Hushai

“So I advise you: Let all Israel, from Dan to Beersheba – as numerous as the sand on the seashore – be gathered to you, with you yourself leading them into battle.” 2 Samuel 17:11
Earlier we read about how Hushai was the answer to David’s prayer at the time that Absalom staged a coup against him. Absalom had called on Ahithophel, David’s leading counsellor, to support him. As David fled Jerusalem, he prayed to God that Ahithophel’s counsel would be frustrated. God answered this prayer in the form of Hushai, another of David’s advisers. Hushai went back to Jerusalem to pretend to be loyal to Absalom, with the intention being to give contradictory advice to Ahithophel.
Absalom asked the question, what should we do about David? Ahithophel’s answer was that he would lead an elite team to track David down quickly and kill him. Absalom asked Hushai the same question, and Hushai responded quite differently. Rather than Ahithophel leading a few good soldiers straightaway, he said, Absalom should muster all Israel and lead them himself to completely crush David and those who were with him.
What Hushai did here was very shrewd. He knew that Ahithophel held a grudge against David; he knew that Absalom’s ego would not allow Ahithophel to lead the soldiers into battle. But the primary reason for this suggestion was because it would buy David time. It would take several days for messengers to go throughout the land of Israel and muster all the fighting men together. In the meantime, Hushai could get word to David to prepare himself and his men. David could thus choose the terrain for the battle – which he does, choosing the forest of Ephraim, with narrow paths so that any soldiers entering the forest would have to pass through one at a time and could easily be struck down, even though David’s men were much smaller in number. It was Hushai’s advice to Absalom that led to him being defeated and David regaining the throne that was rightfully his.