560 Jonathan Grossman deliberate ambiguity that contributes to the design of the message of the story: the narrator implies that it is both God and Boaz (9). In this paper, we shall examine how in the story of Absalom’s rebellion, the narrator has used this literary device, the ambiguous expression, in order to encourage the reader to interpret the events as deriving from two sources: the human one and the Divine one. I. “As if a man would inquire of the word of God” (16,23) Between the two pieces of advice that Ahithophel had given Absalom there is a comment of the narrator expressing much appreciation of Ahithophel’s advice: “And the counsel of Ahithophel, which he counseled in those days, was as if a man would inquire of the word of God: so was all the counsel of Ahithophel both with David and with Absalom” (16,23). This intervention of the narrator, especially here, serves two functions. On one hand, it clarifies why Absalom had accepted Ahithophel’s advice to lie with David’s mistresses (22). On the other hand, As Bar-Efrat and Fokkelman claim, it increases the tension towards the next scene, in which Ahithophel will counsel Absalom to pursue David immediately, while Hushai tries to prevent him from doing so (17,4-11) (10). The order in which the facts are given in the story has crucial significance for giving meaning to each fact (11). It is hard to exaggerate the importance of this matter and often, a slight change in the location of a linguistic expression gives it a totally new meaning (12). In the story of Absalom’s rebellion as well, the order in which the facts are given generates hidden meaning. For example, the fact that the narrator tells the reader about David’s prayer — “O LORD, I pray thee, turn the counsel of Ahithophel into foolishness” (15,31) — just before he tells the reader about David meeting Hushai implies to the reader to decode the meaning of Hushai in the story as God granting David his request and already at this stage, the reader feels that Hushai is the one who will succeed in thwarting Ahithophel’s counsel (13). In Gunn’s words: “As it transpires, Hushai is instrumental in thwarting Ahithophel and so may be seen as the answer to David’s curse against the counselor in the immediately (9) M.J. BERNSTEIN, “Two Multivalent Readings in the Ruth Narrative”, JSOT 50 (1991) 15-26, 16, n. 1; C.J. COLLINS, “Ambiguity and Theology in Ruth: Ruth 1:21 and 2:20”, Presbyterian 19 (1993) 97-102. (10) S. BAR-EFRAT, Narrative Art in the Bible (JSOTSS 70; Sheffield 1992) 26; FOKKELMAN, Narrative Art in Samuel, 205. And compare: CASPARI, “Literary Type”, 73-74. (11) M. PERRY, “Literary Dynamics: How the Order of a Text Creates Its Meaning”, Literature 28 (1979) 6-46; M. STERNBERG, “The Truth vs. All the Truth: The Rendering of Inner Life in Biblical Narrative”, Literature 29 (1979) 126-129. (12) See, for example: T. NOVICK, “‘Almost, at Times, the Fool’: Abimelekh and Genesis 20”, Prooftexts 24 (2004) 277-290. This is true not only regarding the design of the small literary unit, but also the editing of a complete cycle of stories. See, for example: J. GROSSMAN, “Divine Command and Human Initiative: A Literary View on Numbers 25- 31”, Biblical Interpretation 15 (2007) 54-79. (13) FOKKELMAN, Narrative Art in Samuel, 191; BAR-EFRAT, Narrative Art, 28.