David has carefully negotiated peace with Abner and the various tribes associated with Israel. In peace, he sends Abner back to finish the detail work that will bring an end to the civil war and unite Israel and Judah under David as king.
Just then the servants of David arrived with Joab from a raid, bringing much spoil with them. But Abner was not with David at Hebron, for David had dismissed him, and he had gone away in peace. When Joab and all the army that was with him came, it was told Joab, "Abner son of Ner came to the king, and he has dismissed him, and he has gone away in peace."
Then Joab went to the king and said, "What have you done? Abner came to you; why did you dismiss him, so that he got away? You know that Abner son of Ner came to deceive you, and to learn your comings and goings and to learn all that you are doing."
When Joab came out from David's presence, he sent messengers after Abner, and they brought him back from the cistern of Sirah; but David did not know about it. When Abner returned to Hebron, Joab took him aside in the gateway to speak with him privately, and there he stabbed him in the stomach. So he died for shedding the blood of Asahel, Joab's brother.
Afterward, when David heard of it, he said, "I and my kingdom are forever guiltless before the Lord for the blood of Abner son of Ner. May the guilt fall on the head of Joab, and on all his father's house; and may the house of Joab never be without one who has a discharge, or who is leprous, or who holds a spindle, or who falls by the sword, or who lacks food!" So Joab and his brother Abishai murdered Abner because he had killed their brother Asahel in the battle at Gibeon.
2 Samuel 3:22-30 – NRSV
Did David send Joab out on a raid knowing that Joab would be opposed to negotiating a peace with Abner? Perhaps. It could be that David’s concerns were simpler: fear that Joab would kill Abner if they met face to face. If that is what David worried about, he turned out to be right. Yet in Joab’s absence, Abner and David negotiate a peace, negotiate power, and, some think, negotiate a position for Abner within David’s cabinet.
Joab just misses Abner. Joab rants at David as if he were some sort of political simpleton. David is not a fool, Abner is not a spy. The problem is that Joab desires what David does not.
But Abner can only get a couple of miles away from Hebron before Joab’s messengers catch up. The messengers claim to have been sent by David, not Joab. They lie. They claim to have peaceful purposes. They do not. So Abner comes to Joab believing that Joab delivers an important message of peace from David. He does not. Joab delivers a knife.
In the stomach. As Abner strikes Asahel, so Joab strikes Abner. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a life for a life. Yet Asahel had warning; Asahel was a casualty of battle. Abner had no warning; Abner was a victim of cold-blooded murder, of revenge served up cold.
Joab wins his revenge, but loses his king’s carefully-negotiated peace. Joab adds to his reputation, but gives his lord a bad name that some still believe to this day: he is a dangerous manipulator who assassinates his enemies. Joab keeps his job as general of the armies safe from Abner, but he nearly costs David his rightful title of king over all the children of Israel.
Is David angry? I believe so. David calls down upon the house of Joab every nasty consequence that he can contemplate for a warrior: venereal disease, leprosy, effeminacy, failure in battle, and poverty. David separates himself from Joab’s actions and calls for the blood of Abner to be “a storm” over the head of Joab.
We might be ready to applaud David’s justice until we consider one simple question. Have we ever chosen our own purposes over the purposes of our Lord? His purposes for unity, for inclusion, for peace. His purposes for our actions, our speech, our thought.
We can choose to ignore the purposes of our Lord, but if we do, we need to remember that it can bring about two consequences: (1) separation from him and from his ongoing mission in this world, and (2) abandonment to the natural consequences of our disobedience.
Instead, let the same mind be in you that was in Jesus Christ (Php 2:5).
Dear Lord, and Father of mankind,
Forgive our foolish ways;
Reclothe us in our rightful mind,
In purer lives, thy service find,
In deeper reverence, praise.
In simple trust, like those who heard,
Beside the Syrian Sea,
The gracious calling of Lord,
Let us, like them, without a word,
Rise up and follow thee.
Drop thy still dews of quietness,
Till all our strivings cease,
Take from our souls the strain and stress,
And let our ordered lives confess
The beauty of thy peace.
- John G. Whittier
Grace, and peace,
Ron
