Absalom's Two Hundred Elders Who Prayed for King David

[Another interpretation of (Genesis 30:22): "And God remembered Rachel."] This is what Scripture says (Psalms 55:19): "He has redeemed my soul in peace from the battle that was against me, for they were many who were with me." Who spoke this verse? David spoke it at the time when his son Absalom rebelled against him and said to him (II Samuel 15:7): "Let me go, I pray, and pay my vow which I have vowed to the Lord, in Hebron." And his father said to him: "Go in peace." "And he arose and went to Hebron" (II Samuel 15:9). Absalom said to him: I ask one thing of you, that you give me two elders who will go with me, so that I may act according to their word in everything that I do. He wrote him [a letter] that two elders should go with him from every city he wished. He took the letter and went from city to city, and when he saw the two oldest and finest men of the city, he would show them [the letter] and say to them: See what my father has written for me; but because I cherish you greatly, I ask for you. Thus he did in every single city, until he had taken two hundred elders, as it is said (II Samuel 15:11): "And with Absalom there went two hundred men." What is the meaning of "two hundred men"? Rabbi Huna said in the name of Rabbi Hiyya bar Abba: Two hundred heads of the Sanhedrin were struck down with him, as you say (Numbers 11:16): "Gather to me seventy men." "They were invited, and they went in their innocence, and they knew nothing" (II Samuel 15:11) — for they did not know where they were going. Absalom made a feast for them, and two elders would be seated with one of those who had rebelled with him in the middle, and that one who reclined between the two of them would say: How fitting Absalom would be as king! Let us forsake David and go along with him. What did they do? Even though they were with him, they would pray only for David. And what did they pray? "May it be your will before you, O Lord our God, that we fall into the hand of David, and that David not fall into our hand." Therefore it is said (Psalms 55:19): "For they were many who were with me."