Today’s reading: 2 Samuel 17; Galatians 6
I like 2 Samuel 17 because it is one of a handful of places where we get to see a very practical way in which God exercises His sovereignty.
Generally, God’s sovereignty is a much more abstract thing. God declares that He is sovereign, and that His purposes will come to pass, but how that works is much less clear. As a Christian, it is easy to look at various things in our lives and say, “This was 100% God’s doing,” even though there is no clear point at which He interjected Himself to bring it about. In the moment it just seems like the flow of circumstances, but looking back, the cumulative effect of that flow of circumstances is clearly the Lord’s hand. And the same thing can be said at the global level. When the Israelites were carried off into exile in Babylon, it was not because God showed up to Nebuchadnezzar and said, “Hey, I’ve got some rebellious people who need punished. You think you could do me a solid?” As far as Nebuchadnezzar was concerned, he was just out conquering kingdoms and expanding his empire, but we know that God was behind his conquering of Israel as He had declared beforehand that it would happen and why. So while we can sometimes recognize where He has been at work, very seldom do we see how He is at work in the moment.
In 2 Samuel 17, God is not giving the throne to Absalom. He is using Absalom to bring about what He declared to David in chapter 12 after he murdered Uriah to cover up his adultery, that, “I will raise up evil against you out of your own house. And I will take your wives before your eyes and give them to your neighbor, and he shall lie with your wives in the sight of this sun.” Absalom is an instrument of discipline in God’s hand, but it is not His intent or desire to take the kingdom from David and give it to Absalom. So we see God act to protect David by giving Hushai’s counsel favor over Ahithophel’s.
In this case, both men gave reasonable counsel, but logically, Absalom should have leaned toward taking Ahithophel's advice. Ahithophel had been part of his conspiracy early on and had gone with him when he was going to declare himself king. Hushai, on the other hand, as Absalom points out, was a good friend of David's. So while it is certainly possible that Hushai isn't as concerned about serving David as he is about serving whoever happens to be king of Israel, you would think Absalom would have to be viewing this with at least some amount of suspicion. So when both men give reasonable advice, but one of them you are even slightly unsure of his allegiance and his suggestion is to not go after David right away and to basically give him more time to escape and regroup, which man should you lean toward following? To be honest, it seems kind of foolish for Absalom to favor Hushai over Ahithophel here, even if it's otherwise a close decision.
And I think this is where we see God's hand at work to bring about His purposes. It's not some great angelic army surrounding and protecting David from Absalom, but a gentle nudging in the "right" direction. Perhaps this was like with Pharaoh, where Pharaoh really did want to keep Israel as slaves, but his heart was flagging due to the devastation of the plagues, and we are told that God strengthened his heart, giving him the fortitude to do what he already wanted to do but was afraid of. In the same way, maybe God quieted Absalom's suspicions about Hushai's motives so that he wouldn't be cautious in considering his advice up against Ahithophel's. Or maybe God simply put his finger on the scale of Absalom's judgement as he considered which man's advice was better. However it came about, though both men gave good advice, and only one of them was for sure trustworthy to Absalom, he chose the other man's suggestion, bringing about God's purposes for David and Israel. Surely Absalom didn't consider that God was swaying his choice, and he thought he was merely following the flow of circumstances and making the best use of the opportunities before him, but we have the benefit of knowing that this was not merely circumstances of chance, but God exercising His sovereignty over the flow of human history.
It's easy, for me at least, to look at something like the plagues in Egypt where God supernaturally interjected Himself into human affairs in a massive and undeniable way, and look for that as being how God brings about His purposes, but the vast majority of the time it is much more subtle than that. We may not see how He is moving, and His enemies in the spiritual world may not see how He is moving, but we can rest assured that He is moving, His purposes cannot be thwarted, and He will bring every promise to pass.
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