Instead of striking a preemptive blow against David with a hastily assembled force under Ahitophel's command, Hushai advised, Absalom ought to wait until he had raised a vast army from every corner of Israel, “from Dan even to Beersheba, countless as grains of sand on the seashore.” Then Absalom himself ought to lead the army into battle against David. (Sam. 17:11)
To make the case for his plan of operations, Hushai reminded Absalom of his father's ferocity and cunning. “You know that your father and his men are hardened warriors, and as savage as a bear in the wilds robbed of her cubs,” Hushai said. “Your father is an old campaigner, and even now he will be lying hidden in a pit.” (Sam. 17:8)3 David, like a cornered bear, would surely put up fierce resistance to Ahitophel's preemptive strike, and word of the early casualties would demoralize the rest of Absalom's men. “Anyone who hears the news will say, ‘Disaster has overtaken the followers of Absalom,’ ” Hushai warned. “The courage of the most resolute and lionhearted will melt away, for all Israel knows that your father is a man of war.” Then Hushai conjured up a vision of Absalom's ultimate victory. “We will light upon him as the dew falling on the ground,” he assured the king, “not a man of his family or his followers will be left alive.” (2 Sam. 17:8, 10, 12)4
Hushai's advice was bad, and intentionally so. The Bible confirms that Ahitophel had offered “good counsel,” while Hushai's plan was calculated to help David and hurt Absalom. A quick strike against David's small and disordered band of refugees and runaways offered the chance of an early victory, and any delay in attacking David would allow him to find a safe refuge beyond the reach of Absalom, strengthen his own fighting force, repair his political alliances within Israel, and recruit, among the neighboring kingdoms, allies to whom he was related by blood and marriage. Indeed, David was an expert at guerrilla warfare— we might even say he invented it!—and he knew how to defeat a large conventional army of the kind that Hushai recommended with the same hit-and-run tactics he had used against Saul.
Why did Absalom reject the “good counsel” of Ahitophel and embrace the intentionally bad advice of Hushai? The biblical author himself appears to be astounded at Absalom's boneheaded decision to listen to Hushai and ignore Ahitophel, and he explains it with a characteristic theological shrug. “The Lord had ordained to defeat the good counsel of Ahitophel,” the Bible reports, “to the intent that the Lord might bring evil upon Absalom.” (2 Sam. 17:14) But we might wonder whether Absalom, acting out of some kind of primal fear, was reluctant to issue a death sentence on his own father.
THE FIFTH COLUMN
Now Hushai sought out Zadok and Abiathar, the high priests whom David had left behind in Jerusalem as fifth columnists, and gave them an urgent intelligence report to convey to the fugitive king.
“Do not spend the night on the plains of the wilderness,” went Hushai's message, which was apparently prompted by his concern that Absalom would, in fact, do exactly what Ahitophel had proposed, “but cross the river at once, lest the king be swallowed up, and all the people that are with him.” (2 Sam. 17:16)5
The biblical author, writing several millennia before John le Carré and Len Deighton, pauses here to give his readers a tense account of the Bible-era spycraft practiced by David's espionage apparatus. The high priests in Jerusalem entrusted the message from Hushai to a maidservant, who carried it secretly to a safe house on the outskirts of Jerusalem where their sons, Jonathan and Ahimaaz, were stationed. The two young men were detailed to act as couriers and bring the message to David. But they had been spotted by some watchful lad in service to Absalom, who had betrayed their whereabouts to the king.
The couriers reached the town of Bahurim—the place, by the way, where Shimei had denounced David as a “bloodstained fiend of hell.” Fearing that they would be tracked down and arrested before they could reach David's camp, they sought refuge at a house along the road. And to conceal themselves from the king's patrols, they lowered themselves into a well in the courtyard. The kindly woman who lived in the house placed a cover over the mouth of the well and sprinkled it with grain to suggest that the well had not been opened recently.
“Where are Ahimaaz and Jonathan?” demanded the king's guard when they arrived at the house.
“They are gone over the brook of water,” the intrepid woman lied. (2 Sam. 17:20)6
The soldiers headed off in the direction of the brook, but they found nothing and returned empty-handed to Jerusalem. Meanwhile, Jonathan and Ahimaaz clambered out of the well and hurried to David's camp, where they delivered Hushai's message: “Arise, and pass quickly over the water,” they said, “for this is how Ahitophel has given counsel against you.” Thus warned, David roused his men and marched them down to the river's edge, where they crossed to safety on the eastern bank of the Jordan. (2 Sam. 17:21)7
“By the morning light,” the Bible reports, “there was not a straggler who had not gone over the Jordan.” (2 Sam. 17:22)8
CAPTAINS OF THOUSANDS
Just as Hushai had hoped and Ahitophel had feared, Absalom's delay in making war on his father allowed David both time and space to make preparations for the decisive battle to come.
Ahitophel fell into a deadly despair over Absalom's lack of faith in his advice. Perhaps he felt personally disgraced, or perhaps he was fearful of the fate that would surely befall him if David returned to Jerusalem in triumph. Indeed, he was unwilling to wait and see whether David or Absalom would be the ultimate victor. “And when Ahitophel saw that his counsel was not followed, he saddled his ass, and arose, and got himself unto his city, and set his house in order,” the Bible discloses, “and strangled himself, and he died.” (2 Sam. 17:23)
Meanwhile, David set up a base of operations at a place called Mahanaim—ironically, it was the same place that briefly served as the seat of government for the rump kingdom of Ishbaal, the son of Saul. Unmolested by Absalom, David used the respite to strengthen and supply his army, mustering fresh recruits and “setting captains of thousands and captains of hundreds over them.” Allies, old and new, rallied to his support, and he began to collect arms and provisions from kings and comrades in arms. (2 Sam. 18:1) “Beds, and basins, and earthen vessels, and wheat, and barley, and meal, and parched corn, and beans, and lentils, and parched pulse, and honey, and curd, and sheep, and cheese of kine,” goes the redolent biblical inventory, “for David, and for the people that were with him, to eat.” (2 Sam. 17:28–29)
At last David was ready to move against Absalom, who had raised an army and was now encamped in the nearby land of Gilead on the eastern bank of the Jordan River. But the seasoned and savvy guerrilla fighter refused to engage Absalom and his much larger forces in a set-piece battle. Instead David divided his army into three units, each one under the command of a trusted captain—Joab; Abishai, his brother; and a man called Ittai, an old cohort who hailed from the Philistine city-state of Gath. David's plan was to strike at Absalom's army in the forest of Ephraim, the kind of broken country ideally suited for the hit-and-run tactics that David had used so successfully against Saul.
David, old in years but eager to lead his men into battle as he had done in his glory days, declared his intention to put himself on the front line: “I shall surely go forth with you myself.” Perhaps he recalled the moral catastrophe that had befallen him when he stayed behind in Jerusalem while Joab had campaigned against the Ammonites, or perhaps he was rejuvenated by his return to the life of a guerrilla captain. But his comrades in arms prevailed on David to remain behind lest he fall into the hands of Absalom. “If half of us die, will they care for us?” argued his lieutenants. “But thou art worth ten thousand of us.” David yielded to their demands, and he agreed to remain behind. (2 Sam. 18:2–3)
Success in battle depended on a ruthless and decisive strike against Absalom's much larger fighting force, and David surely knew it as well as any man in either army. Still, on the very eve of battle, David experienced an upwelling of fatherly sentiment, the same love of a father for a son that
had stayed his hand against Amnon after the rape of Tamar. Here again, David betrayed the tenderness that was at once one of his most endearing qualities and one of his greatest weaknesses as a leader. David gathered his commanders, Joab and Abishai and Ittai, and issued one last order as the army watched and listened.
“Deal gently for my sake with the young man Absalom,” said David in an order that was partly a king's command and partly a father's plea. (2 Sam. 18:5) (NEB)
Then the army rose, divided into three columns, and marched off in the direction of the forest of Ephraim. David watched from the city gate as “the entire army marched out by hundreds and thousands.” (2 Sam. 18:4) (AB) Now it was up to them, David must have realized, to decide whether father or son would wear the crown of Israel.
THE DEVOURING FOREST
On that day of battle, David's little army conducted “a great slaughter” in the forest of Ephraim. The landscape favored David's guerrilla tactics, and his small units moved more easily over the terrain than the much larger army fielded by Absalom. Twenty thousand men fell in battle—and, as the biblical author confirms, “the forest devoured more people that day than the sword devoured.” (2 Sam. 18:8)
Absalom rode into battle at the head of his army, but he, too, was defeated by the dense forest—and, as it turned out, by his own lovely head of hair. As envisioned by the Talmudic sages and the ancient chronicler Josephus—although never stated outright in the Bible—Absalom, on his mule, passed under the boughs of a tree in the forest of Ephraim, and his long hair was caught fast in a low-hanging branch.9
“He was taken up between the heaven and the earth,” is how the Bible lyrically describes the mishap, “and the mule that was under him went on.”
One of David's men saw Absalom hanging helplessly—and, we may imagine, in pain—from the branch of the tree, and he promptly reported the sighting to Joab. (2 Sam. 18:9)
“Why did you not strike him to the ground?” Joab wanted to know. And, despite David's order to spare his son, Joab suggested that he had placed a bounty on Absalom's head: “I would have had to give you ten pieces of silver, and a belt.” (2 Sam. 18:11)10
“If you were to put a thousand pieces of silver in my hand, I would not lift a finger against the king's son,” the soldier replied, “for we all heard that the king charged you and Abishai and Ittai, saying: ‘Beware that none touch the young man Absalom.’ ” (2 Sam. 18:11–12)11
David might be softhearted toward his own son, but Joab always seemed to be capable of clearer thinking and more ruthless action. As long as Absalom lived, Joab knew, he remained a threat to David, and it was only by killing him that Joab would be able to crush the insurrection and preserve the integrity of the monarchy that David had created.
So Joab dismissed the reluctant soldier, picked up three darts,12 assembled ten of his own men, and went in search of the tree in which Absalom was caught up. The scene would be comical if it were not so pitiful: Absalom “was yet alive in the midst of the terebinth,” dangling “between the heaven and the earth,” when Joab himself struck him “through the heart” with the darts. Apparently Absalom survived Joab's three sharp blows—did he groan in pain? did he beg to be put out of his misery?—and so the ten young men who accompanied Joab set upon Absalom with their own weapons to finish the job, and they “smote Absalom, and slew him.” (2 Sam. 18:15) Or perhaps Absalom was already dead, and the wily Joab was only seeking to make it more difficult to pin the death of the king's son on one man.
Then Joab sounded the ram's horn to signal a cease-fire, and the army of David broke off the slaughter. As word of the death of their king and commander spread through the ranks, Absalom's army fell into open rout: “All Israel fled, every one to his tent.” The corpse of the slain Absalom was cut down from the tree, cast into a pit in the forest, and buried under a heap of stones—a traditional form of burial for a villainous and despised enemy. The biblical author pauses here to note that Absalom left no son “to keep [his] name in remembrance”—a signal that Absalom's claim on the kingship ended with his death. (2 Sam. 18:18)
GOOD TIDINGS
David waited at the gates of his stronghold, and a watchman stood atop the city wall. At last the watchman spotted a lone runner approaching from the distance, and he reported what he saw to the king.
“If he be alone, then he has tidings,” mused the king, who knew that many men on the run was a sign of an army in rout, but a single runner meant only that a message had been sent from the front. (2 Sam. 18:25)13
In fact, Joab had dispatched two runners to relay the news to King David. One was a black-skinned man from Ethiopia—a Cushite, as the Bible puts it—who was apparently serving along with the other foreign mercenaries in David's army. The other was Ahimaaz, son of the high priest Zadok, who had begged Joab for the privilege of telling the king “that the Lord hath avenged him of his enemies.” Joab, however, knew that David was unlikely to share the young priest's enthusiasm when he learned that Joab had defied his command to spare Absalom. (2 Sam. 18:19) Indeed, Joab may have remembered the fate of other men who had hastened to tell David that an enemy had been slain in battle!
“Why will you run, my son,” said Joab, “seeing that you will have no reward for the tidings?”
“Come what may,” the young man answered, “I will run.” (2 Sam. 18:22–23)14
Now the watchman on the city wall spotted the second runner, too, and he was able to make out that one of the two men was Ahimaaz.
“He is a good man,” said David hopefully, “and comes with good tidings.” (2 Sam. 18: 27)
“All is well,” called Ahimaaz as he trotted up to the gate. He bowed to the king, pressing his forehead to the ground, surely breathless with exultation as well as exertion. “Blessed be the Lord thy God, who hath delivered up the men that lifted up their hand against my lord the king.” (2 Sam. 18:28)
But David did not pause to join in thanksgiving to God. He did not ask for details of how the battle had been won. He did not utter a word of congratulation or celebration. Rather the king asked the courier a single question, the only question that really mattered to him.
“Is all well with the young man Absalom?”
“I saw a great commotion,” mumbled Ahimaaz, perhaps realizing the enormity of the blow he was about to deliver and finding himself unable to give the king a straight answer, “but I did not know what had happened.” (2 Sam. 18:29) (NEB)
Now the Cushite approached the gate.
“Tidings for my lord the king,” declared the second messenger. “The Lord has avenged you this day on all those who rebelled against you.” (2 Sam. 18:31)15
Thus does the biblical author play out the suspenseful account, denying the truth to David long after we have witnessed the fate of Absalom. Now, once again, King David asked the only question that seemed to matter to him.
“Is all well with the young man Absalom?” David asked the second messenger.
“May all the king's enemies and all rebels who would do you harm,” burbled the Cushite, “be as that young man is.” (2 Sam. 18:32) (NEB)
David puzzled out the bitter truth that was concealed within these ornate but oblique phrases—and his heart broke.
And the king was much moved, and went up to the chamber over the gate, and wept, and as he went, thus he said: “O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! Would that I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son!”
(2 Sam. 19:1)
VICTORY INTO MOURNING
Word soon reached Joab that David had been shattered by the news of Absalom's death. The king spent the day with his head in his hands, weeping and moaning in a public display of grief. Instead of a triumphal march from the front to the stronghold where David waited, the soldiers slipped back into the city “by stealth,” as if they were cowards running away from a defeat rather than conquering heroes returning from battle to reclaim the royal capital. “And the victory that day,” the Bible notes, “was turned into mourning unto all the people.” (2 Sam. 19:
3)
Joab was made of tougher stuff. The old soldier reacted to the king's grief over Absalom—the man who had done his best to kill him first—not with sympathy but with rage and disgust, and he did not hesitate to tell David so.
“You have put to shame this day all your servants, who have saved you and your sons and daughters, your wives and your concubines,” ranted Joab at the cowering king. “You love those that hate you and hate those that love you! For it is plain that if Absalom were still alive and all of us dead, you would be content.” (2 Sam. 19:6–7)16
David may have been God's anointed and, once again, king of all Israel, but Joab recalled their freebooting days too well to regard him as anything but a mortal man. So Joab barked out orders to David, a general commanding a king, reminding him of where his duties lay.
“Arise, go at once, and give your servants some encouragement,” Joab told David. “If you refuse, I swear by the Lord that not a man will stay with you tonight, and that will be worse than all the evil that has befallen you from your youth until now.” (2 Sam. 19:8)17
A chastened David rose at Joab's command, perhaps wiping his tear-filled eyes. David took his rightful seat at the city gate, the traditional gathering place where the judges and high priests of ancient Israel had conducted public ceremonies and exercised the power of high office. “Behold, the king doth sit in the gate,” the people said to one another, as if to confirm that the king was back in his right mind, the shattered monarchy was repaired, and all was as it should be. (2 Sam. 19:9)
But nothing would ever be the same for David or the kingdom he had created. “The king ceases to be king,” points out Bible critic David M. Gunn. “From this point on, he is simply and essentially man.”18 Against all his political wiles, his ruthlessness in battle, and his will to power—or, for that matter, the favor of the God of Israel—David was now helpless in the face of a loss that neither politics nor theology was able to soothe.
King David: The Real Life of the Man Who Ruled Israel (Ballantine Reader's Circle) Page 26