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.
People of the Bible
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.
Scroll down to the storyThe movements, in the order the text gives them.
The story of Joab
- 01
- 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.
- 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 a story about her two sons, and David rules on it before he sees where it goes.
- 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.
- 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.
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.
