Thoughts On Second Samuel 17 and 18

Today I read the 17th and 18th chapters of the book of 2nd Samuel. I am going to write this entry differently than I wrote the first entry. I am not going to provide as indepth a summary as I did with the first entry. I am going to focus on what I found interesting in the chapters that I read. After all, a perspective is not a summary of what happened, it is a collection of personal thoughts concerning something. In the 17th chapter, I found Ahithophel's suicide (by hanging himself) to be extreme. He had lost favor with Absalom when Absalom would not take his advice to kill David. Instead, Absalom took Hushai's advice to go in battle against David. Hushai was essentially a spy for David. If someone chose not to take the advice that I had given him or her, I would not even contemplate suicide. However, when Absalom chose to take Hushai's advice, he essentially banished Ahithophel from his court. In the 18th chapter, I found the fact that Absalom got stuck in a in a terebinth tree, intriguing. He must have gotten stuck really bad, because he couldn't free himself for an extended amount of time. A man saw him and told Joab and he still couldn't free himself. He was then executed by Joab and a group of soldiers. He must have been pleading with them this entire time. Joab went against David's orders not to kill Absalom.