{"id":60691,"date":"2019-08-06T14:17:30","date_gmt":"2019-08-06T11:17:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=60691"},"modified":"2023-03-02T10:58:37","modified_gmt":"2023-03-02T08:58:37","slug":"the-end-of-ahithophel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/the-end-of-ahithophel\/","title":{"rendered":"The End Of Ahithophel"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In our chapter, Hushai manages to counter Ahithophel\u2019s advice to Absalom to attack David and his meager forces without delay (see also Psalms 41:9; 55:12\u201314, and 2 Samuel 15:12). This allows David to escape once again. Ahithophel, David\u2019s once trusted counselor, whose advice has now been rejected, returns home to Giloh and commits suicide (17:1-23).<\/span><\/p>\n

According to Talmud Bavli Sanhedrin 106a, Ahithophel was a pre-eminent Torah scholar. Curiously, the 16<\/span>th<\/span> century eminent rabbi, talmudist, and posek, Moshe Isserles, records in his work Torat Ha-Olah 11:1, that he found in \u201can old book\u201d, that the great Greek philosopher, Socrates, was a disciple of none other than our Ahitophel.<\/span><\/p>\n

According to Talmud Bavli Makkot 11a, Ahithophel did, on occasion, give David very good and important advice. When David was excavating the foundations for the Temple in Jerusalem, the waters of the primeval Chaos (Tehom \u2013 see Genesis 1:2) came surging up, threatening to flood the world.\u00a0 David inquired if it might be permissible to write the Divine Name of God on a potsherd and use it to stop the upsurge of the primordial waters.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

When no one replied immediately, David shouted out: Whoever knows the answer and does not reveal it, let him be strangled by his throat in punishment for remaining silent at such a critical moment! On hearing this curse, Ahithophel reasoned\u00a0 to himself, employing the Rabbinic principle of <\/span>qal ve-homer<\/span><\/em> (drawing inference from a minor case to the major case): If in order to restore peace between husband and wife, the Divine Name of God may be washed off in the \u201cbitter waters\u201d (in the <\/span>sotah<\/em> <\/span>ritual, see Numbers 5:23), how much the more so may the Divine Name be washed off to save the whole world! So, he advised David that using the Divine Name for what David proposed is permissible. David acted on Ahithophel\u2019s sage advice and the world was saved.<\/span><\/p>\n

Nevertheless, later when Ahithophel saw that his advice to Absalom to immediately attack David was not followed, he returned home and hung himself (17:23).<\/span><\/p>\n

For the rabbinic sages, Ahithophel was a classic example of a wicked person (rasha<\/em>\u2019), who has no share in the world to come (Mishnah Sanhedrin 11:1). According to Midrash Tanhuma Buber Va-Yetze 6: \u201cThe death of the wicked is neither on earth or in the heavens\u201d, as exemplified by Ahithophel who hanged himself between heaven and earth. So too the death of Haman and his sons (see Esther, Chapters 7 and 9).<\/span><\/p>\n

On a personal note, as a resident of the Jerusalem neighborhood of Giloh, I find it a bit disturbing that such a wicked personality as Ahithophel is said to have come from the biblical village of Giloh (see Joshua 15:51, 2 Samuel 15:12). And that is where the evil Ahithophel died and was buried \u201cin the tomb of his father.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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