_ASSASSINATION OF ABNER AND ISHBOSHETH._
2 SAMUEL iii. 22-39; iv.
It is quite possible that, in treating with Abner, David showed too
complacent a temper, that he treated too lightly his appearance in
arms against him at the pool of Gibeon, and that he neglected to
demand an apology for the death of Asahel. Certainly it would have
been wise had some measures been taken to soothe the ruffled temper
of Joab and reconcile him to the new arrangement. This, however, was
not done. David was so happy in the thought that the civil war was to
cease, and that all Israel were about to recognise him as their king,
that he would not go back on the past, or make reprisals even for the
death of Asahel. He was willing to let bygones be bygones. Perhaps,
too, he thought that if Asahel met his death at the hand of Abner, it
was his own rashness that was to blame for it. Anyhow he was greatly
impressed with the value of Abner's service on his behalf, and much
interested in the project to which he was now going forth--gathering
all Israel to the king, to make a league with him and bind themselves
to his allegiance.
In these measures Joab had not been consulted. When Abner was at
Hebron, Joab was absent on a military enterprise. In that enterprise
he had been very successful, and he was able to appear at Hebron with
the most popular evidence of success that a general could bring--a
large amount of spoil. No doubt Joab was elated with his success, and
was in that very temper when a man is most disposed to resent his being
overlooked and to take more upon him than is meet. When he heard of
David's agreement with Abner, he was highly displeased. First he went
to the king, and scolded him for his simplicity in believing Abner.
It was but a stratagem of Abner's to allow him to come to Hebron,
ascertain the state of David's affairs, and take his own steps more
effectively in the interest of his opponent. Suspicion reigned in
Joab's heart; the generosity of David's nature was not only not shared
by him, but seemed silliness itself. His rudeness to David is highly
offensive. He speaks to him in the tone of a master to a servant, or
in the tone of those servants who rule their master. "What hast thou
done? Behold, Abner came unto thee; why is it that thou hast sent him
away, and he is quite gone? Thou 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." David is spoken to like one guilty
of inexcusable folly, as if he were accountable to Joab, and not Joab
to him. Of the king's answer to Joab, nothing is recorded; but from
David's confession (ver. 39) that the sons of Zeruiah were too strong
for him, we may infer that it was not very firm or decided, and that
Joab set it utterly at nought. For the very first thing that Joab did
after seeing the king was to send a message to Abner, most likely in
David's name, but without David's knowledge, asking him to return.
Joab was at the gate ready for his treacherous business, and taking
Abner aside as if for private conversation, he plunged his dagger in
his breast, ostensibly in revenge for the death of his brother Asahel.
There was something eminently mean and dastardly in the deed. Abner
was now on the best of terms with Joab's master, and he could not
have apprehended danger from the servant. If assassination be mean
among civilians, it is eminently mean among soldiers. The laws of
hospitality were outraged when one who had just been David's guest was
assassinated in David's city. The outrage was all the greater, as was
also the injury to King David and to the whole kingdom, that the crime
was committed when Abner was on the eve of an important and delicate
negotiation with the other tribes of Israel, since the arrangement
which he hoped to bring about was likely to be broken off by the news
of his shameful death. At no moment are the feelings of men less to be
trifled with than when, after long and fierce alienation, they are on
the point of coming together. Abner had brought the tribes of Israel to
that point, but now, like a flock of birds frightened by a shot, they
were certain to fly asunder. All this danger Joab set at nought, the
one thought of taking revenge for the death of his brother absorbing
every other, and making him, like so many other men when excited by a
guilty passion, utterly regardless of every consequence provided only
his revenge was satisfied.
How did David act toward Joab? Most kings would at once have put
him to death, and David's subsequent action towards the murderers
of Ishbosheth shows that, even in his judgment, this would have
been the proper retribution on Joab for his bloody deed. But David
did not feel himself strong enough to deal with Joab according to
his deserts. It might have been better for him during the rest
of his life if he had acted with more vigour now. But instead of
making an example of Joab, he contented himself with pouring out
on him a vial of indignation, publicly washing his hands of the
nefarious transaction, and pronouncing on its author and his family
a terrible malediction. We cannot but shrink from the way in which
David brought in Joab's family to share his curse: "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." Yet we must remember that according to the
sentiment of those times a man and his house were so identified that
the punishment due to the head was regarded as due to the whole. In
our day we see a law in constant operation which visits iniquities
of the parents upon the children with a terrible retribution. The
drunkard's children are woeful sufferers for their parent's sin; the
family of the felon carries a stigma for ever. We recognise this as
a law of Providence; but we do not act on it ourselves in inflicting
punishment. In David's time, however, and throughout the whole Old
Testament period, punishments due to the fathers were formally
shared by their families. When Joshua sentenced Achan to die for
his crime in stealing from the spoils of Jericho a wedge of gold
and a Babylonish garment, his wife and children were put to death
along with him. In denouncing the curse on Joab's family as well as
himself, David therefore only recognised a law which was universally
acted on in his day. The law may have been a hard one, but we are not
to blame David for acting on a principle of retribution universally
acknowledged. We are to remember, too, that David was now acting in
a public capacity, and as the chief magistrate of the nation. If he
had put Joab to death, his act would have involved his family in many
a woe; in denouncing his deeds and calling for retribution on them
generation after generation, he only carried out the same principle
a little further. That Joab deserved to die for his dastardly crime,
none could have denied; if David abstained from inflicting that
punishment, it was only natural that he should be very emphatic in
proclaiming what such a criminal might look for, in never-failing
visitations on himself and his seed, when he was left to be dealt
with by the God of justice.
Having thus disposed of Joab, David had next to dispose of the dead
body of Abner. He determined that every circumstance connected
with Abner's funeral should manifest the sincerity of his grief at
his untimely end. In the first place, he caused him to be buried
at Hebron. We know of the tomb at Hebron where the bodies of the
patriarchs lay; if it was at all legitimate to place others in that
grave, we may believe that a place in it was found for Abner. In the
second place, the mourning company attended the funeral with rent
clothes and girdings of sackcloth, while the king himself followed
the bier, and at the grave both king and people gave way to a burst
of tears. In the third place, the king pronounced an elegy over him,
short, but expressive of his sense of the unworthy death which had
come to such a man:--
"Should Abner die as a fool dieth?
Thy hands were not bound, nor thy feet put into fetters;
As a man falleth before the children of iniquity, so didst
thou fall."
Had he died the death of one taken in battle, his bound hands and his
feet in fetters would have denoted that after honourable conflict he
had been defeated in the field, and that he died the death due to
a public enemy. Instead of this, he had fallen before the children
of iniquity, before men mean enough to betray him and murder him,
while he was under the protection of the king. In the fourth place,
he sternly refused to eat bread till that day, so full of darkness
and infamy, should have passed away. The public manifestations of
David's grief showed very clearly how far he was from approving of
the death of Abner. And they had the desired effect. The people were
pleased with the evidence afforded of David's feelings, and the event
that had seemed likely to destroy his prospects turned out in this
way in his favour. "The people took notice of this, and it pleased
them, as whatsoever the king did pleased all the people." It was
another evidence of the conquering power of goodness and forbearance.
By his generous treatment of his foes, David secured a position in
the hearts of his people, and established his kingdom on a basis of
security which he could not have obtained by any amount of severity.
For ages and ages, the two methods of dealing with a reluctant
people, generosity and severity, have been pitted against each
other, and always with the effect that severity fails and generosity
succeeds. There were many who were indignant at the clemency shown
by Lord Canning after the Indian mutiny. They would have had him
inspire terror by acts of awful severity. But the peaceful career
of our Indian empire and the absence of any attempt to renew the
insurrection since that time show that the policy of clemency was the
policy of wisdom and of success.
Still another step was taken by David that shows how painfully he
was impressed by the death of Abner. To "his servants"--that is, his
cabinet or his staff--he said in confidence, "Know ye not that there
is a prince and a great man fallen this day in Israel?" He recognised
in Abner one of those men of consummate ability who are born to rule,
or at least to render the highest service to the actual ruler of a
country by their great influence over men. It seems very probable
that he looked to him as his own chief officer for the future. Rebel
though he had been, he seemed quite cured of his rebellion, and
now that he cordially acknowledged David's right to the throne, he
would probably have been his right-hand man. Abner, Saul's cousin,
was probably a much older man than Joab, who was David's nephew,
and who could not have been much older than David himself. The loss
of Abner was a great personal loss especially as it threw him more
into the hands of these sons of Zeruiah, Joab and Abishai, whose
impetuous, lordly temper was too much for him to restrain. The
representation to his confidential servants, "I am weak, and these
men, the sons of Zeruiah, are too strong for me," was an appeal to
them for cordial help in the affairs of the kingdom, in order that
Joab and his brother might not be able to carry everything their own
way. David, like many another man, needed to say, Save me from my
friends. We get a vivid glimpse of the perplexities of kings, and of
the compensations of a humbler lot. Men in high places, worried by
the difficulties of managing their affairs and servants, and by the
endless annoyances to which their jealousies and their self-will give
rise, may find much to envy in the simple, unembarrassed life of the
humblest of the people.
From the assassination of Abner, the real source of the opposition
that had been raised to David, the narrative proceeds to the
assassination of Ishbosheth, the titular king. "When Saul's son
heard that Abner was dead in Hebron, his hands were feeble, and all
the Israelites were troubled." The contrast is striking between his
conduct under difficulty and that of David. In the history of the
latter, faith often faltered in times of trouble, and the spirit of
distrust found a footing in his soul. But these occasions occurred
in the course of protracted and terrible struggles; they were
exceptions to his usual bearing; faith commonly bore him up in his
darkest trials. Ishbosheth, on the other hand, seems to have had
no resource, no sustaining power whatever, under visible reverses.
David's slips were like the temporary falling back of the gallant
soldier when surprised by a sudden onslaught, or when, fagged and
weary, he is driven back by superior numbers; but as soon as he
has recovered himself, he dashes back undaunted to the conflict.
Ishbosheth was like the soldier who throws down his arms and rushes
from the field as soon as he feels the bitter storm of battle. With
all his falls, there was something in David that showed him to be
cast in a different mould from ordinary men. He was habitually aiming
at a higher standard, and upheld by the consciousness of a higher
strength; he was ever and anon resorting to "the secret place of the
Most High," taking hold of Him as his covenant God, and labouring to
draw down from Him the inspiration and the strength of a nobler life
than that of the mass of the children of men.
The godless course which Ishbosheth had followed in setting up a
claim to the throne in opposition to the Divine call of David not
only lost him the distinction he coveted, but cost him his life.
He made himself a mark for treacherous and heartless men; and one
day, while lying in his bed at noon, was despatched by two of his
servants. The two men that murdered him seem to have been among
those whom Saul enriched with the spoil of the Gibeonites. They were
brothers, men of Beeroth, which was formerly one of the cities of the
Gibeonites, but was now reckoned to Benjamin.
Saul appears to have attacked the Beerothites, and given their
property to his favourites (comp. 1 Sam. xxii. 7 and 2 Sam. xxi. 2).
A curse went with the transaction; Ishbosheth, one of Saul's sons,
was murdered by two of those who were enriched by the unhallowed
deed; and many years after, his bloody house had to yield up seven of
his sons to justice, when a great famine showed that for this crime
wrath rested on the land.
The murderers of Ishbosheth, Baanah and Rechab, mistaking the character
of David as much as it had been mistaken by the Amalekite who pretended
that he had slain Saul, hastened to Hebron, bearing with them the head
of their victim, a ghastly evidence of the reality of the deed. This
revolting trophy they carried all the way from Mahanaim to Hebron, a
distance of some fifty miles. Mean and selfish themselves, they thought
other men must be the same. They were among those poor creatures who
are unable to rise above their own poor level in their conceptions of
others. When they presented themselves before David, he showed all
his former superiority to selfish, jealous feelings. He was roused
indeed to the highest pitch of indignation. We can hardly conceive the
astonishment and horror with which they would receive his answer, "As
the Lord liveth, who hath redeemed my soul out of all adversity, when
one told me saying, Behold, Saul is dead, thinking to have brought good
tidings, I took hold on him and slew him in Ziklag, who thought that
I would have given him a reward for his tidings. How much more when
wicked men have slain a righteous person in his own house upon his bed!
Shall I not therefore require his blood at your hand, and take you away
from the earth?" Simple death was not judged a severe enough punishment
for such guilt; as they had cut off the head of Ishbosheth after
killing him, so after they were slain their hands and their feet were
cut off; and thereafter they were hanged over the pool in Hebron--a
token of the execration in which the crime was held. Here was another
evidence that deeds of violence done to his rivals, so far from finding
acceptance, were detestable in the eyes of David. And here was another
fulfilment of the resolution which he had made when he took possession
of the throne--"I will early destroy all the wicked of the land, that I
may cut off all wicked doers from the city of the Lord."
These rapid, instantaneous executions by order of David have raised
painful feelings in many. Granting that the retribution was justly
deserved, and granting that the rapidity of the punishment was
in accord with military law, ancient and modern, and that it was
necessary in order to make a due impression on the people, still it
may be asked, How could David, as a pious man, hurry these sinners
into the presence of their Judge without giving them any exhortation
to repentance or leaving them a moment in which to ask for mercy?
The question is undoubtedly a difficult one. But the difficulty
arises in a great degree from our ascribing to David and others the
same knowledge of the future state and the same vivid impressions
regarding it that we have ourselves. We often forget that to those
who lived in the Old Testament the future life was wrapped in far
greater obscurity than it is to us. That good men had no knowledge
of it, we cannot allow; but certainly they knew vastly less about
it than has been revealed to us. And the general effect of this
was that the consciousness of a future life was much fainter even
among good men then than now. They did not think about it; it was
not present to their thoughts. There is no use trying to make David
either a wiser or a better man than he was. There is no use trying
to place him high above the level or the light of his age. If it be
asked, How did David feel with reference to the future life of these
men? the answer is, that probably it was not much, if at all, in his
thoughts. That which was prominent in his thoughts was that they had
sacrificed their lives by their atrocious wickedness, and the sooner
they were punished the better. If he thought of their future, he
would feel that they were in the hands of God, and that they would
be judged by Him according to the tenor of their lives. It cannot be
said that compassion for them mingled with David's feelings. The one
prominent feeling he had was that of their guilt; for that they must
suffer. And David, like other soldiers who have shed much blood, was
so accustomed to the sight of violent death, that the horror which it
usually excites was no longer familiar to him.
It is the Gospel of Jesus Christ that has brought life and
immortality to light. So far from the future life being a dim and
shadowy revelation, it is now one of the clearest doctrines of the
faith. It is one of the doctrines which every earnest preacher of
the Gospel is profoundly earnest in dwelling on. That death ushers
us into the presence of God, that after death cometh the judgment,
that every one of us is to give account of himself to God, that the
final condition of men is to be one of misery or one of life, are
among the clearest revelations of the Gospel. And this fact invests
every man's death with profound significance in the Christian's
view. That the condemned criminal may have time to prepare, our
courts of law invariably interpose an interval between the sentence
and the punishment. Would only that men were more consistent here!
If we shudder at the thought of a dying sinner appearing in all the
blackness of his guilt before God, let us think more how we may
turn sinners from their wickedness while they live. Let us see the
atrocious guilt of encouraging them in ways of sin that cannot but
bring on them the retribution of a righteous God. O ye who, careless
yourselves, laugh at the serious impressions and scruples of others;
ye who teach those that would otherwise do better to drink and gamble
and especially to scoff; ye who do your best to frustrate the prayers
of tender-hearted fathers and mothers whose deepest desire is that
their children may be saved; ye, in one word, who are missionaries
of the devil and help to people hell--would that you pondered your
awful guilt! For "whosoever shall cause any of the least of these to
offend, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his
neck and he were cast into the depths of the sea."