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Joab

Won David’s wars, killed three men the king wanted alive, and was right about him more often than the king could stand.

Joab is David’s nephew and the commander of his army for nearly the whole reign. He takes Jerusalem, he wins the wars, he is the one who carries out the arrangement to have Uriah killed and sends a careful message back about it. He murders Abner in the gate and Amasa on the road, both of them rivals for his command, and both times David can only curse and mourn. He also kills Absalom against a direct order given in the hearing of the whole army, and then walks into the king’s grief and tells him to get up and go out and speak to his men.

Where he appears2 Samuel 2 to 3 · 2 Samuel 11 · 2 Samuel 14 · 2 Samuel 18 to 20 · 1 Kings 2

2 Samuel1 Kings
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Joab

The movements, in the order the text gives them.

The Account of Joab

  1. 01

    2 Samuel 3:22-30

    Abner in the gate

    David has just made peace with Abner and sent him away safely. Joab calls him back as if to speak privately and kills him for his brother, and David says he is too hard for him.

    In peace appears three times around Abner's departure, in verses 21, 22, and 23. The repetition leaves no uncertainty about the terms on which David released him. Joab comes back with the spoils of one military success and immediately challenges the king's agreement with another commander. He describes Abner as a spy. The Book of Second Samuel does not endorse that charge; it identifies the blood of Asahel as the reason for the killing.

    The distinction matters because Asahel had died in battle, pursuing Abner after repeated warnings to turn aside. Abner now dies after being recalled without David's knowledge and taken aside for a quiet conversation. The wound repeats the earlier wound beneath the fifth rib. The circumstances do not repeat the earlier battle. A private word at the gate has become the cover for a killing.

    David's declaration of innocence follows a fact the chapter has already supplied: he did not know about the recall. But being uninvolved is not the same as being in control. His curse names Joab's house, and the mourning that follows is public. The commander who brought home the spoil has also brought bloodguilt to the king's gate. Those are not two separate accounts of two different men.

    Verse by verse

    1. 3:22

      First Chronicles 11:6-8 also records Joab taking the lead against the Jebusites and repairing part of Jerusalem. His military service is not erased by the record of his killings.

    2. 3:25

      The claim that Abner came to spy is Joab's accusation. The passage does not establish it as fact.

    3. 3:26

      David knew it not applies to Joab's recall of Abner. This explicit detail supports the distinction between the king's agreement and his commander's action.

    4. 3:27

      The Hebrew chomesh, rendered fifth rib, denotes the belly or abdomen in Brown-Driver-Briggs. The same term marks Asahel's wound in 2 Samuel 2:23.

    5. 3:30

      The closing explanation includes Abishai with Joab in responsibility for Abner's death. It names the death of their brother in battle as their reason.

    2 Samuel 3:22-30

    King James Version · 9 verses

    3:22And, behold, the servants of David and Joab came from pursuing a troop, and brought in a great spoil with them: but Abner was not with David in Hebron; for he had sent him away, and he was gone in peace.

    3:23When Joab and all the host that was with him were come, they told Joab, saying, Abner the son of Ner came to the king, and he hath sent him away, and he is gone in peace.

    3:24Then Joab came to the king, and said, What hast thou done? behold, Abner came unto thee; why is it that thou hast sent him away, and he is quite gone?

    3:25Thou knowest Abner the son of Ner, that he came to deceive thee, and to know thy going out and thy coming in, and to know all that thou doest.

    3:26And when Joab was come out from David, he sent messengers after Abner, which brought him again from the well of Sirah: but David knew it not.

    3:27And when Abner was returned to Hebron, Joab took him aside in the gate to speak with him quietly, and smote him there under the fifth rib, that he died, for the blood of Asahel his brother.

    3:28And afterward when David heard it, he said, I and my kingdom are guiltless before the LORD for ever from the blood of Abner the son of Ner:

    3:29Let it rest on the head of Joab, and on all his father’s house; and let there not fail from the house of Joab one that hath an issue, or that is a leper, or that leaneth on a staff, or that falleth on the sword, or that lacketh bread.

    3:30So Joab and Abishai his brother slew Abner, because he had slain their brother Asahel at Gibeon in the battle.

    2 Samuel 3:22-30: Abner in the gate
  2. 02

    2 Samuel 11:14-25

    The message about the wall

    Handed a letter ordering Uriah’s death, he does it and anticipates the king’s complaint about tactics, instructing the messenger to add one line at the end if he gets angry.

    Joab prepares the explanation almost as carefully as the attack. His instructions to the messenger anticipate David objecting to the danger of approaching the wall. The objection would be sound enough: arrows come from above, and the death of Abimelech supplies a memorable precedent. Joab even provides the example the king might quote. This is not simply a report of casualties. It is a report with an answer ready for the expected inquiry.

    That answer is a name. Uriah the Hittite is dead also. The additional death changes what the king is being asked to hear. Men of David's army have fallen, but the man singled out in David's letter is among them. The messenger includes the name before any recorded outburst, and David's response is not the rebuke Joab has prepared for. He tells the commander not to be displeased and to press the attack.

    The chapter never supplies a protest from Joab against the letter. Nor does it let the other dead disappear into Uriah's name: some of the people, servants of David, fell. The killing arranged for one man has taken others with it. Joab sends back enough military detail to describe a battle, and the particular detail that tells David his order has worked.

    Verse by verse

    1. 11:14

      Uriah carries the letter that orders his own death. The passage does not say he knew its contents.

    2. 11:17

      Other servants of David die with Uriah. The casualties are not confined to the man named in the king's instructions.

    3. 11:20-21

      Joab anticipates a royal objection about approaching a fortified wall. His instructions to the messenger show that the explanation is prepared before the report reaches David.

    4. 11:25

      David sends encouragement rather than a recorded investigation into Uriah's death. The reply closes the communication between the king who ordered the killing and the commander who arranged the attack.

    2 Samuel 11:14-25

    King James Version · 12 verses

    11:14And it came to pass in the morning, that David wrote a letter to Joab, and sent it by the hand of Uriah.

    11:15And he wrote in the letter, saying, Set ye Uriah in the forefront of the hottest battle, and retire ye from him, that he may be smitten, and die.

    11:16And it came to pass, when Joab observed the city, that he assigned Uriah unto a place where he knew that valiant men were.

    11:17And the men of the city went out, and fought with Joab: and there fell some of the people of the servants of David; and Uriah the Hittite died also.

    11:18Then Joab sent and told David all the things concerning the war;

    11:19And charged the messenger, saying, When thou hast made an end of telling the matters of the war unto the king,

    11:20And if so be that the king’s wrath arise, and he say unto thee, Wherefore approached ye so nigh unto the city when ye did fight? knew ye not that they would shoot from the wall?

    11:21Who smote Abimelech the son of Jerubbesheth? did not a woman cast a piece of a millstone upon him from the wall, that he died in Thebez? why went ye nigh the wall? then say thou, Thy servant Uriah the Hittite is dead also.

    11:22So the messenger went, and came and shewed David all that Joab had sent him for.

    11:23And the messenger said unto David, Surely the men prevailed against us, and came out unto us into the field, and we were upon them even unto the entering of the gate.

    11:24And the shooters shot from off the wall upon thy servants; and some of the king’s servants be dead, and thy servant Uriah the Hittite is dead also.

    11:25Then David said unto the messenger, Thus shalt thou say unto Joab, Let not this thing displease thee, for the sword devoureth one as well as another: make thy battle more strong against the city, and overthrow it: and encourage thou him.

  3. 03

    2 Samuel 14:1-24

    The woman of Tekoa

    He wants Absalom brought home and knows David will not decide it himself, so he sends a woman with an account about her two sons, and David rules on it before he sees where it goes.

    The mourning clothes come before the petition. Joab does not merely find a woman with a difficult case; he tells a wise woman how to appear and puts the words in her mouth. The Book of Second Samuel discloses the arrangement before David hears a syllable. The proposed widow's grief is part of an appeal constructed to reach the king through his judgment of another household.

    Its pressure falls on the last surviving son. One brother has killed another, and the relatives who demand the killer would also extinguish the family's remaining line. They shall quench my coal which is left gives the threatened loss a physical shape: one ember, not yet out. David promises protection, and the woman then turns that promise toward his own banished son. Nathan had brought David inside a judgment he pronounced against another man. Joab's messenger brings him inside an act of mercy he has just promised.

    The comparison is persuasive without making the cases identical. Absalom is not David's only surviving son, and Tamar's suffering is not heard in this petition. David also recognizes Joab's hand behind it; the elaborate appeal does not remain an undetected performance. What Joab obtains is carefully limited. Absalom may return to Jerusalem, but not to the king's presence. The road home is opened. The door to his father stays shut.

    Verse by verse

    1. 14:2-3

      Joab orders the mourning appearance and supplies the speech. The claim to be a bereaved widow belongs to the case presented, not to an independently established biography of the woman.

    2. 14:7

      The remaining coal represents the family's surviving heir and continuation of its name. The woman herself explains the image through the threatened extinction of her husband's line.

    3. 14:14

      The statement about God restoring the banished forms part of the woman's argument. Its use here should not be flattened into an unconditional ruling that cancels every other consideration in Absalom's case.

    4. 14:19-20

      David identifies Joab's involvement, and the woman confirms it. The king's agreement comes with knowledge of who arranged the appeal.

    5. 14:24

      Permission to live in Jerusalem does not yet include an audience with David. The chapter explicitly separates return from access to the king.

    2 Samuel 14:1-24: The woman of Tekoa

    2 Samuel 14:1-24

    King James Version · 24 verses

    14:1Now Joab the son of Zeruiah perceived that the king’s heart was toward Absalom.

    14:2And Joab sent to Tekoah, and fetched thence a wise woman, and said unto her, I pray thee, feign thyself to be a mourner, and put on now mourning apparel, and anoint not thyself with oil, but be as a woman that had a long time mourned for the dead:

    14:3And come to the king, and speak on this manner unto him. So Joab put the words in her mouth.

    14:4And when the woman of Tekoah spake to the king, she fell on her face to the ground, and did obeisance, and said, Help, O king.

    14:5And the king said unto her, What aileth thee? And she answered, I am indeed a widow woman, and mine husband is dead.

    14:6And thy handmaid had two sons, and they two strove together in the field, and there was none to part them, but the one smote the other, and slew him.

    14:7And, behold, the whole family is risen against thine handmaid, and they said, Deliver him that smote his brother, that we may kill him, for the life of his brother whom he slew; and we will destroy the heir also: and so they shall quench my coal which is left, and shall not leave to my husband neither name nor remainder upon the earth.

    14:8And the king said unto the woman, Go to thine house, and I will give charge concerning thee.

    14:9And the woman of Tekoah said unto the king, My lord, O king, the iniquity be on me, and on my father’s house: and the king and his throne be guiltless.

    14:10And the king said, Whosoever saith ought unto thee, bring him to me, and he shall not touch thee any more.

    14:11Then said she, I pray thee, let the king remember the LORD thy God, that thou wouldest not suffer the revengers of blood to destroy any more, lest they destroy my son. And he said, As the LORD liveth, there shall not one hair of thy son fall to the earth.

    14:12Then the woman said, Let thine handmaid, I pray thee, speak one word unto my lord the king. And he said, Say on.

    14:13And the woman said, Wherefore then hast thou thought such a thing against the people of God? for the king doth speak this thing as one which is faulty, in that the king doth not fetch home again his banished.

    14:14For we must needs die, and are as water spilt on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again; neither doth God respect any person: yet doth he devise means, that his banished be not expelled from him.

    14:15Now therefore that I am come to speak of this thing unto my lord the king, it is because the people have made me afraid: and thy handmaid said, I will now speak unto the king; it may be that the king will perform the request of his handmaid.

    14:16For the king will hear, to deliver his handmaid out of the hand of the man that would destroy me and my son together out of the inheritance of God.

    14:17Then thine handmaid said, The word of my lord the king shall now be comfortable: for as an angel of God, so is my lord the king to discern good and bad: therefore the LORD thy God will be with thee.

    14:18Then the king answered and said unto the woman, Hide not from me, I pray thee, the thing that I shall ask thee. And the woman said, Let my lord the king now speak.

    14:19And the king said, Is not the hand of Joab with thee in all this? And the woman answered and said, As thy soul liveth, my lord the king, none can turn to the right hand or to the left from ought that my lord the king hath spoken: for thy servant Joab, he bade me, and he put all these words in the mouth of thine handmaid:

    14:20To fetch about this form of speech hath thy servant Joab done this thing: and my lord is wise, according to the wisdom of an angel of God, to know all things that are in the earth.

    14:21And the king said unto Joab, Behold now, I have done this thing: go therefore, bring the young man Absalom again.

    14:22And Joab fell to the ground on his face, and bowed himself, and thanked the king: and Joab said, To day thy servant knoweth that I have found grace in thy sight, my lord, O king, in that the king hath fulfilled the request of his servant.

    14:23So Joab arose and went to Geshur, and brought Absalom to Jerusalem.

    14:24And the king said, Let him turn to his own house, and let him not see my face. So Absalom returned to his own house, and saw not the king’s face.

  4. 04

    2 Samuel 18:9-15

    Three darts in the oak

    Told the king said deal gently with the young man, he says he will not waste time, and puts three darts through Absalom while he hangs in the tree.

    The unnamed soldier has heard the king more carefully than the commander is willing to act. Joab offers the reward the man could have earned by killing Absalom: ten shekels of silver and a girdle. The answer raises the amount to a thousand and still refuses it. Money is not the missing incentive. David's command was given in everyone's hearing, including Joab's.

    The soldier also identifies the personal risk of doing what Joab now praises. Nothing would remain hidden from the king, he says, and Joab would stand aloof. That is the soldier's assessment, not a scene that has already happened. It nevertheless makes the refusal more specific than timidity. He will not kill the king's son against the king's order and trust the commander's approval to protect him afterward.

    Joab does not demonstrate that the order has changed. He ends the discussion. The three darts and the ten armourbearers then replace the argument with an act that cannot be recalled. Absalom is helpless in the tree, but still alive when Joab approaches. The passage places the remembered command immediately beside the decision to disregard it. There is no missing message to explain the difference. There is a man who obeys and a commander who does not.

    Verse by verse

    1. 18:9

      The text says Absalom's head caught in the oak. It does not expressly identify his hair as the thing entangled.

    2. 18:12

      The thousand shekels are a hypothetical sum the soldier says he would refuse, not a payment he actually receives. He grounds the refusal in David's publicly heard command.

    3. 18:13

      Joab's predicted refusal to protect the soldier is part of the soldier's reply. The passage does not describe that hypothetical sequence as an event that occurred.

    4. 18:14

      Darts renders a plural of shebet, a word used for rods or staffs and here for weapon shafts. The wording does not supply their exact dimensions.

    5. 18:15

      Ten of Joab's armourbearers surround Absalom and strike him dead after Joab's attack. The text includes their participation rather than attributing every blow to Joab alone.

    2 Samuel 18:9-15

    King James Version · 7 verses

    18:9And Absalom met the servants of David. And Absalom rode upon a mule, and the mule went under the thick boughs of a great oak, and his head caught hold of the oak, and he was taken up between the heaven and the earth; and the mule that was under him went away.

    18:10And a certain man saw it, and told Joab, and said, Behold, I saw Absalom hanged in an oak.

    18:11And Joab said unto the man that told him, And, behold, thou sawest him, and why didst thou not smite him there to the ground? and I would have given thee ten shekels of silver, and a girdle.

    18:12And the man said unto Joab, Though I should receive a thousand shekels of silver in mine hand, yet would I not put forth mine hand against the king’s son: for in our hearing the king charged thee and Abishai and Ittai, saying, Beware that none touch the young man Absalom.

    18:13Otherwise I should have wrought falsehood against mine own life: for there is no matter hid from the king, and thou thyself wouldest have set thyself against me.

    18:14Then said Joab, I may not tarry thus with thee. And he took three darts in his hand, and thrust them through the heart of Absalom, while he was yet alive in the midst of the oak.

    18:15And ten young men that bare Joab’s armour compassed about and smote Absalom, and slew him.

    2 Samuel 18:9-15: Three darts in the oak
  5. 05

    2 Samuel 19:1-8

    You love your enemies and hate your friends

    He walks into the mourning and tells the king the truth in the harshest available form: speak comfortably to your servants, or not a man will stay with you tonight. David gets up and sits in the gate.

    The victorious men enter their own city like soldiers ashamed of a defeat. Nothing has changed the result of the battle; the king's mourning has changed the meaning of their reception. Joab goes into the house and forces that difference into speech. David's grief is for the son who died. The army hears no welcome for the men who survived and preserved the rest of his household.

    Joab's charge goes further than that observation. He says David loves his enemies, hates his friends, and would have preferred their deaths to Absalom's. Those are Joab's accusations, not an independent statement of David's hidden wishes. They come from the man who has just killed Absalom despite David's command. The practical problem he names is real in the passage; the speaker's part in creating the grief is real as well. Neither fact removes the other.

    The demanded action is public and concrete: rise, go out, speak to the servants. David does rise and take his seat in the gate, where the people can approach him. The chapter records that movement, not a sudden cure for bereavement or a declaration that Joab's every word was just. The father comes out of the house. The dead son does not.

    Verse by verse

    1. 19:2-3

      The victory is turned into mourning in the people's reception of the news. The comparison with defeated troops does not say that David's forces lost the battle.

    2. 19:5

      Joab lists David's other sons, daughters, wives, and concubines among those whose lives the army has preserved. His argument sets the surviving household beside the one son David is lamenting.

    3. 19:6

      The assertion that David would have preferred all his supporters dead is Joab's charge. It should not be reported as direct access to David's thoughts.

    4. 19:7

      Joab reinforces his warning about desertion with an oath. The passage does not introduce his prediction as a revelation from God.

    5. 19:8

      Taking his place in the gate makes David publicly available to the people again. It does not establish that his grief has ended.

    2 Samuel 19:1-8

    King James Version · 8 verses

    19:1And it was told Joab, Behold, the king weepeth and mourneth for Absalom.

    19:2And the victory that day was turned into mourning unto all the people: for the people heard say that day how the king was grieved for his son.

    19:3And the people gat them by stealth that day into the city, as people being ashamed steal away when they flee in battle.

    19:4But the king covered his face, and the king cried with a loud voice, O my son Absalom, O Absalom, my son, my son!

    19:5And Joab came into the house to the king, and said, Thou hast shamed this day the faces of all thy servants, which this day have saved thy life, and the lives of thy sons and of thy daughters, and the lives of thy wives, and the lives of thy concubines;

    19:6In that thou lovest thine enemies, and hatest thy friends. For thou hast declared this day, that thou regardest neither princes nor servants: for this day I perceive, that if Absalom had lived, and all we had died this day, then it had pleased thee well.

    19:7Now therefore arise, go forth, and speak comfortably unto thy servants: for I swear by the LORD, if thou go not forth, there will not tarry one with thee this night: and that will be worse unto thee than all the evil that befell thee from thy youth until now.

    19:8Then the king arose, and sat in the gate. And they told unto all the people, saying, Behold, the king doth sit in the gate. And all the people came before the king: for Israel had fled every man to his tent.

    2 Samuel 19:1-8: You love your enemies and hate your friends

Why it matters

Joab is the competence the reign runs on and the violence it cannot control. Every major thing that goes right militarily is his, and three of the killings David is blamed for are Joab acting on his own. The most useful scenes are the ones where he is simply correct: he tells David the census is wrong before it is taken, and he tells him that mourning for Absalom in front of the army that saved him will lose him everything. David dies leaving instructions about him, and Solomon carries them out at the altar.

8 songs

The music

Every song in the catalogue whose passage falls inside these chapters.

  1. 2 Samuel 1:1-2:11

    How Are the Mighty Fallen

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  2. 2 Samuel 2:12-4:12

    The House of David Grew Stronger

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  3. 2 Samuel 10:1-11:27

    The Sword Shall Never Depart

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  4. 2 Samuel 11-12

    Thou Art the Man

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  5. 2 Samuel 14:1-15:12

    He Stole the Hearts of Israel

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  6. 2 Samuel 18:1-19:8

    O Absalom, My Son

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  7. 2 Samuel 19:9-20:26

    The King Came Again to Jordan

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  8. 1 Kings 1:1-2:46

    Solomon Sat upon the Throne

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