Ahio

Ahio (meaning brotherly or his brethren) is the name of three men in the Old Testament. The first was a son of Beriah of the tribe of Benjamin (1 Chronicles 8:14). The second was a son of Jeiel and Maacah, listed in the Gibeonite genealogy of Benjamin (1 Chronicles 8:31; 9:37). The third and most notable Ahio was the son of Abinadab, in whose house at Gibeah the ark of the Lord had rested for twenty years. When David undertook to bring the ark to Jerusalem, Ahio and his brother Uzzah drove the new cart carrying the ark, with Ahio walking in front of it (2 Samuel 6:3–4; 1 Chronicles 13:7).

The episode ended in tragedy when Uzzah reached out to steady the ark and was struck dead — an event that frightened David and caused him to leave the ark at the house of Obed-edom for three months before the successful second attempt to bring it to Jerusalem. Ahio's role in the narrative is thus primarily as a witness to one of the most sobering episodes in the ark's journey.