What is the context?
Hushai reports both plans to the priests and urges that David cross the river without delay. Jonathan and Ahimaaz receive information through a servant girl because they cannot safely appear in the city.
When a young man notices them and reports them to Absalom, they hide in a well at Bahurim. A woman covers the opening with a cloth and grain, then tells the searchers the men have crossed the brook. After the searchers leave, the messengers reach David.
David and everyone with him cross the Jordan before daybreak. Meanwhile Ahithophel, seeing that his advice has not been followed, returns home, puts his affairs in order and takes his own life. He is buried in his father’s tomb.
How is this passage commonly understood?
Wesley understands the urgent warning as necessary because Absalom might still change course and pursue quickly. The accepted delay does not lead Hushai to assume that David can safely remain where he is.
Wesley also calls the woman’s answer to the searchers a lie. Her help preserves the messengers, but the account of their escape is not a blanket endorsement of every deception used in wartime.
Henry and Gill think Ahithophel recognized that Absalom’s cause was likely to fail and feared what would follow. Those are explanations of his response; the text itself connects his death with the rejection of his counsel without revealing every motive.
What is our position?
We don't have a position on this passage yet. When our study reaches a conclusion the text supports, it will appear here.