Contemplate the character of the king’s friend. Like other models of friendship--John the Baptist, Jonathan, Ruth--he is conspicuous for sympathy and unselfishness. But there was a special feature in the story of Hushai which teaches us a great and important lesson. He was used as a counteracting influence among the king’s enemies.
I. Where they met. The top of Olivet, where David was worshipping. The use David made of his first halt. When we moan and lament, and go about seeking sympathy in our sorrows, we seldom get it. But God sends comfort to the trusting, accepting heart. Worship is the right way to receive chastisement. (Job_1:20; 2Sa_12:19-20.) So angels came to Bethel and Mahanaim. (Gen_31:54; Gen_32:1-2.) Horses and chariots of fire at Dothan (2Ki_6:13-18.) Jonathan at Ziph. (1Sa_23:15; Act_9:17,.) Angels in Gethsemane. When a soul in sorrow can worship there is no sting left. David might have been looking down on his forsaken capital now possessed by his enemies, but instead he looked up to his covenant God. What is the highest worship? Conformity to God’s will, the worship of Jesus Himself. (Luk_22:42-43.)
II. True sympathy from hushai.
1. It goes to meet sorrow and suffering that it may bless and comfort. Apply this in two cases.
(1) Our ordinary friends. Is not our love very often selfish? It does not go to meet, launch out, anticipate. A wholesome thing to ask ourselves, “Is anyone better or happier for me? Is Jesus more glorified to-day?”
(2) In divine friendship. We too often shut our eyes to the sin and sorrow around us; afraid to look on it because we don’t feel able to cope with it. Go to meet Jesus in it; He is the sorrow-bearer. Go reverently and sympathizingly, and ask what you can do to help Him. There was perfect understanding between David and his friend. Hushai didn’t mind what seemed a repulse. We want to help our friends and Jesus, in our own way. Our sympathy becomes therefore importunate and misplaced. The tried friend perhaps does not want us, but wants our prayers or our influence. And with regard to our Lord, our hearts may cry out for His visible presence, “Let me be with Thee where thou art”; but if Jesus has work for us to do in a rebellious world, then must we stay there till He comes back.
III. A mark of true friendship. To live, and speak, and judge, and act for God in an ungodly world. It is a harder thing than dying, but it profits the cause. Some day we shall welcome back the King. Another feature of it. (Verses 35, 36.) Be the King’s remembrancer. Report everything to Him. Use others in this work. Teach young disciples to “tell Jesus.” (Mat_14:12.)
(1) Jesus notices such. Antipas. (Rev_2:13.) The unknown of Sardis. (Rev_3:4.) (R. E. Faulkner.)
Hushai, the Archite; or a fateful meeting
Hushai strongly wished to accompany David, to whom he was deeply attached. He was troubled greatly at the calamity which had overtaken the king, and the latter was equally troubled to think of the pain and inconvenience Hushai must suffer for his sake in following his changed fortunes. David knew also that Hushai could do better service for him by remaining in the city and counteracting by judicious counsel some of the evil intentions of Absalom. He has great difficulty in persuading Hushai to remain, and has to appear almost rude and even ungrateful in the effort to accomplish his desire. He could bear anything for himself, but he could not permit another to undergo such exhausting experiences for his sake. Hence he puts as his final argument this strong sentence, “If thou passest over with me thou wilt be a burden.” David suggested that Hushai should assume the character of a friend of Absalom.
I. The meeting. There is in the account of this meeting an illustration of how sometimes we may find unexpectedly useful guidance. Hushai might have been a useful guide, but Absalom Is bent on evil, and Ahithophel helps him in his wickedness. Hushai only seeks to defeat the evil counsel of the latter. This he attempts for David’s sake, as well as Absalom’s. Absalom could, if he had been true, have had a most valuable counsellor in Hushai, but, under the circumstances, all Hushai can do is to endeavour to help David, or to give him time to escape, by counselling delay on the part of Absalom. Life is like a many-tracked common or heath; so many paths run side by side or cross each other at different angles. We pass numberless wanderers like ourselves, but here and there we meet casually with some one who is most useful, because he chances to know the direction of the paths, and a word at a perplexing juncture is invaluable. For such guidance we are thankful. Absalom had in Hushai one who would have done his best to counsel him for good, but his heart was set on evil, so that Hushai’s influence was unavailing.
II. A warning also came to the rebellious son in that, meeting. If David yesterday was followed, loved, and trusted, and is to-day forsaken and hunted, so might he be served when the flush of success has faded. Absalom needed the warning just then, for he was contemplating most dastardly crimes. Just as Hushai meets him unexpectedly, so retribution may meet him also, at the point where he seems to have reached the full extent of his expectation of success. There is indeed that which a French writer calls force cachee, or hidden power, checking us often at the very moment of success wrongly gained. It is not always noticed, but sometimes it comes, startling us with its suddenness. Ahab goes down to seize the vineyard of Naboth, and at the door Elijah meets him with the sentence, “In the place where dogs licked the blood of Naboth, shall dogs lick thy blood, even thine” The courtiers who wrought against Daniel were themselves doomed to the death they designed for him. If in secular history we discover the operation of this force cachee, how much more in sacred. There the working of the law is laid down thus: “The wicked shall fall by his own naughtiness;” the ungodly falls into the net he spreads for his neighbour’s feet. Absalom in meeting wish Hushai comes in contact with one who will lead him into the pit be had dug for his father and king. There was a Divine hand in this, and in the after consultation, when the advice of Ahithophel failed, and that of Hushai was taken. God worked through words. (F. Hastings.)
Hushai’s diplomacy
Hushai’s conduct is certainly no model of Christian uprightness. It is therefore curiously instructive to see it made the warrant of a similarly questionable act in modern times. Sir Samuel Morland, Secretary of State to Cromwell, in describing his betrayal of his master to Charles II. says: “I called to remembrance Hushai’s behaviour towards Absalom, which I found not at all blamed in holy writ, and yet his was a larger step than mine.” (Dean Stanley.)
