Hushai’s advice is bad advice – for someone hoping to kill David. It’s deliberately designed to give David a chance to get a breather, and regroup. So why does Absalom ask him for advice in the first place? And why does he take it? It’s because of what we’re told at the end of verse 14: ‘For the LORD had […]

Ahithophel’s gives his second piece of advice at the beginning of chapter 17. He urges Absalom to let him gather 12,000 men and pursue David that very night when David is weary and discouraged. All he will need to do is attack David, and everyone else will panic. Once David is killed, the resistance to Absalom’s rule will be over. […]

The first piece of advice Ahithophel gives is at the end of chapter 16. Absalom asks him what he should do and Ahithophel replies: ‘Go in to your father’s concubines’. These are the secondary wives that David had left behind. Chapter 15 tells us that he’d left 10 of them. When a new king came to power one of the […]