Providence in the Trenches: The Well at Bahurim Text: 2 Samuel 17:15-22
Introduction: The Tangled Web of God's Sovereignty
We are in the midst of a national calamity, a toxic civil war. The king is in exile, chased from his throne not by a foreign power, but by his own son. The nation is split down the middle, and the heart of the conflict is a battle of wits, a duel of counselors in the court of the usurper, Absalom. On one side, you have Ahithophel, the Judas of the Old Testament, whose counsel was like that of an oracle from God. On the other, you have Hushai, David's loyal friend, planted as a spy to confound the wisdom of the wise. And what we have seen is that the Lord had appointed to defeat the good counsel of Ahithophel, so that He might bring disaster upon Absalom.
We must get this into our bones. God is not a nervous spectator in the bleachers of heaven, wringing His hands, hoping His team pulls through. He is on the field. He is in the war room. He is governing all things, from the grand strategies of kings down to the flight of two young men and the quick thinking of a woman with a bag of grain. The doctrine of God's meticulous providence is not some dusty theological abstraction for seminarians to debate. It is the bedrock of our sanity in a world that appears to be run by fools and madmen. It is the reason David can sleep on the ground in the wilderness and the reason we can have any hope when our own lives are turned upside down.
In our text today, the high-level strategy of the royal court descends into a frantic, dusty chase. The fate of the kingdom hinges on a message getting through, on a servant girl's fidelity, on a boy's sharp eyes, and on a well in a courtyard. This is how God works. He weaves the grand tapestry of redemption with the threads of ordinary human action, loyalty, cunning, and courage. He uses spies and priests, farm boys and housewives, to accomplish His sovereign will. And in this, we see that our small acts of faithfulness, our seemingly insignificant choices, are caught up in a drama far larger than we can imagine.
The Text
Then Hushai said to Zadok and to Abiathar the priests, “This is what Ahithophel counseled Absalom and the elders of Israel, and this is what I have counseled. So now, send quickly and inform David, saying, ‘Do not spend the night at the fords of the wilderness, but by all means cross over, lest the king and all the people who are with him be swallowed up.’ ” Now Jonathan and Ahimaaz were staying at En-rogel, and a servant-woman would go and inform them, and they would go and inform King David, for they could not be seen entering the city. But a boy did see them and informed Absalom; so the two of them went quickly and came to the house of a man in Bahurim, who had a well in his courtyard, and they went down into it. And the woman took a covering and spread it over the well’s mouth and scattered crushed grain on it, so that nothing was known. Then Absalom’s servants came to the woman at the house and said, “Where are Ahimaaz and Jonathan?” And the woman said to them, “They have crossed the brook of water.” And when they searched and could not find them, they returned to Jerusalem. Now it happened after they went away, that they came up out of the well and went and informed King David; and they said to David, “Arise and cross over the water quickly for thus Ahithophel has counseled against you.” Then David and all the people who were with him arose and crossed the Jordan; and by dawn not even one remained who had not crossed the Jordan.
(2 Samuel 17:15-22 LSB)
The Urgent Dispatch (vv. 15-16)
We begin with the immediate aftermath of Hushai's rhetorical victory in Absalom's court.
"Then Hushai said to Zadok and to Abiathar the priests, 'This is what Ahithophel counseled Absalom and the elders of Israel, and this is what I have counseled. So now, send quickly and inform David, saying, ‘Do not spend the night at the fords of the wilderness, but by all means cross over, lest the king and all the people who are with him be swallowed up.’ '" (2 Samuel 17:15-16)
Hushai has won the debate, but he is no fool. He knows that his counsel was strategically foolish, designed only to buy time. He also knows that Absalom is fickle and that Ahithophel's counsel was lethally effective. It was, from a purely military standpoint, the right move. Strike now while David is weary and disorganized. Hushai understands that you cannot trust a mob or a usurper to stick to a bad plan if the good plan is still lying there on the table. So he operates on the assumption that the enemy might just wake up and do the smart thing.
This is a crucial lesson for us. We are to be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. We trust in God's sovereign plan, but we don't use that as an excuse for laziness or presumption. We pray, "Give us this day our daily bread," and then we go to work. Hushai trusts that God has given him success, but he immediately takes prudent action. He sends a message of extreme urgency. "Send quickly... by all means cross over."
The warning is stark: "lest the king and all the people who are with him be swallowed up." This is the language of total annihilation. Hushai knows what is at stake. This is not a political game; it is a fight for the life of God's anointed and the future of the kingdom. The Christian life is not a playground; it is a battlefield. We must have this same sense of urgency about sin, about temptation, about the schemes of the devil. Do not linger at the fords of the wilderness. Do not dally with temptation. Flee from it. Cross over. Get to the other side where there is safety.
The Precarious Relay (vv. 17-20)
Now the scene shifts from the high council to the back alleys and dusty roads. The message must be delivered, and it is a risky business.
"Now Jonathan and Ahimaaz were staying at En-rogel, and a servant-woman would go and inform them, and they would go and inform King David, for they could not be seen entering the city. But a boy did see them and informed Absalom; so the two of them went quickly and came to the house of a man in Bahurim, who had a well in his courtyard, and they went down into it. And the woman took a covering and spread it over the well’s mouth and scattered crushed grain on it, so that nothing was known. Then Absalom’s servants came to the woman at the house and said, 'Where are Ahimaaz and Jonathan?' And the woman said to them, 'They have crossed the brook of water.' And when they searched and could not find them, they returned to Jerusalem." (2 Samuel 17:17-20)
Here we see the machinery of providence at work. It is a chain of loyalty. Hushai tells the priests, Zadok and Abiathar. They tell a servant-woman. The servant-woman tells their sons, Jonathan and Ahimaaz. And they are to tell David. The whole operation depends on the faithfulness of each link in the chain. Notice who God uses here. Priests, yes, but also a nameless servant girl, and later another nameless woman in Bahurim. God's kingdom is not built only by the famous and the powerful. It is built on the quiet courage and fidelity of ordinary people doing their duty in their station.
But of course, things go wrong. This is a fallen world. "But a boy did see them." The best-laid plans are subject to contingency. A random kid spots them and snitches. Immediately, the pursuers are out, and the messengers are running for their lives. This is where we see the interplay of human action and divine sovereignty so clearly. The boys run, they find a safe house, a man loyal to David. They hide in a well. This is not a glorious, heroic stand. It is a desperate, clever act of self-preservation. It is hiding in a hole in the ground.
And then the woman of the house steps up. She takes charge. She covers the well and scatters grain over it, making it look like a threshing floor. It is a simple, domestic act of deception. When Absalom's goons show up, she gives them a cool, collected misdirection. "They have crossed the brook of water." This is the sort of thing that gives pious people fits. She lied. Yes, she did. And the Bible records it without a hint of condemnation. She lied to protect the lives of the innocent from murderous rebels, just as Rahab lied to protect the spies in Jericho. Her loyalty to God's anointed king trumped her obligation to tell the truth to usurpers bent on murder. This is wartime ethics. When the Gestapo is at your door asking if you are hiding any Jews, the righteous answer is no.
The Message Delivered, The River Crossed (vv. 21-22)
The woman's quick thinking works. The pursuers are thrown off the scent, and the mission is completed.
"Now it happened after they went away, that they came up out of the well and went and informed King David; and they said to David, 'Arise and cross over the water quickly for thus Ahithophel has counseled against you.' Then David and all the people who were with him arose and crossed the Jordan; and by dawn not even one remained who had not crossed the Jordan." (2 Samuel 17:21-22)
Once the coast is clear, they climb out of the well and complete their task. They deliver the message, and it is the same message of urgency Hushai sent. But notice what they emphasize. They don't report on Hushai's successful counter-counsel. They report the threat: "thus Ahithophel has counseled against you." They deliver the hard news, the dangerous reality. This is what true friendship does. It doesn't sugarcoat the truth. It warns of the real danger so that action can be taken.
And David's response is immediate and total. There is no debate, no committee meeting. He hears the warning, and he acts. "Then David and all the people who were with him arose and crossed the Jordan." This was not a small undertaking. This was a large group of people, including women and children, weary from their flight. A night crossing of the Jordan was a difficult and dangerous military maneuver. But they did it. The obedience was complete: "by dawn not even one remained who had not crossed the Jordan."
This is a picture of true leadership and true faith. David trusted his intelligence network, which was ultimately to say he trusted the God who was working through them. When God's warning comes, the only proper response is immediate and thorough obedience. Do not leave anyone behind on the wrong side of the river. When God calls you to leave a particular sin, the command is to cross over completely, with no part of you lingering on the bank.
Conclusion: Hidden in the Well
This entire episode is a masterful illustration of how God saves His people. He works through both spectacular and mundane means. He can turn the heart of a council to prefer a foolish plan, and He can use a woman with a tarp and some barley to deceive a search party. Our God is a God of grand strategy and of clever tactics in the dirt.
But there is a deeper picture here for us. Jonathan and Ahimaaz, the bearers of the life-saving message, were saved from their pursuers by going down into a well, a pit, a temporary grave. They were hidden in the earth, covered over, and counted as gone. And after the danger passed, they came up out of that well to bring the word of salvation to the king.
This is a faint echo, a whisper, of what our great Messenger would do. The Lord Jesus Christ is the ultimate bearer of the good news, the message of salvation. And to deliver that message to us, He had to descend. He went down into the pit, into the grave itself. He was hidden away in the earth, covered by a stone. The enemy thought they had won. The pursuers went back to Jerusalem, celebrating their victory. But after the danger of God's wrath had passed over Him, He came up out of that tomb, resurrected and victorious.
And because He did, He brings to us the urgent message: "Arise and cross over." Cross over from death to life. Cross over from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light. The counsel of the evil one has been leveled against you. The sentence of death is on your head. But the message has come through. A way of escape has been made. And the call is for immediate, total obedience. Do not linger at the fords of sin. Flee to Christ. Cross the river. And by the grace of God, when the morning dawns, not one of those who belong to the King will be left behind.