As another Lame Cherry exclusive in matter anti matter.
There is far too much nuance in the Bible in the story of King David in his rule over Israel, for in the New Testament when the Jews moved to murder Jesus, it was bluntly put, 'We murder Jesus, and we keep our heads or Rome will crack down on us.", but with David, his words are always portrayed as righteous, and he blames someone else, in this case his nephew, Joab, for murdering two military leaders of Israel in Abner and Amasa.
I have always stated correctly that Joab has been given a bad rap, for the simple reason, someone had to execute King David's problems in doing the dirty work, or David would have been dead.
When God chose David over King Saul, David could have killed Saul several times, but refrained, because if he had killed this Benjaminite King, all of Israel would have blamed him. So it was necessary to languish 40 years, and have the Philistines kill Saul and his major royal sons, in order to terminate the Saul line.
Things were most fortunate for David as Saul was not yet dead when another ally of David's came upon him, honored Saul's request to finish him off, who then ran to David telling the good news, but David then killed the killer, honoring the noble Saul.
It helped heal the wounds in Israel's 13 tribes, but those wounds never did heal.
David kept a crippled son of Saul in his palace named Mephibosheth. The house of Saul was always waiting for David to be killed to return to the throne, and in that David was little help.
David had allied with marrying women and taking concubines, so he had a host a children, the foremost was Absalom, who had right as eldest son to the throne. David though chose Bathsheba's son, Solomon, which sent the houses at odds.
All of this simmered in Israel in this contender Solomon, the house of David loyal to Solomon, and then the rest of David's family who along with Israel were swayed by the handsome Absalom, who led a revolt, with Bathsheba's own father as advisor against David.
It was sordid as David, in order to get the married woman he had made pregnant, had to have one of his most loyal warlords, Uriah, be murdered in battle. The plan was simple in David ordered Joab to send Uriah to fight against an enemy city, and then retreated, leaving Uriah to die. Joab informed David of this, along with the warning that if David should blame him, that Uriah was the reason Joab did withdraw. The matter was dropped, but the majority in Israel were not pleased with David, as it was only Judah who put him on the throne, so the contention was always there.
It would be Joab again, with his brothers, Abishai and Ittai who were the chief warlords in Israel who led the counter fight against Absalom, whose warlords were Abner and Amasa. David gave orders to protect Absalom, which again was good politically but Joab knew this rival had to die, so he killed him, as Absalom, had gotten his head stuck into a tree while riding a mule, fleeing.
Once again, it was a necessary execution, as David went on to lament and do so much that the people who were with him were disheartened and it was Joab who told King David to stop being an ungrateful simpleton or the people would abandon him forever, as they already had.
This set the stage for what is the focus of this post as Joab would execute Abner and Amasa.
When it came to Joab killing Abner, it was the reality of civil war. Abner was backing the house of Saul, and was becoming king as he threatened Saul's heir and took a woman who gave him more place for that throne.
In the battles, Joab has a young brother who could run like a deer, and he pursued Abner. Abner warned the boy off, but the boy, Asahel, would not let up, so Abner killed the boy with a powerful stroke.
There was absolutely not any way that Joab was going to allow a contender for rule over Israel's armed forces, remain in that position, as what he did to Asahel, he would do to David, and in securing power to be king would murder Joab eventually. So Joab and Abishai rightly killed Abner for killing their brother, for leading the opposing army against David, and because the kingdom never would be David's with Abner always lurking.
David politically blames Joab and says Abner was righteous, but Abner was shown to be a warlord who would murder David in his own bed and slaughter every heir David had.
2 Samuel 3:30 (Joab and his brother Abishai murdered Abner ...
Joab Murders Abner … 29 May it whirl over the heads of Joab and the entire house of his father, and may the house of Joab never be without one having a discharge or skin disease, or one who leans on a staff or falls by the sword or lacks food." 30 (Joab and his brother Abishai murdered Abner because he had killed their brother Asahel in the battle at Gibeon.)
It was after the upheaval with Absalom, that David, knowing the political problems he had in most of Israel had chosen his son to be king, went to war against David to kill him. that the killer of the people's king could not be a unifying force for David, so David chose a near relative to lead the house of Israel in battle in Amasa.
David was in a precarious position, as he had just stopped a rebellion by his son, and immediately another Benjaminite, which was Saul's tribe, a man named Sheba ben Birchi, led another rebellion, leading the 10 northern tribes. This all would come to a head after David's son, Solomon's death, when the 10 tribes of Israel, followed the warlord Jeroboam to revolt against Rehoboam, who was Solomon's tyrant son, left on the throne.
David had given specific orders in this revolt, that Amasa was to assemble the army of Judah and crush Sheba in the revolt, invading north. The Bible makes one mention of Amasa in he tarried past the appointed time to lead the invading forces.
The reality is Amasa, has just disobeyed the King, and that was punishable by death. David having no alternative ordered Joab's brother, Abishai, who had been part of executing Abner, to head the army going north.
Joab was not mentioned, but as a warlord, the mightiest in Israel, he went along, and this is where one has to fill in the reality between the lines, because Amasa appears again with the invading army.
Consider the reality of that Israel is in revolt again, and Amasa did nothing to stop it. His actions would bring one result, and that would be David would lose the northern kingdoms which would become the Lost 10 later. David losing those tribes, would open the door for Amasa to probably be asked to lead the Lost 10 armies. With the house of Saul in ruin, and Sheba ben Birchi apparently having no right to be a king, Amasa would in a coup, after defeating David, become king of Israel.
David appointing Abashai as military commander forced Amasa to appear, as Abashai would crush Sheba and David would rule, and Amasa could not be seen in his treachery, so he would become heroic in being in on the kill.
What are the reasons why Joab killed Amasa in the Bible (2 ...
Joab had spoken pretty bluntly to David while he was mourning Absalom (2 Samuel 19:1-11); not unjustifiably, granted, but pretty strongly to a king. It's telling that David asks Abishai, not Joab, to press more quickly than Amasa was doing (2 Sam...Amasa - Wikipedia
Amasa (עמשא) or Amessai is a person mentioned in the Hebrew Bible.His mother was Abigail (2 Samuel 17:25), a sister of King David (1 Chronicles 2:16,17) and Zeruiah (the mother of Joab).Hence, Amasa was a nephew of David, and cousin of Joab, David's military commander, as well as a cousin of Absalom, David's son.David calls him "my bone and my flesh" (2 Samuel 19:13).
Joab was one of the most astute political generals of the era. He knew he was being blamed for things as a scapegoat, and was in power because he was the toughest soldier there was. He though was not in power, and David had turned to his brother, who was loyal to him. Joab knew having the king's disfavor, Amasa being key to holding the 10 tribes loyal, that Joab was odd man out, and the way he would save himself was killing his treacherous rival, which he did and proudly had Amasa's blood on his belt and shoes after he gutted him with one blow like a fish.
Joab smashed the rebellion when a woman cut off the hiding Sheba's head, and threw it over the wall to Joab. The net result was Joab was blamed, but David could not afford in his aging state to take on Joab and Abashai, so they remained in charge of the military, and Israel remained obedient to David.
With Solomon's overwhelming prosperity and initiating the great tax and take children for his police state, the socialist order of Solomon was secure until his death.
Everyone that Joab killed, needed to be killed. David is portrayed as forgiving and loving, but his mistakes, in murdering Uriah over David's adultery, alienated the people. These warlords in seeing the end of Uriah knew they were expendable, and most of them, except for David's immediate kindred were ready to seize the throne if the opportunity arose.
Beniniah who led the Praetorian Guard carried out David's last command to Solomon in executing Joab for his killing righteous men, who were not righteous at all, but David knew Joab had not backed Solomon from the start, and Joab would be a problem, so killing Joab was not recorded as murder, but an execution, and that is what Joab did, execute Abner and Amasa.
Solomon would have to kill a rival brother of his, who attempted to seize the throne, in order to keep his own head. In that Solomon was more like Joab in knowing what required to be done, rather than like David, giving people time to build a revolt. In that Caiaphas in murdering Jesus was right, and what Joab and Solomon did, was kill one traitor, before civil wars broke out killing thousands as they did with David.
So these sons of Belial, the bloody sons, I'm actually in sympathy with them and consider them the righteous men, as Abner was not loyal to David and would have killed him if he could have, just as Amasa was not loyal and allowing more rebellion to fest to get David killed.
The only innocent which Joab had murdered by craft was Uriah, but no one cared about a Hittite as Hittites did not have a political following in Israel, and in that David ordered Joab to make certain that Uriah was killed, because there was the Law of God, which stated David and Bathsheba should be put to death for adultery, which would have caused more deaths in revolt in Israel in the remaining house of Saul, those not loyal to David, would have engaged in another civil war, weakening the kingdom and given rise to the Syrians, Moabites, Philistines to destroy Israel.
So when David condemns Joab, it was for political reasons, and when David orders Joab killed by Solomon, something David could not do, David was just honoring political scores for stability and removing the one person who would probably have led a successful overthrow of Solomon for Solomon's brother.
Once again, another Lame Cherry exclusive in matter anti matter.
Nuff Said
agtG
