2 Samuel 17:15

DAVID'S LINE OF COMMUNICATIONS WITH JERUSALEM

"Then Hushai said to Zadok and Abiathar the priests, "Thus and so did Ahithophel counsel Absalom and the elders of Israel; and thus and so have I counseled. Now therefore send quickly and tell David, `Do not lodge tonight at the fords of the wilderness, but by all means pass over; lest the king and all the people who are with him be swallowed up.'" Now Jonathan and Ahimaaz were. waiting at En-rogel; a maidservant used to go and tell them, and they would go and tell David; for they must not be seen entering the city. But a lad saw them, and told Absalom; so both of them went away quickly, and came to the house of a man at Bahurim, who had a well in his courtyard; and they went down into it. And the woman took and spread a covering over the well's mouth and, scattered grain upon it; and nothing was known of it. When Absalom's servants came to the woman at the house, they said, "Where are Ahimaaz and Jonathan"? And the woman said to them, "They have gone over the brook of water." And when they had sought and could not find them, they returned to Jerusalem."

"Do not lodge tonight at the fords" (2 Samuel 17:15). This stern warning to David from Hushai indicates that, "Although Hushai had been invited to give his advice to Absalom, he was not a part of the final session in which the decision was made. He did not know which plan would be followed, so he warned David on the assumption that Ahithophel's counsel might actually be followed."[16]

"These verses reveal how the underground worked to keep David informed of events in Jerusalem."[17]

"A maidservant used to go and tell them ... they would go and tell King David" (2 Samuel 17:17). "The verbs here are frequentative, indicating that this system of communication was used continually. It must have taken Absalom a long time to have mustered the large force Hushai had recommended (and also to exhaust his pleasure with the ten concubines); and all the while David was kept well informed of what was happening in Jerusalem."[18]

"En-Rogel" (2 Samuel 17:17). "This place was called the fuller's well in the neighborhood of Jerusalem below the junction of the valley of Hinnom with that of Jehoshaphat."[19] "The woman mentioned in this same verse was either a servant of one of the priests, or possibly one employed in the tabernacle service."[20] Her going to that well would have aroused no suspicion, because the carrying of water from wells was normally done by the women in those times.

From this it is clear that the event described in 2 Samuel 17:18-20 occurred on the first day that David's communications system was put in use, as indicated in 2 Samuel 17:21. However, the messengers lost little time; because David got the message in plenty of time to move his whole party across the Jordan before daylight. Apparently, the system worked perfectly after that.

"The woman ... scattered grain upon it" (2 Samuel 17:19). Keil tells us that the Vulgate explains this, "As if drying peeled barley."[21]

"They have gone over the water brook" (2 Samuel 17:20). This is not a reference to the Jordan River, which would never have been referred to as a mere brook, but to a small stream of water near Bahurim.