And I will bring back all the people unto thee: the man whom thou seekest is as if all returned: so all the people shall be in peace.

and I bring back all the people unto thee, as the turning back of the whole is the man whom thou art seeking, all the people are peace.

And I will make all the people come back to you as a bride comes back to her husband: it is the life of only one man you are going after; so all the people will be at peace.

And I will lead back the entire people, returning in the manner of one man. For you are seeking only one man. And all the people shall be in peace."

The man whom thou seekest - namely, David. Ahithophel means to say: "If I can only smite David, there will be no civil war, all the people will peaceably submit."

The man whom thou seekest is as if all returned - Only secure David, and all Israel will be on thy side. He is the soul of the whole; destroy him, and all the rest will submit.

And I will bring back all the people unto thee: (b) the man whom thou seekest [is] as if all returned: [so] all the people shall be in peace.
(b) Meaning David.

And I will bring back all the people unto thee,.... Meaning not the people only that were with David, that he would make them prisoners, and bring them with him; for he before proposed to let them make their escape; but to reduce all Israel to the obedience of Absalom at once, by executing this scheme which he had formed:
the man whom thou seekest is as if all returned; meaning David, whom he speaks of contemptibly, and whose life it seems Absalom sought, as well as his crown; and he being dead, it would be all over at once with the people; they would immediately return to their own habitations, and yield obedience to Absalom as the rightful heir and successor; all depended on his death, he intimates: from whence it appears that Abarbinel is wrong in suggesting that Absalom did not design to take away the life of his father, only to secure the kingdom to himself in his father's lifetime, who he understood had disposed of it by his will to Solomon; but here Ahithophel plainly declares the intention of Absalom, nor would he have proposed in plain terms to take away the king's life, had Absalom been averse to it; and it is plain by what follows that the thing was pleasing to him:
so all the people shall be in peace; both parties coalesce under the government of Absalom, and live peaceably under it, and so an entire end of the war.