2 Samuel 17:11
Therefore I counsel that all Israel be generally gathered unto thee, from Dan even to Beer-sheba, as the sand that is by the sea for multitude; and that thou go to battle in thine own person. Therefore I counsel that all Israel be generally gathered unto thee, from Dan even to Beer-sheba, as the sand that is by the sea for multitude; and that thou go to battle in thine own person.
This counsel was a counter-plan deliberately framed to save David, put forward because Ahithophel had urged an immediate pursuit by night while David was weary and weak-handed, a stroke that would surely have killed David unless God directly intervened. To create delay, it argued that David and his men were mighty and valiant and enraged like a bear robbed of her young. It added that David, as an experienced man of war, would not lodge with the troops but would be hidden in a pit or some other place.
It warned that if that first attack failed, Absalom's untrained force would be disheartened and his cause would suffer harm. In place of haste it therefore advised gathering all Israel from Dan to Beersheba, numerous as sand by the sea, with Absalom himself going to battle in person. That vast host was to fall upon David as dew falls and overwhelm him completely and leave no survivor, and even if he took shelter in a city they were to drag that city into the river until not one small stone remained.
The grandiose picture of an immense army led by Absalom himself appealed to Absalom's vain and selfish nature and love of a show of power. Absalom and his counselors preferred this counsel to Ahithophel's sound counsel because a higher wisdom was directing events, for the Lord had appointed to defeat Ahithophel's good counsel in order to bring evil upon Absalom.