2 Samuel 17:14, commentary and pictures

Ahithophel's counsel was to take twelve thousand men that very night to pursue David while he was weary and weak-handed, to scatter his people and strike the king alone and bring the rest back, a plan approved by the counselors that would surely have killed David unless God directly intervened to save him. A wisdom higher than Ahithophel's was directing events, for the Lord purposed to frustrate that good and sound counsel in order to bring ruin and calamity upon Absalom. Absalom and all the men of Israel judged the counsel of Hushai the Archite to be better than the counsel of Ahithophel, and by accepting it set Ahithophel's counsel aside.

The object of Hushai's counsel was delay in order to gain time for David to escape. Once that was accomplished the rash and impetuous Absalom was not long restrained but soon crossed the Jordan with all Israel in pursuit of his father. The defeat of Ahithophel's counsel and the preservation of David's life during Absalom's rebellion was a reward for David's humble trust in God. That humble trust was shown as he accepted correction and endured affliction.

The preference for Hushai was a fatal mistake that lost the cause of the rebels, a result that Ahithophel alone clearly foresaw and was not deceived about. Although Ahithophel had encouraged Absalom in rebellion, instigated his greatest crimes, counseled him to abominable wickedness dishonoring his father, advised the slaying of David and planned its accomplishment, and had cut off all possibility of his own reconciliation with the king, Absalom preferred another before him, leaving Ahithophel jealous, angry, and desperate. Ahithophel then went home to his house in his city, put his household in order, hanged himself, and died. His end shows the result of wisdom, even with high endowments, that does not make God its counselor, proving that Satan allures men with flattering promises but the wages of sin is death.