One Rebellion Ends, and Joab Remains

“Happened to be there” is the chance verb used of Absalom meeting David’s men (18:9). “The son of Jesse” was Saul’s contemptuous way of avoiding David’s name (1 Samuel 20:27). The cry itself returns almost word for word when the kingdom splits under Rehoboam: “What portion have we in David? ... to your tents, O Israel” (1 Kings 12:16).

“Went up from after David” means stopped following him. “Clave” is dabaq, the word for Ruth clinging to Naomi (Ruth 1:14) and for a man cleaving to his wife (Genesis 2:24). Judah’s escort runs the full road from the river to the capital.

“Fed them” is kilkel, the verb of sustaining used of Barzillai’s provision in 19:32; the women are kept, not restored. “In ward” means in a guarded house. “Widowhood” is literally “widowhood of life”, a phrase found nowhere else: widows while their husband lives.

Three days is a tight deadline for raising a tribe, and it is Amasa’s first order as commander, the office promised him in 19:13. “Be thou here present” is literally “stand here”, report back in person.

“The set time” is mo’ed, an appointed time, the term used of Saul waiting seven days for Samuel (1 Samuel 13:8). The book gives no reason for Amasa’s delay; one guess is that Judah was slow to follow Absalom’s former general, but that is not said.

David turns to Abishai, not Joab, keeping the demoted commander out of it. “Thy lord’s servants” are David’s household troops. “Escape us” renders a difficult phrase, literally something like “snatch away our eye”; its sense is plainly that Sheba might slip out of reach.

The Cherethites and Pelethites were David’s professional guard, commanded by Benaiah (8:18). The names are generally taken to mean Cretans and Philistines, men from the Aegean coast serving an Israelite king.

Gibeon is where this whole line of blood began: at its pool Joab’s men and Abner’s fought, and Asahel was killed (2:12–23). The great stone may have been a landmark or a sacred stone; the book names it and moves on to Joab’s belt.

“Art thou in health” is literally “is it peace with thee?”, the shalom question once more. Taking a man by the beard to kiss him was a greeting. With the right hand at the beard, the blade is in the left, the method of the left-handed Benjamite Ehud, whose sword went unnoticed (Judges 3:21).

“Fifth rib” comes from a word meaning the belly; the old translators linked it to the number five. It is the same word used of Asahel’s wound (2:23), Abner’s (3:27) and Ishbosheth’s (4:6). One thrust and no second: “struck him not again”.

The speaker is one of Joab’s young men, standing over the dying commander. “Favoureth” is literally “delights in”. The recruiting call is being made beside a body that is still moving.

“Wallowed” means rolling in his blood. The halted crowd repeats 2:23 almost exactly, where everyone who came to the place where Asahel lay dead “stood still”. Asahel was Joab’s brother, killed by Abner; Joab avenged him by the same wound, and now the road stops for Joab’s victim.

The people go on “after Joab”, although David gave the command to Abishai in verse 6. No order transfers it; the army simply follows the man who is moving. Abishai is now named after his brother.

Abel of Beth-maachah lay in the far north near Dan, under the hills of Lebanon, about as far from Jerusalem as an Israelite could flee. “The Berites” is obscure; the Greek and many scholars read “the Bichrites”, Sheba’s own clan, gathering to him.

“A bank” is a siege ramp of heaped earth, and “the trench” is the outer rampart or glacis at the foot of the wall. “Battered” can also be read as “undermined”. These are the technical words of an assault already under way.

A woman on a besieged wall carried a memory for Joab. When Uriah died he expected David to ask, “who smote Abimelech? did not a woman cast a piece of a millstone upon him from the wall?” (11:21). He comes near anyway.

Three short exchanges, and she makes the commander confirm who he is and then say aloud that he is listening. “Thine handmaid” is the courteous self-designation Abigail used before David (1 Samuel 25:24).

The proverb makes Abel a place people consulted to settle disputes. The Greek has a different and longer saying about asking in Abel and in Dan whether faithful customs had ceased; the Hebrew is shorter and the King James follows it.

Deborah called herself “a mother in Israel” (Judges 5:7). A city could be a mother with daughter villages, as Heshbon and “all the daughters thereof” in Numbers 21:25. “Swallow up” is bala’, the word for the earth swallowing Korah.

“Far be it” is chalilah, a strong disavowal, and Joab says it twice. He repeats her verb, “swallow up”, and adds “destroy”, disowning precisely the thing his ramp and battering are doing at that moment.

Verse 1 called Sheba a Benjamite; “mount Ephraim” names the central hill country, which reached into Benjamin’s land. “Lifted up his hand” is the idiom for rebellion, used later of Jeroboam (1 Kings 11:26). The woman promises the head before she has consulted anyone.

“In her wisdom” credits her with the persuading. The ending turns Sheba’s own slogan back on him: he cried “every man to his tents” in verse 1, and now the army does exactly that, going home with his head behind them.

The list mirrors 8:16–18 with changes. Benaiah, over the royal guard, is the man who will later execute Joab at the altar on Solomon’s order (1 Kings 2:34). The two names that open the list will close each other’s account.

Adoram over the tribute is new since chapter 8. The word is mas, forced labour, not taxes. As Adoniram he runs Solomon’s levy (1 Kings 5:14), and Israel stones him when Rehoboam sends him north (1 Kings 12:18). The office named here helps break the kingdom.

The scribe’s name wanders: Seraiah in 8:17, Sheva here, Shavsha in 1 Chronicles 18:16, Shisha in 1 Kings 4:3, most likely one foreign name heard four ways. Abiathar is still priest, but Solomon will banish him to Anathoth (1 Kings 2:26–27).

“Chief ruler” is kohen, the ordinary Hebrew word for priest, as with David’s sons in 8:18. Ira was a Jairite, from the clan of Jair in Gilead (Numbers 32:41), not a descendant of Aaron, so the title probably names a royal chaplain or counsellor of some kind.