What Does 2 Samuel 15:31 Mean in the King James?
And one told David, saying, Ahithophel is among the conspirators with Absalom. And David said, O LORD, I pray thee, turn the counsel of Ahithophel into foolishness.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The prayer targets the plot’s apparent wisdom itself, asking for its logic to collapse into folly.
THE MEANING
A threatening plan can sound so complete that it feels inevitable. This prayer asks that the counsel itself become foolish, so the scheme loses force from within. The verse leaves open the possibility that a plan that appears decisive can unravel at its own logic.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie this undoes is that a clever plan, backed by a trusted adviser, has already fixed the outcome.
THE ROOT
סַכֵּל
sakkel
GROWS FROM
סכל
To be foolish; in this form, to render foolish.
“turn ... into foolishness” in this verse is sakkel. The Hebrew verb asks that the counsel be made foolish; the root also names folly as a quality. The wording opens a deeper possibility: the scheme loses power when its apparent wisdom collapses into folly.
ALSO GROWS
sākāl: Foolish; a fool.
סָכָל
This names folly as a quality, the very condition the prayer asks to expose in the counsel.
sikhlût: Folly, foolishness.
סִכְלוּת
This noun makes the requested outcome explicit: the counsel is rendered folly.
עֲצַת
ʿatsat
GROWS FROM
יעץ
To advise, deliberate, or give counsel.
The Hebrew word for counsel grows from the verb to advise, and a related branch names the adviser. That makes the prayer’s target precise: it concerns the advice organizing the conspiracy, not only the people carrying it out.
ALSO GROWS
ʿēṣāh: Counsel, advice, or a plan.
עֵצָה
This is the noun in the verse: the plan itself is what the prayer asks to have rendered foolish.
yōʿēṣ: Adviser, counselor.
יוֹעֵץ
This related word brings the adviser into view alongside the advice, linking Ahithophel’s role to the counsel under challenge.
THE PATTERN
A scheme’s apparent wisdom can lose its force when its counsel is exposed or overturned.
He disappointeth the devices of the crafty, so that their hands cannot perform their enterprise.There are many devices in a man’s heart; nevertheless the counsel of the LORD, that shall stand.Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?THE THREAD
And the counsel of Ahithophel, which he counselled in those days, was as if a man had enquired at the oracle of God: so was all the counsel of Ahithophel both with David and with Absalom.The word translated counsel is עֵצָה (ʿēṣāh), from יָעַץ (yaʿats), in both verses. Here the counsel is described as so authoritative it seems like an oracle; 15:31 then shows its vulnerability in the prayer that it be made foolish.
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