40 Minutes In The Old Testament - 2 Samuel 16:1-23 (Episode 279)

Episode Date: August 17, 2021

David believes an unlikely story from the mouth of Ziba. David is cursed by a man drunk with hate. And Absalom follows the council of the man esteemed by everyone, including David. Chad and Daniel discuss all of this. 1517 Podcast Network Regional Event in Las Vegas 1517 YouTube Donate

Welcome to another episode of 40 Minutes in the Old Testament. 40 Minutes in the Old Testament is a 1517 Podcast Network podcast. You can go to 1517.org slash podcast. Check out all the other podcasts that are living over there. And while you're over there, make sure you go to the events page and sign up for the Here We Still Stand conference in Las Vegas, Nevada. That's going to be October 15th and 16th. It's only $65 to come hang out with us for two days, and it includes your lunch. We'd love to see you there.

There's a link in the show notes, or you can just go to the website, find the event, and register. Chad, last week, Absalom's plot came to fruition. He's assembled all the people together. He's stolen a bunch of hearts. He's coming into town and David's leaving town Because David is not interested in going to war with his son He also is not certain that he has enough backing at this point to be successful And so for the sake of the city

And I think he knows that if he did this, the city itself would suffer greatly If he were to fight with Absalom He decides that it's better if he just leaves And so he leaves, but he does have one spy in the midst of Absalom's inner circle of counselors. And so that's sort of where we ended. Yeah, that closing verse of chapter 15 has Hushai, David's friend, his kind of friend and friend-slash-counselor, goes into the city. At the same time, we're told that Absalom is going into the city. Now, we're going to have to wait until chapter 17.

We're at chapter 16 now. I have to wait until chapter 17 to find out exactly what happens when, or actually, it's later in chapter 16. We'll find out exactly, you know, what kind of conversation happens between Hushai and Absalom. Because, you know, right now, if we're just kind of reading this, we're not sure. I mean, so is Absalom going to be suspicious of Hushai? Is he going to be, like, welcoming of him?

What kind of reception is Hushai going to get? So we'll get to that a little bit later in this chapter. For now, we have to find out what happens with some other people that come to David. So in chapter 15, a lot of people are coming up to David saying, hey, we're on your team. We're with you. He's got his inner guard. He's got some other people from kind of the Philistine quarter who have joined up with him. And, of course, he had Hushai that we just talked about.

So he's going to encounter somebody else. And this is kind of a kind of fascinating question that arises in these first few verses of chapter 16, because, I mean, I'm pretty sure I'm pretty sure that I know the motives of this guy we're about to encounter. His name is Ziba, but there's still a bit of a question mark. So this is the way it starts up. Chapter 16 says that David passed a little beyond the summit. That is the summit of the Mount of Olives east of Jerusalem. And when he does this, this guy named Ziba, who is the servant of Mephibosheth, met him. He's got a couple of donkeys already saddled. He's got all this food.

He's got 200 loaves of bread. He's got 100 bunches of raisins. He's got 100 of summer fruits. And then he's got some wine. You can kind of see David. He's walking along. you know they're they're trying to get out of the city and all of a sudden this guy shows up david knows who he is he's got all this all this stuff all the food and the wine and the donkeys

and so david says to him why have you brought these and ziba answers him well the donkeys are for the king's household to ride on so you know i brought you some some transportation here because david is on foot remember and then the bread and the summer fruit are for the young men to eat, so he's got him some transportation, he's got him some food, and the wine is for those who faint in the wilderness to drink. So transportation, food, and wine. The king says to him, so David says back to him, where is your master's son? And he's talking about Mephibosheth. We'll review who he is in just a second. So where's he at? Where's Mephibosheth? And Ziba says to him, And this is the line that raises all kinds of questions.

Behold, he remains in Jerusalem, for he said, now keep in mind, this is what kind of a he said that he said kind of situation. So Ziba says that Mephibosheth said, today the house of Israel will give me back the kingdom of my father. So we'll return to that in just a minute. we'll try and figure out the either truthfulness or falsity of that. So the king responds to him, obviously David believes him, because

David says then to Ziba, behold, all that belonged to Mephibosheth is now yours. And then to wrap this up into verse 4, Ziba responds, I pay homage. Let

me ever find favor in your sight, my lord, the king. Okay, let me tell you exactly how long I believe that this is true. Exactly as long as it took me to read Ziba's response. And that's when you know, like, I think this guy's lying. Here's why you think I think this guy's lying. One, what sense does it make that Absalom, who's going to try to overthrow his father, is coming in,

And Mishibeth is like, oh, good, now the kingdom can go back to the house of Saul. That doesn't make any sense at all. What, does he think that Absalom is just going to be like, oh, there's someone from the house of Saul here. Well, I guess you're king now. That's not going to happen. What makes him think Absalom is going to give him anything? I mean, he should be freaked out that somebody not David from David's house is taking over because he was already freaked out that David might have him executed

just to eliminate any, you know, other claims to the throne. He doesn't know what Absalom's going to think about having a descendant of Saul hanging around. Absalom kind of seems like the guy that might not be into that. That makes no sense that he would have these thoughts, that he would be excited about someone else taking the throne. Makes no sense at all. And Ziba, you know, if he's thinking, well, maybe I can get on the good side, of david by being like yeah i don't know man i'm gonna shit with us he's still hanging out there

and he thinks that this is going to turn out really great for him david is surprising in his old age and how it seems gullible yeah how willing he is just be like well if that's true and you're like dude wait no not if that's just think about that for a second like that's probably not true yeah i said i suspect the only reason that uh maybe not the only reason but the primary reason And he believed it is just because of the situation that he's in. That's the only thing that makes sense to me. It's like, okay, you know, he's got all this stuff going on. He's got all these people who are stabbing him in the back.

And so even though this doesn't, if you think about it for five seconds, it makes no rational sense. David is so overcome by all these people who are betraying him that when somebody says, oh, yeah, you know what? Mephibosheth also has betrayed you. He's like, oh, yeah, there's one more who's against me. Even though it doesn't make any sense that that's actually the case. Uh, so just to, if, if, if you're, if you're thinking to yourself, okay, I forgot who these guys are, uh, go back to second Samuel chapter nine. So a few episodes back and David was in the mood for doing good.

And so he's like, Hey, is there anybody left from Jonathan's household that I can show mercy to? And somebody says, yeah, uh, his son, the one who is handicapped in his feet named Mephibosheth. he was dropped when he was a young child and his feet were badly injured. And so he has been unable to walk all these years. And so David says, bring him in. So they bring him in and he's scared at first. He said, he thinks David's going to kill him. And David's like, no, I'm going to go out the opposite. I'm going to take care of you. And here's, so this is when, when Ziba enters the picture. Ziba had been a servant of Saul. And so now David says to Ziba, who was quite evidently

a prosperous man, he's like, all right, you are now going to be the servant of Mephibosheth and you're going to take care of him. So all this time, and we didn't know anything negative about him at that point. All we know is that he was the one charged with being, him and his family were the the servants of mephibosheth so evidently and there was no question of the loyalty of mephibosheth either but anyway evidently ziba is taking advantage of the the tumultuous situation that david finds himself in in order to come out and basically stab his his master in the back because how's the guy going to get to david and you know tell david actually the truth he can't get there so well not only for all those reasons he can't get there as in like literally can't get

like so you have a guy who's lame in his feet he's not gonna come riding out you know to meet david back i'm on your side man i'm with you this is not something he's gonna do any messengers that are sent if i can say they're lying the only way to david for david to really find out that this guy that this is not true is for him to go back to where mishabath is which he cannot do because that's where Absalom is. Yeah, so now, I'm not going to give it away. If you want to go read ahead of time,

read ahead, you can do that. I'm not going to give it away as to what happens when all of this is resolved and David comes back. But even that is fascinating. So we will get there. We'll get there eventually.

So there's like three episodes with these guys. The first time we met Mephibosheth and Ziba when he becomes a master servant relationship. Now the servant tries to become the master, and at least at this point, it's successful. And then eventually we're going to encounter these two guys again. So we'll see what David's decision is going to be at that point. Okay, so David is progressively moving

outside of Jerusalem, and he's got all these encounters along the way. He's encountered his his inner guard who are from the philistine quarter and he's encountered the the priest and their sons and now he's encountered this servant from the household of saul back in the day and now now we're going to encounter a guy who is uh mad with rage so beginning with verse five we're going to be introduced to a guy whose name is Shammai and talk about a person who is full, just drunk with rage at David. That's who this guy is. So verse five says that King David came to a place called Bahurim and there came out a man of the family of the house of Saul. So that tells us immediately that maybe there's going to be some issues here because he has this

connection to the man that David replaced and his name is Shimei he's a son of Gerah and as he came he cursed continually and he threw stones at David and in all the servants of King David and all the people and all the mighty men were on his right hand and on his left so this guy he's got to be maybe drunk with rage is actually the best way to think about it because When people are intoxicated, they do some pretty stupid things. They do some very dangerous things, things that could really get them hurt or even killed because they're not thinking rationally. Well, this guy, he's by himself. You have David, you have all his mighty men surrounding him.

And this guy is not only verbally attacking David, he's actually picking up rocks and throwing them, not only at David, but all his servants. and by the way that the verb that is used in hebrew for throw stones i did a search and uh maybe with one exception one or two exceptions invariably this is the verb used when you stone someone like stone them in execution style so this is sort of a mock execution that is going on here so he's not just like picking up rocks and and throwing them he's like it's like a mock execution so he's cursing him he's throwing stones at him and uh this is what he says verse seven as this is the curse he says get out get out you man of blood you worthless man the lord has avenged on you all the blood of the house of saul in whose place you have reigned and

the lord has given the kingdom into the hand of your son absalom see your evil is on you for you are a man of blood now in hebrew when when when blood is referenced with regard to like murder or bloodshed it occurs in the plural that's just so bloods literally but when hebrew wants to say that someone is guilty of bloodshed or guilty of murder or something like that the plural will be used which is what we find here in the in the hebrew so you're not just like a man who happens to have you know you have who happens to be a warrior you are a man with blood on your hands more or less and worthless man is a word that we've encountered before you know like uh the sons of baliel this is the same same hebrew behind that there yeah man of blood does not mean

that you like happen to have served in the military it means you're a murderer yeah it means that you're a murderer yeah this is the same word that occurs in genesis 4 when uh the the blood of abel is crying out literally in hebrew it's the bloods because the plural is used there to indicate that murder has has happened it's interesting uh now david being a man of blood not untrue uh so i mean yeah even god will say this of david like how can i build my house because you're a little bit you're a little bit of a murderer you know so that's not not to mention yeah not to mention yeah you're the whole the whole story of uriah yeah so yeah you're you've got some of that but what is interesting is that this guy is saying that the lord is like doing

this to david with his son to avenge the blood of the house of saul that's wild it makes you think that must be some like rumors going around and people are people are starting to say like well you know how david really got the throne because what you can't accuse david of is going around like murdering the house of saul uh that i mean he he could have killed saul many times didn't do it him and jonathan were were boys he was good to mishibetheth i mean so there's not um david's got blood on his hands but it isn't that blood yeah yeah so he's he's like he's right generally speaking but he's completely wrong with regard to the details and this is definitely isn't happening because god is punishing david for

how he interacted with saul that's that is not at all correct yeah yeah i mean we how many times that we encounter situations where david could easily have shed the blood of saul and probably no way no one would have blinked i mean everyone would have been like yeah man that guy that guy had that coming he was he was running after you chasing you throwing spears at you taking away your wife doing all these things you had every right to to take him out but of course david wouldn't do that because he wouldn't touch the lord's anointed and he even executed some people who claimed that they had the one guy who claimed that he had had uh killed killed saul uh so yeah the the charges the specific charges are completely wrong this was not my bloodshed

not my murder that david was able to become king quite quite the opposite this is exactly what god had had uh decreed should should happen but like you say that being true and that being accepted it is true by the general population are two different things so i suspect there was a to use the you know the buzzword today there was a different narrative going around about how how david actually came to the throne and some people you know they thought that uh he had done it by by violence and by taking away the kingdom of of saul so anyway that's that's what he that's the kind of accusations that he's hurling while he's also hurling rocks in the general direction of david first nine i was so i was i was trying to think of uh like a character description of what's

about to happen here uh because you know if you've if you read you've read novels you've watched uh you've watched movies where like the main character has a sidekick and the sidekick is it's kind of a rough guy and like violence is always his first option i guess something needs to be done he's gonna be like hey you want me to go beat him up or hey you want me to take him out it's like the first thing that always pops into his mind is the violent option well that's abishai in in verse in verse nine this by the way remember is uh abishai is one of david's nephews he's been with him all along here as a brother of joab and the uh so the son of david's sister so abishai the son of seiriah said to the king why should this dead dog curse my lord the

king let me go over and take off his head so true to form this is abishai i'm like every time he comes up he's like ready to kill somebody uh so he's you know i'm ready to go chop off this this guy's head and the king says kings you know this is this is also one of these scenes we've seen elsewhere where the main character is like just calm down chill no let's not be chopping off heads david says what do i have to do with you you sons of say you're right i get the feeling that david is just done with all of his nephews just like ready to uh to to just send them somewhere where he had not done that to deal with them on a daily basis but not his responses after that is interesting because he says, if he's going back to the guy who's cursing him here, Shammai, if

Shammai is cursing because the Lord has said to him, curse David, who then shall say, why have you done so? And so David goes on to say to Abishai and to all his servants, look, my own son, and in Hebrew, this is even more graphic. It's like, it doesn't just say my own son. It's like he who came forth from my own innards is so it's just like it's this language of someone who is my own flesh and blood we might say behold my own son and my own flesh and blood he seeks my life how much more now may this benjaminite let him alone and let him curse for the lord has told him to it may be that the lord will look on the wrong done to me and that the lord will repay me with good for his cursing today and just to kind of wrap up this section so david is man they they

they go along on the road and shemay he's on the hillside opposite them and he's just cursing he's throwing rocks he's flinging dust and the king and all who were with him uh they arrive weary at the jordan and there they get some rest of their they refresh themselves it seems to me that david's just done i mean this is he doesn't have that thing in him right now that's i mean he just left the city he's he doesn't want to fight he doesn't want to fight with absalom he doesn't want to like start killing people in the street that like are saying bad things about he's just done man he's just like well look if people can curse you and curse you i'm just trying to get out of here like i'm not interested in like killing a bunch of people along the way bloodshed

and among the people is actually the whole thing I was trying to avoid in the first place. You know what? I can handle the insults and if God's told him to do it, then who's to stop him? If God hasn't told him to do it, well, maybe

God will do something good for me for enduring this sort of persecution. Yeah. I do think that's where David's at. He's done with so many things. He's done with his nephews. He's had to deal with Joab And now he's having to deal with this, with Abishai, who's ready to chop off the guy's head.

And so, yeah, he is at that point where he's just ready to kind of get past all this. So I was looking at the commentary or kind of the retelling of this story by Josephus. And so Josephus was a Jewish historian from right after the time of Jesus, so kind of late, late first century. And one of the books he wrote was called The Antiquity of the Jews, where he basically just retells the story of the Old Testament. And when he gets to this part, I thought it was kind of humorous, actually, the way that Josephus interprets what's happening here and why David responds the way that he does. So these are the words that he puts in David's mouth about this cursing and whatnot. Now, Josephus writes, so is it any wonder that I'm obliged to undergo these abuses, like the verbal abuses from this Benjaminite? Is it any wonder that I'm obliged to undergo these abuses from him while I experience the like from an impious son of my own?

And so, in other words, listen, if I had to put up with all this from my own flesh and blood, it's no wonder that I got to put up with it from the likes of this guy who's from the tribe of Benjamin and connected to the household of Saul. So no shocker. He hates me. My own son evidently hates me. And so I'm going to let God sort this out. You know, if God told him to curse me, I guess God wants me to be cursed. If God didn't tell him, well, then we'll see what happens in the end. One other thing here. I don't think that we brought this up so far.

So if you look at verse 13, it says, So David and his men went on the road while Shammai went along on the hillside opposite him. And there's a cool thing that happens here in the Hebrew text. So if you were reading along in the Hebrew, you know, word after word after word, When you got to the gap between on the road and while Shammai, there's actually a gap in the Hebrew text, just a bigger space than normally would be between words, and the Hebrew letter Samach is inserted in there. Now, this is an indication, at least a lot of people think this is an indication, that kind of in between, in the middle of this sentence, is where we should understand a certain prayer that's been prayed,

or the context in which a certain prayer should be heard. Now here, in the middle of this verse, while all this is going on, while Absalom is coming into town, and Shimei is cursing him, and he's heading to the Transjordan area, And the Hebrew scribes who copied this understood that what should be kind of understood as prayed here is Psalm 3. So if you go, you know, people know, I'm sure, that many of the Psalms are explicitly connected with certain events in the life of David. Psalm 51, of course, is the one that is most well known. But if you go to Psalm 3, what you read in the introduction is this.

a Psalm of David when he fled from Absalom, his son. So Psalm three is pretty short. It's only eight verses. Uh, but the, in the Hebrew, that little gap that I was talking about is understood to indicate that, Hey, Psalm three is best prayed and understood and interpreted when this, within this particular context. So that's kind of a cool thing that we, you know, we can't see from, uh, from English translations, maybe some commentaries bring it out, but check out Psalm three and you'll see how what David prays there is actually does perfectly fit this pick of the context. He talks about those who are cursing him. He talks about the dangers that he, that he faces. And most importantly, he talks about how God is going to sustain him in the midst of his trials and then

bring him back and give him salvation and blessing. Okay. Now we're at verse 15. So let's see what uh what happens after that so david and his men are at the jordan they're having a some rest from fleeing that far and we're going to go now back so the scene's going to shift we're going to go back to jerusalem and see what happens when absalom gets there so absalom and all the people the men of israel came to jerusalem and ahithophel was with him now ahithophel remember was this council that had gone to the other side, gone to the dark side, we might say, had betrayed David. And when Hushai, the archite, so back to this friend of David. So when Hushai, the archite, David's friend, came to Absalom, Hushai said to Absalom, long live the king, long live the king.

now hapsalom is understandably uh hesitant to believe that hushai is actually going to be on his side so hapsalom says to him hmm is this your loyalty to your friend why didn't you go with your friend no what what are you doing here why didn't you why didn't you go with david you're his you're his friend you're his trusted counselor so hushai says to hapsalom no for whom the lord and his and this people and all the men of Israel have chosen, his I will be, and with him I will remain. And again, whom should I serve? Should it not be his son? As I have served your father, so I will serve you. Actually, pretty kind of a sneaky language it's used here. So commentators have pointed this out, that when you read through his speech to Absalom, it's not until you really get

to the very end where he makes it explicit that he's talking about absalom because if you if you just take the opening phrase long live the king long live the king well he actually could be talking about david there he's speaking to absalom yeah but he's saying hey long live the king long live the king uh now at the end he says listen as i served your father so i'm going to serve you and presumably absalom was convinced yeah i mean this is probably the right way to do it he doesn't go in and make up this whole thing about like well actually uh i'm not that loyal to david david's kind of terrible he actually leans into the loyalty because apparently absalom's like hey man aren't you guys all right he's almost it almost sounds like initially absence like a

little offended like hey don't you have any honor man like what are you doing where's your loyalty yeah what are you doing here and uh and what he does he actually like flips that loyalty and says and basically says you can trust me because of that I just serve whoever the king is and the people have chosen you to be king so now I'm serving you and just like I was loyal to your father

when he was king as long as you're king I'll be loyal to you and this seems like something Absalom can buy yeah it's like his loyalty is not to the person but to the office I guess you might say listen I'm loyal to the king and if the king is David or if the king

is you, Absalom, or if the king is going to be one of your sons, whoever it is, as long as I live, my loyalty is to the office and not to the individual who occupies. Yeah, it's like one of those, it's like, you know, a politician who, you know, is just there to serve the country, right? So he's saying like, hey, I just serve Israel. Right, that's it. I'm the servant of Israel. I'm not the servant of any particular Israelite.

Just there to do my duty for the country. So, yeah, it evidently works. And as we'll see when we get to chapter 17, it works extremely well, especially when you realize that Hushai is no simpleton when it comes to giving speeches. He is very rhetorically talented, as we will discover. He's evidently like David in that he can convince people to come to his side. so right now uh Absalom has some decisions that he has to make and so he gathers around him as uh kind of his national security advisors I suppose and he at least has two of those he has Ahithophel and he's going to lean pretty heavily into him but now he has uh Hushai as well so Absalom says to Ahithophel give your counsel what shall we do so we're and David and his supporters have fled and we're in Jerusalem. So what do you think? What's the first thing that we

should do? And Ahithophelus says to Absalom, this is crazy. This is the first thing that he suggested. Go into your father's concubines whom he has left to keep the house. Remember we referenced those a couple episodes ago, these 10 women who were left behind. So go into those 10 women, your father's concubines that he's left behind. And here's the result all israel will hear that you have made yourself a stench to your father so you're going to stink to your father and in doing this and so that's going to happen and the other result is the hands of all who are with you will be strengthened so what happens well they pitch this tent they didn't do this in some sort of like public sexual sort of way they did at least

pitch a tent for absalom on the roof we got to come back to that because the location of this is significant on the roof and Absalom went into his father's concubines in the sight of all Israel and now in those days the counsel that Ahithophel gave was as if one consulted the word of God so was all the counsel of Ahithophel esteemed both by David and by by Absalom this is a this is a pretty wild uh pretty wild scene uh you might be asking yourself it's a weird first act to do i mean of all the things that you first get into jerusalem what's it you know what do you think i should do first i mean should i like check and see how much how many uh weapons we have in the armory should i check our supplies should i see how many men i

have what what exactly should happen and hit the fells like oh i i know exactly what you should do put your tent on your dad's roof take his 10 concubines have sex with them that's the first thing that yeah that is sort of like uh orgy in front of like all of israel is a weird move it's a very weird move now it is weird but i think a couple things could help us to understand why this is done first of all and i don't remember if this has come up in previous episodes or not i know that you and i have talked about this it helps a little bit to understand that a hit the fell is and this is this is almost 100 certain there's a little bit of dispute with regard to some name changes but we're we're almost certain that a hit the fell is the grandfather of bath

sheba so this could be that what's going on here is a hit the fell is getting back at david for the whole mess that that he caused that we that we read about and that also might help to explain why it happened on the roof because the rooftop is exactly where of course david saw bath sheba when she was when she was bathing so there was a sense here in which you get the feel that hit the fell is not simply being an official counselor but he he is and he is as it were getting revenge for everything that that david did so that's one reason another is and this helps us to understand actually some other episodes that we encounter both previous to this and after this so you may remember that way back in the book of Genesis, Jacob's firstborn went into had sex with one of

Jacob's co-wives. And when we talked about that way back then, one of the points we made is that in the ancient world, when you wanted to basically say, I'm the guy in charge, I should be the leader now, one of the things that you did was you kind of acted this out sexually. So by taking the wife of the concubine or the co-wife of the guy who was in charge and having sex with her, this was your way basically of saying, I'm the one that everybody should be looking up to. I'm the one who now has the authority. So this isn't, this is a sexual act, of course, but it's more than that. This isn't just about some sort of lust or something. This is a, I don't know what you want to call it,

kind of a ritual slash political move on Absalom's part, whereby he, in having sex with these concubines of David, is saying, I'm the guy. I'm the one who's now in charge. So it wasn't just a kind of a twisted display of his sexual prowess. This is his way of saying, I, and not my father, i am now now the king yeah you're basically letting everyone know that everything that belonged to your father now belongs to you yeah that's it that's it so uh what well you might be

saying well okay that that message is clear but what what's this about you know you'll make yourself a stench to your father and the hands of all who are with you will be strengthened i think what what also is happening here is that by by doing this very very public act very political act the message is going to be sent to anybody who kind of like might be uh uh in in a neutral position like i don't know which side should i choose you know should i choose the absalom side should i choose the david side i really don't know what's going to happen so i don't want to make the bad decision this is going to make force them to make a decision since absalom's going to be odious a stench in the the nostrils of his father

any any hesitation that somebody might have thinking oh you know what it could be possibly that david and his son could reconcile but that's going to be shot there's no way that's going to happen by doing this any any chance of a peaceful reconciliation has been annihilated so anyone who is kind of on the fence here is going to get off the fence they got to make a decision and as a result of that, the hands of all who are with him will be strengthened. So that's why Ahithophel proposes to Absalom to do what he does. And as it says there at the end of that chapter, his counsel was regarded as if it was basically divine. Everybody kind of trusted Ahithophel to give the wisest advice. Yeah, so it's an interesting thing to say that both David and all

the people and absalom uh they all like sort of thought this whatever this guy said was what you this is what you should do so he has his reputation is that of someone who uh makes who gives you very very good counsel so even as like maybe strange as this would seem to do they're like well this guy's like never wrong yeah right yeah he's one of those people that uh If he says it, well, okay, that's what we got to do, you know. Now, that actually sets us up for what's going to happen in the opening chapter of 17, because knowing this, knowing this about the counsel of Ahithophel that was regarded as just almost unquestionable, that everybody always did what Ahithophel suggested,

that then, when we go into the next chapter, is going to lead us to believe that when he makes a suggestion, to Absalom as to how they should proceed militarily, that of course Absalom would go with what he says. But as we'll see, that's not what happened. So by elevating Ahithophel to this almost divine status, as far as his counseling goes, that means that his fall, which we'll read about later, his fall is going to be that much more dramatic. Yeah, it seems that they made it known to the people what was happening was suggested by hippothal because i mean there's no reason to bring up all the all the the people you know really respected this advice so this is another sort of way to get all the people on your side you know if you're like riding in with this

guy and you're saying uh you know hippothal has said to do this and this is what i'm going to do people are like, well, like, okay, that's what that is. It's sort of, it seems that Absalom initially is, it is a smart thing to do, is using him to lend credibility to this whole thing. Epiphal, he did not go with David, right? He stayed. Just probably the right thing to do is to support Absalom. Yeah, I think that's probably what's happening here, is that he He lends a lot of credibility to Absalom, not just with regard to his advice, but also just the fact that he has not gone with David, but that he stayed with Absalom. If he's regarded this highly by all the Israelites, there's probably no greater gift that Absalom could have received besides his betrayal of David. Yeah.

And this is the guy that you want to come over to your side if anybody's going to come over to your side. That's it. All right. Next week, we will get into what the recommendation is for pursuing David and how that all goes down. But you'll have to wait until then. Chad, I'll see you next week.

All right. See you then.