Sunday, October 10, 2010

Ahithophel and Judas


Ahithophel seems to be--almost--a mixed character. He is wise, which would intimate godly, especially when his counsel is said to be as the very words of God, and his betrayal of David is a just betrayal, if such a thing exists, in light of the offense done to him by David. He is also a parallel to Judas, as will be shown a bit more later on.

To begin with, Uriah was one of David's mighty men, and his wife was Ahithophel's granddaughter (2 Samuel 11:3, 23:24, 23:39, 1 Chronicles 11:41). (On a side note that I may pursue later, the fact that Uriah's home could be seen from the palace suggests that the most loyal/mighty men were given homes surrounding the palace in which the king dwelled, which could possibly mirror the guard of the Tabernacle in which God dwelt, Num. 3:38 among others. And anyone that doesn't immediately embrace this is a heretic.) Due to the wisdom of Ahithophel and the public nature of David's sin (2 Samuel 12:14), there is no conceivable way that Ahithophel was not aware of what David had done, and no doubt had some feelings about it that could be described as "less than ecstatic." His granddaughter's husband, a very prominent, noble and godly man, was murdered, and his granddaughter was getting married to the murderer.

So, when Absalom rebelled, how would that look to a wise man who was well acquainted with the justice of God, and had explicit and personal knowledge of David's gross sin? Obviously, God had judged David unfit to be king, and was replacing him. After all, David's decline, which is brutally marked, began with Bathsheba. He is never again portrayed in a kingly fashion. His weakness is what is noted, his lack of leadership, his lack of strength, his lack of initiative, his lack of knowledge of the affairs of his kingdom, his lack of foresight, even his lack of sexual interest, in bitter irony: through grasping for sex he loses his taste for sex (which is a pattern of God's judgment: we follow an evil desire with an evil action, and God lets us, but our judgment is the natural result of that action). Or, should we wish a less favorable light for Ahithophel, when Absalom rebelled, Ahithophel had the only chance he would ever get for revenge.

In either case, he betrayed David (who had horrifically betrayed him), and aimed to kill him with counsel: blood for blood. As a result of betraying God's anointed, he is overthrown and chooses to kill himself. This draws an illuminating parallel to Judas, which gives us a new angle on the well-known story of Judas' betrayal, as shown in the next post.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

awesome blog, do you have twitter or facebook? i will bookmark this page thanks. jasmin holzbauer

J. A. Broussard said...

Thanks for the input, and I'm easy to find on facebook.

Blessings,
JB

Paqid Hillel ben David said...

It is unfortunate that you do not read carefully. Clearly, David's sin was theft. There was no adultery, no murder, no betrayal. The Prophet Nathan clearly accused David of theft. Go study with Jews and learn what really happened. You can get a hint at the following web site:
http://www.betemunah.org/fathers.html

Anonymous said...

Thank you amazing blog, do you have twitter, facebook or something similar where i can follow your blog

Sandro Heckler

J. A. Broussard said...

Not really; just with google. Thanks for the compliment.

Blessings,
JB

J. A. Broussard said...

Mr. Paqid Hillel ben David, thank you very much for the link. I've bookmarked it and already have been greatly challenged and found it to be fascinating, which is a great deal more than I can say for most other links that I've been given.

However, I'm afraid we're operating from different levels: I accept the authority of Scripture as being tantamount, nothing else. So, if you could make a case for theft from Scripture alone, I'd gladly grant it. More than that, I do grant that theft was a huge, even a foundational aspect of his sin (in that his envy and theft led to his other sins), but not the only sin by any stretch.

Also, the command about multiplying wives appears to have been polygamy for the sake of political unions, as was practiced by Solomon, not so much pure polygamy: an issue of "multiplying" wives as opposed to "adding" them.

But please feel free to refute anything I say; I honestly do appreciate the feedback.

Blessings,
Jesse Broussard

Paqid Hillel ben David said...

Shalom,

Hmmmm.... When I read the scripture, I see where the prophet Nathan told a story about a neighbor who stole a sheep... Then said that David was that man. Further, if one were to look at David's judgment, his punishment of four-fold was the penalty in the Torah, for theft. This is in contrast to the penalty for murder and adultery - which was the death penalty.

Regards,

Paqid Hillel ben David

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