2 Samuel 13 – 1 Kings 2 — Peter preached the psalms David had written about a betrayer, and he preached them as a pardoned betrayer himself.
The Texts
“O LORD, please turn the counsel of Ahithophel into foolishness.”
— 2 Samuel 15:31
“Now in those days the counsel that Ahithophel gave was as if one consulted the word of God; so was all the counsel of Ahithophel esteemed, both by David and by Absalom.”
— 2 Samuel 16:23
“When Ahithophel saw that his counsel was not followed, he saddled his donkey and went off home to his own city. He set his house in order and hanged himself.”
— 2 Samuel 17:23
“Even my close friend in whom I trusted, who ate my bread, has lifted his heel against me.”
— Psalm 41:9
“I am not speaking of all of you; I know whom I have chosen. But the Scripture will be fulfilled, ‘He who ate my bread has lifted his heel against me.’”
— John 13:18
“Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers.”
— Luke 22:31–32
The Observation
The reading brings us to David’s great crisis. His son Absalom has seized the throne. His trusted counselor Ahithophel has defected. When Ahithophel saw his counsel rejected in favor of Hushai’s, he set his house in order and hanged himself.
What Came Out of Studying It
Ahithophel, Judas, and the psalm between them. I had never made this connection before reading these chapters. Two of David’s psalms read as though they were written about Ahithophel. “Even my close friend in whom I trusted, who ate my bread, has lifted his heel against me” (Psalm 41:9). “For it is not an enemy who taunts me… But it is you, a man, my equal, my companion, my familiar friend. We used to take sweet counsel together” (Psalm 55:12–14). The psalms do not name Ahithophel, and the superscriptions do not tie them to the Absalom crisis. But the language fits — “sweet counsel” especially, given that Ahithophel’s counsel was esteemed as the word of God (2 Samuel 16:23). The commentary tradition has long made the connection. Spurgeon on Psalm 41 writes that this was Ahithophel to David and Iscariot to our Lord. Kirkpatrick in the Cambridge Bible calls Ahithophel’s suicide the anticipation of Judas’s.
What is certain is where Jesus took Psalm 41:9. At the Last Supper he said, “The Scripture will be fulfilled, ‘He who ate my bread has lifted his heel against me’” (John 13:18). Whether or not David had Ahithophel in mind, Jesus applies the psalm to Judas. And the parallel holds on its own terms: Ahithophel’s counsel was esteemed as the word of God; when his counsel was rejected, he hanged himself. Judas walked with Jesus for three years; when he saw that Jesus was condemned, he hanged himself. Both men came to the same end.
David and Peter, Ahithophel and Judas. Once I saw Ahithophel and Judas together, a second connection came into focus. David was betrayed by his counselor and restored to his throne. Peter was a betrayer of his Lord and restored at the charcoal fire. Ahithophel and Judas hanged themselves. Saul fell on his own sword. The betrayers and the failed king come to the same end. David and Peter do not — not because they were better men, but because God held them. David was the man after God’s own heart not by moral achievement but by sovereign choice, and Peter was kept not by his own loyalty but by Christ’s prayer: “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail” (Luke 22:31–32).
Peter in the upper room. And that led to a third. What caught my attention is what Peter must have been thinking when he stood up in Acts 1 to address the assembly about replacing Judas. He quoted David’s psalms — Psalm 69:25 and Psalm 109:8. “Let another take his office” (Acts 1:20). These are hard psalms. He does not soften them. And Peter was himself a betrayer. He had denied Christ three times in one night. He had told Jesus to his face that he would never do it. “Even though they all fall away, I will not” (Mark 14:29). “If I must die with you, I will not deny you” (Mark 14:31). A few hours later he stood in a courtyard and said to a servant girl, “I do not know the man” (Matthew 26:72). He knows, as perhaps no one else in that room knows, that these psalms could have been spoken about him if Christ had not prayed for him. The prayer was older than the denial. The restoration was intended before the fall. Peter stood in the upper room as a forgiven betrayer speaking about an unforgiven one.
The words in the courtyard were a lie at the surface. At another level they were the truest thing Peter had said in months. He did not know the man. He had rebuked Jesus for predicting the cross. He had drawn a sword in the garden. He had followed at a distance. He did not know the man in the sense Scripture uses the word “know” — the covenantal, whole-person knowing that Jesus names in John 17:3 as eternal life. And he did not know himself. He had said he would die with Jesus. Within hours he denied him to a servant girl.
Words that carry truth the speaker did not mean. This is a pattern in Scripture. Caiaphas says one man should die for the people, and John stops the narrative to tell us the high priest was prophesying the atonement (John 11:49–52). The crowd cries, “His blood be on us and on our children,” meaning a self-curse, and speaking the only words that could ever save them (Matthew 27:25). The mockers at the cross say, “He saved others; he cannot save himself,” meaning scorn, and stating the logic of substitution (Mark 15:31). Pilate writes “The King of the Jews” in three languages and refuses to change it (John 19:19–22). The words carry truth the speakers did not mean. Peter belongs in that list. “I do not know the man” was a confession Peter did not intend to make, and grace took him at his word.
The charcoal fire. Between the denial and the Acts sermon stands the charcoal fire in John 21. Three times Jesus asks, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Three times Peter answers. One restoration for each denial. Peter comes out of that meal knowing the man, and beginning to know himself.
The double knowing. Calvin opens the Institutes with the two knowings. “Nearly all the wisdom we possess, that is to say, true and sound wisdom, consists of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves.” You cannot have one without the other. The knowledge of God shows you what you are. The knowledge of what you are drives you to God. The two knowings grow together or not at all.
Peter’s life is a living exposition of Calvin’s opening. He did not know the man, and he did not know himself, and the two unknowings were the same unknowing. The words in the courtyard were accidentally true. Grace made them no longer accidental. The restoration at the fire was Christ making Peter know both — the man and himself — not in one moment but over the rest of his life. Peter’s second epistle, near the end of that life, closes with the prayer that believers would “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 3:18). The man who said in the courtyard that he did not know him spent the rest of his years coming to know him, and calling others to the same.
What This Means for Me
This is the aim Jesus names in John 17:3: “This is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” It is the aim Calvin names on the first page of his great book. It is the aim the gospel makes possible. The one who prayed for Peter prays for those who come to him now. Those who come to him know him, slowly, imperfectly, sometimes after thinking they already knew themselves and finding that they did not. Knowing him is how they come to know themselves. The double knowing is life.
Key Scriptures
2 Samuel 15:31 · 2 Samuel 16:23 · 2 Samuel 17:23 · Psalm 41:9 · Psalm 55:12–14 · Psalm 69:25 · Psalm 109:8 · John 13:18 · Luke 22:31–34 · Luke 22:54–62 · John 21:15–19 · Acts 1:15–20 · 2 Peter 3:18 · John 17:3
Prayer
Father, teach me to know the man — the way Peter came to know him after the charcoal fire, the way the word “know” means in John 17:3. Thank you that the prayer was older than the denial, that you prayed for Peter before he fell, and that you pray for me now. Grow me in the double knowing — to know you, and in knowing you, to know myself.
I pray for those in authority over us. For the families in Iran, Lebanon, Israel, across the Middle East, and here at home. Have mercy.
Amen.
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