"... what should we make of David’s prayer about the turning of Ahithophel’s counsel into folly? this is hardly satisfied by espionage. Are we not to see in Hushai’s tour de force the answer to the prayer, as Hushai egregiously spins a rope from sand, serving up a hilarious mix of earnest strategy and self-contradictory nonsense that commends itself to all but his rival? it is a “making foolish” in this sense that the theological statement in 17:14 picks up: “YHWH had commanded to frustrate the good counsel of Ahithophel, so that YHWH could bring harm upon Absalom.” i have already noted that the accounts of royal councils in 1 Kings 12 and 22 involve rival counsels, just as happens in the mt version of Absalom’s war council. there is the further parallel that in all three narratives the outcome is attributed directly to divine intervention: “this turn of events was from YHWH, to fulfil the word YHWH had spoken to Jeroboam son of Nebat through Ahijah the Shilonite” (1 Kings 12:15; compare “this is my doing”, verse 24); “YHWH has put a lying spirit in the mouths of all these prophets of yours. YHWH has decreed disaster for you” (1 Kings 22:23). the suspect theological statement in 2 Samuel 17:14 is just as integral to the narrative in which it appears: “YHWH had commanded to frustrate the good counsel of Ahithophel, so that YHWH could bring harm upon Absalom.” ..."