What Does II Samuel 17:12 Mean?

Hushai continues with vivid imagery: "So shall we come upon him in some place where he shall be found, and we will light upon him as the dew falleth on the ground: and of him and of all the men that are with him there shall not be left so much as one." The simile of the dew is striking: dew is gentle, pervasive, and irresistible. It covers every surface without sound or warning, and the image of an army descending on David like dew suggests a force so massive and so comprehensive that escape is impossible.

The beauty of Hushai's rhetoric conceals the fatal flaw in his strategy: the delay. Assembling all Israel from Dan to Beersheba would take weeks, during which David would have crossed the Jordan, established a base at Mahanaim, and organized his veteran forces for a defensive campaign in terrain they knew intimately. Ahithophel would have recognized the flaw immediately, but Absalom is seduced by the image of himself leading an invincible host, and the elders defer to the popular enthusiasm.

The true Dew that falls on the people of God is not the dew of destruction but the dew of blessing. "I will be as the dew unto Israel: he shall grow as the lily." The Lord Jesus descends upon His people not with the overwhelming force of a military invasion but with the quiet, pervasive, irresistible grace of the Holy Spirit, who covers every heart, renews every mind, and transforms every life. The dew of Hushai's rhetoric was a metaphor for annihilation; the dew of God's promise is the reality of resurrection.