wisdom. In each case it was the man's
vanity that was the cause of his death. What a contrast Ahithophel
was to David in his power of bearing disgrace!--David, though with
bowed head, bearing up so bravely, and even restraining his followers
from chastising some of those who were so vehemently affronting him;
Ahithophel unable to endure life because for once another man's
counsel had been preferred to his. Men of the richest gifts have
often shown themselves babes in self-control. Ahithophel is the Judas
of the New Testament, lays plans for the destruction of his master,
and, like Judas, falls almost immediately, by his own hand. "What a
mixture," says Bishop Hall, "do we find here of wisdom and madness!
Ahithophel will needs hang himself, _there_ is madness; he will yet
set his house in order, _there_ is wisdom. And could it be possible
that he that was so wise as to set his house in order was so mad as
to hang himself? that he should be so careful to order his house who
had no care to order his unruly passions? that he should care for his
house who cared not for his body or his soul? How vain is it for man
to be wise if he is not wise in God. How preposterous are the cares
of idle worldlings, that prefer all other things to themselves, and
while they look at what they have in their coffers forget what they
have in their breasts."
This council-chamber of Absalom is full of material for profitable
reflection. The manner in which he was turned aside from the way
of wisdom and safety is a remarkable illustration of our Lord's
principle--"If thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full
of light." We are accustomed to view this principle chiefly in its
relation to moral and spiritual life; but it is applicable likewise
even to worldly affairs. Absalom's eye was not single. Success, no
doubt, was the chief object at which he aimed, but another object was
the gratification of his vanity. This inferior object was allowed to
come in and disturb his judgment. If Absalom had had a single eye,
even in a worldly sense, he would have felt profoundly that the one
thing to be considered was, how to get rid of David and establish
himself firmly on the throne. But instead of studying this one thing
with firm and immovable purpose, he allowed the vision of a great
muster of troops commanded by himself to come in, and so to distract
his judgment that he gave his decision for the latter course. No
doubt he thought that his position was so secure that he could afford
the few days' delay which this scheme involved. All the same, it was
this disturbing element of personal vanity that gave a twist to his
vision, and led him to the conclusion which lost him everything.
For even in worldly things, singleness of eye is a great help towards
a sound conclusion. "To the upright there ariseth light in the
darkness." And if this rule hold true in the worldly sphere, much
more in the moral and spiritual. It is when you have the profoundest
desire to do what is right that you are in the best way to know
what is wise. In the service of God you are grievously liable to be
distracted by private feelings and interests of your own. It is when
these private interests assert themselves that you are most liable
to lose the clear line of duty and of wisdom. You wish to do God's
will, but at the same time you are very unwilling to sacrifice this
interest, or expose yourself to that trouble. Thus your own feeling
becomes a screen that dims your vision, and prevents you from seeing
the path of duty and wisdom alike. You have not a clear sight of the
right path. You live in an atmosphere of perplexity; whereas men of
more single purpose, and more regardless of their own interests,
see clearly and act wisely. Was there anything more remarkable in
the Apostle Paul than the clearness of his vision, the decisive yet
admirable way in which he solved perplexing questions, and the high
practical wisdom that guided him throughout? And is not this to be
connected with his singleness of eye, his utter disregard of personal
interests in his public life--his entire devotion to the will and to
the service of his Master? From that memorable hour on the way to
Damascus, when he put the question, "Lord, what wilt Thou have me to
do?" onward to the day when he laid his head on the block in imperial
Rome, the one interest of his heart, the one thought of his mind, was
to do the will of Christ. Never was an eye more single, and never was
a body more full of light.
But again, from that council-chamber of Absalom and its results
we learn how all projects founded on godlessness and selfishness
carry in their bosom the elements of dissolution. They have no true
principle of coherence, no firm, binding element, to secure them
against disturbing influences arising from further manifestations
of selfishness on the part of those engaged in them. Men may be
united by selfish interest in some undertaking up to a certain
point, but, like a rocket in the air, selfishness is liable to burst
up in a thousand different directions, and then the bond of union
is destroyed. The only bond of union that can resist distracting
tendencies is an immovable regard to the will of God, and, in
subordination thereto, to the welfare of men. In our fallen world
it is seldom--rather, it is never--that any great enterprise is
undertaken and carried forward on grounds where selfishness has no
place whatever. But we may say this very confidently, that the more
an undertaking is based on regard to God's will and the good of men,
the more stability and true prosperity will it enjoy; whereas every
element of selfishness or self-seeking that may be introduced into it
is an element of weakness, and tends to its dissolution. The remark
is true of Churches and religious societies, of religious movements
and political movements too.
Men that are not overawed, as it were, by a supreme regard to the
will of God; men to whom the consideration of that will is not
strong enough at once to smite down every selfish feeling that may
arise in their minds, will always be liable to desire some object
of their own rather than the good of the whole. They will begin to
complain if they are not sufficiently considered and honoured. They
will allow jealousies and suspicions towards those who have most
influence to arise in their hearts. They will get into caves to air
their discontent with those like-minded. All this tends to weakness
and dissolution. Selfishness is the serpent that comes crawling into
many a hopeful garden, and brings with it division and desolation.
In private life, it should be watched and thwarted as the grievous
foe of all that is good and right. The same course should be taken
with regard to it in all the associations of Christians. And it is
Christian men only that are capable of uniting on grounds so high
and pure as to give some hope that this evil spirit will not succeed
in disuniting them--that is to say, men who feel and act on the
obligations under which the Lord Jesus Christ has placed them; men
that feel that their own redemption, and every blessing they have or
hope to have, come through the wonderful self-denial of the Son of
God, and that if they have the faintest right to His holy name they
must not shrink from the like self-denial. It is a happy thing to be
able to adopt as our rule--"None of us liveth to himself; for whether
we live, we live unto the Lord, or whether we die, we die unto the
Lord; whether we live therefore or die, we are the Lord's." The more
this rule prevails in Churches and Christian societies, the more will
there be of union and stability too; but with its neglect, all kinds
of evil and trouble will come in, and very probably, disruption and
dissolution in the end.