AHITHOPHEL ə hĭth’ ə fəl (אֲחִיתֹ֑פֶל, brother of foolishness or foolish talk[?]). The name may have been Ahiphelet, but it is purposely distorted by the transposition of consonants and altering the ṭ (into a t) and pointing it as bōšet, “shame.” (Cf. the name Eliphelet, 2 Sam 5:16; 23:24, Brother [God] is deliverance.)

David’s private counselor who came from Giloh in the highlands of Judah near Hebron. He participated in the rebellion against David and became Absalom’s counselor only to end his life in suicide when he wisely foresaw what would become of Absalom and himself when the rebel king failed to follow his advice in favor of the eloquent doubts cast upon such plans by David’s infiltrator of the rebel court named Hushai (2 Sam 17:14, 23; 1 Chron 27:33, 34).

The reputation that Ahithophel had for wisdom was “as if a man had inquired at the oracle of God” (2 Sam 16:23) and thereby the Bible clearly teaches (as D. Kidner said [Proverbs (1964), 17] “that a man can still think validly and talk wisely, within a limited field, without special revelation.” David seriously prayed to God that he might “defeat the counsel of Ahithophel” (2 Sam 15:34).

Speculation as to why a loyal Ahithophel should turn so decidedly on David involves building a case for his being the grandfather of Bathsheba. A connection was made between “Eliam the son of Ahithophel the Gilonite” (23:34; the parallel text, 1 Chron 11:36, is taken to be corrupt), one of David’s Thirty and the Eliam who is Bathsheba’s father (2 Sam 11:3, perhaps the same “Bath-shua” or Bathsheba and Eliam in a reversed form of “Ammiel” in 1 Chron 3:5). Do we now have the motive for his defection in Ahithophel’s knowledge of David’s sin with Uriah’s wife Bathsheba? Possibly, if one can demonstrate two more things: (1) that Ahithophel was much older than David and had a married granddaughter, and (2) that there was only one Eliam in Israel and not two by the same name in the contemporary records of Israel. Hertzberg, who favors the identification, notices that Ahithophel was apparently no longer at king’s court since he was summoned from his home at Giloh.

The advice he gave to Absalom was to publicly violate David’s harem, which advice he followed (2 Sam 15:21, 22). This assured him the royal succession, but it also unwittingly brought upon David’s head the prophesied consequences of his sin with Bathsheba spoken by Nathan the prophet (2 Sam 12:11, 12). He also advised that the new king immediately pursue David with a surprise attack of men before David had time to consolidate and gather support; this advice Hushai was able to defeat, and thus ended the brilliant career of this man (2 Sam 17:1, 6, 7, 14, 15, 21, 23).

Bibliography H. W. Hertzberg, I and II Samuel, (1964), 337, 338.