40 Minutes In The Old Testament - 2 Samuel 3:6-30 (Episode 261)

Episode Date: April 5, 2021

After being accused of misconduct by his king, Abner goes to David with an offer too good to refuse. David wants his first wife back even though she is married to another man. And Joab lets revenge ruin everything. Chad and Daniel discuss all of this. Have a listen! 1517 Podcast Network 1517 YouTube Donate

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we like keeping everything free we don't charge anybody for anything and the reason we're able to do that is because other people are willing to chip in if you are able to do that we would appreciate it Chad, we left David in a spot where he's anointed king

over Judah got some tension because a military leader has named one of Saul's kids king and there's a little bit of conflict we saw some war games go sideways and result in some bloodshed And he's sort of left in this sort of ominous place where it just says that David and Saul's son are fighting with each other.

At least their followers are fighting with each other all the time. Meanwhile, while that's going on, David's just having lots of kids from lots of different women. And we mentioned how this is setting up a problem for succession later. Yeah, it kind of left off. David's been wife collecting. Yeah, it's like his guys are out there fighting with Saul's guys, and he's just having kids. Like, you know what? you know what I need? Another wife. Yeah. I had one, then I had two, then I had three. And then

by the time you get to, uh, second Samuel three verse five, we find out, Hey, he's actually got six so far and he's missing one, which will actually McCall, which we've heard about before. That's the daughter of Saul. And he's going to get her back in this particular chapter. And that's going to actually kind of foreshadow some bigger problems down the road. It was a lot in the rest of this chapter that actually has to do with disagreements over women and wives and accusations about relationships between men and women. And, you know, it's kind of interesting in this chapter because the dominant figure who emerges here is not really David. It's not Joab, who is the commander of David's army. And it's not Saul's son who has been proclaimed king in Esh-boshet.

The dominant figure in this particular chapter is Abner. So we've heard a lot about Abner over, well, over the course of 1 Samuel, and then of course in the 2 Samuel as well. Abner is the cousin of Saul. Their dads were brothers. And Abner was part of Saul's army from way back. We know that already in the David and Goliath episode But where he emerges here Is he turns out that he is He's more than just a general In the army of Israel

He is like the guy He's the one with the power He's the one with Not just the military power But he's also the one with persuasive power He's the one who's actually The one behind the throne Who's putting forward

This kind of puppet king but he's calling the shots more or less and what we're going to encounter right away is that in the midst of this kind of strong man weak king situation that the king is going to make an accusation that ends up just basically ruining his chance of ever remaining king over the people of israel you know if you've got a guy who's and you know he's really the powerful one Abner. So you know the one he's calling the shots. Probably it'd be a bad idea to accuse him of something, but that's what each bullshit does. So we start out here with kind of a general statement that sets the stage for what's going to happen in verse 7 and following. So verse 6 says

it came about that while there was war between the house of Saul, so the northern kingdom, and the house of david the kingdom of judah that abner was making himself strong in the house of saul so that kind of you know let cues you in on what abner's been doing now we we don't know we don't know enough about his ambitions to know whether he was actually kind of manipulating the situation to put himself on the throne you would think that if he actually wanted that then you know he would have done that right away because he had all the power but he does seem because of what's about to happen he does seem to have some royal ambitions and this this shows itself in at least what he's accused of so here's here's verse seven and following i'll just kind of

read through this accusation and then the exchange that happens between these guys now saul of course Saul's dead by this time, but Saul had a concubine whose name was Rizpah, the daughter of Aya. And Ish-bosheth said to Abner, why have you gone into my father's concubine? Then Abner was very angry over the words of Ish-bosheth and said, I love this insult, by the way. Am I a dog's head? We need to bring that back, by the way. Am I a dog's head that belongs to Judah? Today I show kindness, that's chesed, one of our favorite Hebrew words.

Today I show kindness to the house of Saul, your father, to his brothers, and to his friends, and have not delivered you into the hands of David, and yet today you charge me with a guilt-concerning woman. Then he goes on. May God do so to Abner, and more so, if as the Lord has sworn to David, I do not accomplish this for him, to transfer the kingdom from the house of Saul and to establish the throne of David over Israel and over Judah, from Dan even to Beersheba. And we have this closing statement. And he could not answer Abner a word because he was afraid of him. That escalated fast. It did. Yeah, that escalated really fast. So we know, we've talked about this

before, actually way back in Genesis, and we'll see it again in 1 Kings, that when you have a person who's maybe a son of the king or in a part of the family, when they make a move to either claim the throne, claim power, claim prominence, they're making a power move, in other words. One of the things that they sometimes do is they will either take the wife or the concubine of either the current leader or the dead leader, and by this sexual act, also make this kind of power move to set themselves up as either the leader, the king, or at least the next in line. And we saw this back in Genesis with the concubine of Judah,

and one of the sons went into this concubine, the eldest son went into this concubine, is a way of kind of setting himself up as the legitimate heir, I suppose we would say, after Judah was gone. And we're going to see this in 1 Kings, in the first couple chapters of 1 Kings, where David's dying. And as we talked about last time, he got all these kids, all these sons, who's going to be the heir. And one of the guys, by the name of one of the sons, a guy named Adonijah,

he takes the the concubine abishag or abishag he takes once anyway the concubine of his father david that young virgin who had kept david warm in bed in his in his latter years so adonijah is making a move to kind of claim the throne for himself by taking the the concubine that belonged to his father so that's another case and then we'll see another episode of this later in second samuel when absalom the son of david stages the coup what's the prominent public act that he does when he sets up a tent on the roof of the king's palace and he brings all of his father's david's concubines his harem basically into the tent and he has sex with him so this is uh i mean it's a it's a power move but it's a power move that's established sexually it's basically his way of

saying listen i'm the new leader i'm the new king so all that kind of is a background to this accusation about abner so if if abner and again this is just an accusation we really don't know if it's true or not there's no indication that it's true or false it's just an accusation but If it is true, then what Abner was doing, intended or otherwise, was to try and take Saul's concubine as his own and thereby set himself up as the true heir to his cousin's throne. Well, the other option, of course, is that this is not true and Saul's son doesn't like how much influence Abner has. and so this is also a good thing to make up that somebody did if you were trying to tarnish them to other people like so that you could you could make this sort of thing up tell everyone else like hey this guy's trying to trying to do exactly what you just explained we don't we don't have

a way of knowing it does seem that abner is pretty insulted by it yeah yeah yeah whether his uh uh whether his reaction is, you know, partly farce, you know, he just kind of acting more outraged than he actually is or not. He certainly comes across that way. So, again, we don't know if it's true or false, but judging by his reaction and judging by the power that he already had, I lean more towards seeing this as, you know, maybe Ishiboshi had thought it was true,

but I honestly doubt whether it is true. Because, yeah, I mean, if Avnir wanted the throne, all he had to do was stage a coup and he's got it yeah you know he could easily convince people well listen i was with saul this whole time i was his general i'm i have the experience i have the family connections so set me up as as the king if he'd wanted to do that well then nothing would have stopped him from doing that and what he's going to do next you definitely don't do if you want the throne yeah you don't say well i'm going to make david king yeah that's not gonna that's not a good plan if you're trying to get the throne yeah so whether it was true or not and maybe you

know each bullshit is like his dad and so he had this phobia that everybody was against him and maybe his son cabin heritage that tendency he's always thinking oh well you know now abner's out out to get me maybe somebody else is out to get me as well and anyway he acts on that by making this accusation well we saw that we see the results of this abner responds angrily and uh yes uses this great insult and my dog's head that belongs to judah uh and then goes on to say well i'll tell you what i did all this stuff for your dad uh i was i was faithful to him and established him and i've and i've been protecting you but all that's over yeah well and it's over yeah it kind of seems that abner maybe thinks that the i mean because he was loyal

to Saul. And he is, you know, this Bosheth doesn't seem like, uh, the strongest of leaders and, and Abner seems like the kind of guy that, that might find that irritating and, uh, might think that the apple fell a little far from the tree in this, in this scenario. And so his loyalty to Saul, in his loyalty to Saul, he's, he's going to make Saul's, you know, kid king. But if in fact he didn't do this thing and then this this weakling son is going to come and accuse him of this that might just been it for him uh he's like this isn't gonna this isn't gonna work like you're not your dad oh you're only like your dad in the worst way because you see that he's afraid of abner too if this was true and and he was a strong leader and a and going to be a good king he would

he wouldn't back down if this was true or be afraid he would say look dude like you did this thing and this is that you can't this is straight out of bounds you can't do this but he's not and so it seems that i this is a little bit of reading in but i get the impression that abner is kind of a little disgusted with him yeah i do too yeah he seems to have no respect for him as a person yes maybe as respect as you know the office that he holds but as far as a person goes yeah he's a he's kind of spineless you know easily uh easily dominated by by abner so you can certainly see after serving saul all those years and now you got his son who's just you know almost the exact opposite of saul that he's like you know this is not gonna work he probably knows like dude

if i had slept with your father's concubine while he was alive like i'd be dead what do you think saul would do to somebody who did this right yeah it'd be definitely be over it'd be over right and so yeah this is a very different kind of person he's dealing with here you know and i will uh in in uh not in defense of abner but just to speak uh well of abner if you look at all of second samuel 3 so this entire chapter and everything that unfolds after it abner comes across as a as a pretty legit kind of guy in fact uh there's not a lot of talk about god in this chapter but the when there is talk about god it's always abner so abner is the one who's talking about in this particular case you know he's wearing this oath he's using god's name

and uh later he's going to talk about how god has anointed david to be the heir over all of israel So he's using the Lord's name in a positive way, whereas everybody else, there's just not a whole lot of talk of who God is. So I think, Abner, maybe this was the kind of unexpected event that led him to realize, kind of God got through to him, as it were, to point out to the fact that, listen, you should never have anointed Ish-bosheth king because David is the one that I have chosen. Yeah. So, well, what happens? Well, Abner, I mean, he's not wishy-washy. He's made his decision. So immediately, verse 12, he acts.

He says he sends messengers to David. And here's what he says. Whose is the land? The kind of rhetorical question. Yours, more or less. Whose is the land? Well, it's going to be yours. Make your covenant with me, and behold, my hand shall be with you to bring all Israel over to you.

Well, that tells you right there the power that Abner has. He's saying, listen, I've got enough sway that I'm going to bring the entirety of Israel over to you. And he's saying the land belongs to you. You are the legitimate king. But he's wanting to, of course, submit this by means of a covenant. He wants to make sure that this is not just kind of a gentleman's agreement, but they actually swear a covenant with one another. Because, of course, he knows that his life could be in danger if David decides to act against him. So he puts forward the proposal, verse 12, and then David responds positively.

I mean, you couldn't receive better news if you're David. This is perfect. He's like, verse 13 begins, good. This is the Hebrew word for right on. That's right. Right on, man. Yes. Let's do this.

I mean, you can imagine as soon as there's been war between them. And, you know, I'm sure David's wondering, how is this all going to happen? How am I going to be king over all Israel? He doesn't want all the bloodshed associated with conquering the northern kingdom. That's just going to lead to bitterness. So now God has basically put this in his lap. So he says, great, I will make a covenant with you. But he has one condition.

and this one condition gets us back to David's wives that I mentioned at the beginning of the podcast he says I've got one not a request but a demand here's my one demand that you're not going to see my face unless you first bring Michal the daughter of Saul when you come to see me now even in the language of see my face we hear David speaking regally if you look at that particular idiomatic phrase from almost the beginning of Scripture throughout the rest of it, throughout the rest of the Old Testament. To see someone's face is, in most cases, an idiom that means to see the face of a king. Or it could be used to see the face of God. For instance, when God wants, when Moses wants to see God's glories, he says, you shall not see my face. You shouldn't,

you shall not see the face of the king, but you're going to see my back. And that's what David is saying here you're not going to see my kingly face you're not going to come into my regal presence unless this happens you got to first bring me mccall the daughter of saul when you come to see me do you think this is a also a political move uh by david where he thinks that being married to saul's daughter is going to help anybody who thinks you know if you have a bunch of people that are like well it's really it's really it's really saul's family uh perhaps being married to to Saul's daughter having her around is a good thing because I mean David's got all these other wives I'm having a hard time believing that it's like all I've spent all of this time just grieving

the loss of of McCall I mean she's married to a different guy yeah right oh I uh we've seen multiple times but David is a he's a multi-faceted character and uh as you mentioned I think maybe in the last episode you know two things can be true at once you know he he can he might honestly miss her uh but at the same time he also knows that man you know if i'm gonna be saul's heir what a what a great opportunity to say well i'm also his son-in-law yeah you know this puts me right in the family yeah and i i like that the the demand is also going to bring up exactly what he had to do to make her his wife this is he's just he's just wanted to remind people look uh this wedding arrangement did not come easy yeah it required uh some hunting yes and some and some gathering

so uh now the next verse it kind of caught i had not noticed this until i was uh preparing this morning kind of interesting language so it doesn't say that abner sent messengers to saying you need to give david his wife back it says david sent messengers to each so this is king to king saying uh here's what you need to do so i between the lines we we know just because of the preceding narrative that abner was the the one who really made this happen but it it is interesting the language it used so david sent messengers to each and saw son and said give me my wife mccall and here's what we're talking about to whom i was betrothed for 104 skins of the philistines the most uh unique that's not a dowry but i don't want you the most unique way

to win a bride perhaps in the history of uh of humanity it's definitely different than you know jacob uh trying to get some wives from laban seven years different than that so uh verse 15 says that uh ish bullshit complied says he sent and took her from her husband from paltiel the son of laish no we don't know anything about this guy bummer man the next verse oh yeah oh yeah i mean i i was gonna say the next verse man i my heart goes out to this guy it's really it's kind of it's an emotional scene it says in in verse 16 so this is after they you know sent to take her away that their husband went with her and he's weeping as he goes along and he follows her as as far as this place called Baharim and then Abner I guess he gets tired of this turns around and

says go returned so he so he went back but man that's a that's a short short description but it's a pretty moving scene so yeah I mean how could your heart not go out to this this poor guy you know he's obviously loves her they're married if you remember the story uh Saul took her away from David even though that was there's no precedent for that in biblical law but he did he's the king I guess he did what he wanted but he took her away from from David even and David was fleeing from Saul in the wilderness and he gives her to this other guy and uh this other guy loved her and so he's following along I guess until Abner decides he's going to threaten him if uh if he doesn't turn back you know it's not it's a possibly uh a foreshadowing

of problems that are gonna haunt david later on when he takes takes a wife away from the guy you know this is a little bit different situation granted but this could not have this could not have been received well i would think by the people who were really devoted to saul oh so You've got six wives, but you're going to take Michal away from this guy. And it's like, you don't have enough wives already. But it's so possible we see kind of a foreshadowing of what David is to engage in, in a much more sinister way later on. Anyway, that scenario happens. Verse 17, we pick up the story of Abner.

Abner had a consultation with the elders of Israel. So he's making his moves. He's going and he's going to talk with various groups of people. So he first goes to elders of Israel and he says, look, in times past, you were seeking for David to be king over you. Now then, do it. For the Lord has spoken of David saying, by the hand of my servant, David, I will save my people Israel from the hand of the Philistines and from the hand of all their enemies.

And then he went and he spoke to the people of Benjamin. And then it picks up the story with him going to see David in Hebron. Now, I was reflecting on his words. I don't know if this is Abner just kind of making up stuff. Yeah, I was about to say, I don't recall God saying these exact words. This isn't like a quote. I mean, it's a quote. It's in quotations in the text, but he's not saying, thus said the prophet Samuel or something like that.

He's just saying, this is what it is. It's almost like he's telling people, you know what God has said about David? And everyone's there listening is like, yeah, okay. I mean, like you're telling people something that they're supposed to know. No one wants to be like, who said that? Yeah. Do you have a scripture? Do you have a chapter and verse on that?

Yeah. Well, not just that, but even the preceding verse where he says, you know, all those times you were wanting David to be king over you? And I'm thinking, I don't really remember that happening either. Abner's a very persuasive guy By like putting Thoughts in your head He's like listen I know For a long time you guys have wanted this

And somehow the people are like yeah Yeah I guess Now that you say it I guess we did Just convince you of Things you don't think Or maybe Abner's Just like he's so powerful

That people are like yeah that's what we thought Whatever you say Abner will will agree with you but anyway he's he is persuasive yeah i mean he was confident about his ability to do this from the jump i mean he is like i'll give you the kingdom if you want i mean because uh i can do that and so yeah he had no doubt that he could accomplish this yeah abner was not lacking in confidence that is that is for sure so he he kind of you know he greases the wheels up in the northern kingdom and then uh says he goes to uh to hebron where david's at and uh all seemed good to israel into the whole house of benjamin and then he takes his so he

takes his 20 guys and they go to hebron to david and of course david's you know he's very happy that abner shows up they make this feast and not just a feast for david and for abner but for everybody who's there. Now, Joab, this is very important. Joab is not there. So Joab, David's military leader, is absent. Remember, Joab is David's nephew, the son of David's sister. So he's probably out, you know, making a raid or something like that. So he's not there. And that becomes crucial to the story. Because if you remember from the previous chapter, Abner had been chased by joab's brother azahel and when azahel wouldn't give up the chase abner stopped shoved his spear backward and killed joab's brother all right so you got this family dynamic

and family feud is kind of hovering in the background here yeah and this is going to color exactly how joab views abner i mean we're going to get there but joab's got a couple of reasons to not want abner around one is that he killed his brother and so that's usually not someone you want uh around and also they're both military leaders and abner seems like the kind of guy that is not just a military leader but that is extremely well liked um has a has a ton of influence you know so i'm sure i'm sure joab's like this is a little bit of a threat to my position i mean david's making covenants with this dude like it's this is that's like the worst person for you to to to have coming for your job is the guy that killed your brother i mean so this is there's obviously

this is this is going to be a tense situation yeah there there could not be a worse person from joab's perspective to bring over this whole kingdom to to david it's like the last person that he would ever want to be working with or threatened by because of all those reasons you just you just mentioned so anyway that's yeah that's going to become important in a few more verses but first of all what happens between david and abner well they have the feast and uh abner said to david more or less let me go you know we've settled everything let me arise and go and i'll gather all israel to my lord the king so he's called he's referring to david as as a king here and that they may make a covenant with you and that you may be king over all that your your soul

desires so once more abner is promising what no doubt he is going to be able to deliver and this is music to david's ears this is you know there's been war for years and david is not the kind of king who's going to want to go in conquer the northern kingdom and impose himself over the people of who were following saul he knows that's going to be a a recipe for disaster so once this has happened i mean it seems as if at this point of the story this is like this is everything is falling into place everything is perfect nothing could have been better for david than this to happen so uh now there's a there's an ominous there's an ominous phrase or maybe ominous isn't the best word, but there's a significant phrase that occurs three times

in verse 21, 22, and 23. And it's that he went in peace, or he had gone in peace. And in the Hebrew, it's the exact same thing all three times. The Yalik B'Shalom, the Yalik B'Shalom, the Yalik B'Shalom, meaning he went in shalom. He went in peace. This is It's repeated three times to make sure that we don't miss this. So David sent Abner away, and he went in peace. So everything's good. Verse 22, the servants of David and Joab come in from a raid. So like I mentioned earlier, they had been out doing what David used to do.

They brought a whole bunch of spoil back with them. Now, Abner was not with David and Hebron at this point because he'd already gone away, and he had gone in peace once more. Same phrase, verse 22. so joab and his army they get back and somebody it says they told joab or it was told to joe i was i don't know who told him this but somebody reported what happened and here's what they said abner came to the king and he has sent him away and he's gone in peace so three times this is accented and this is this is their way of just saying uh he was here and then david sent him

away but didn't send him away in a uh you need to leave or i'm gonna kill you send him away like they're they're all he sent him away but they're good yeah yeah i mean this is like a almost technical language it didn't mean to like everything you know was they they made the agreement or whatever this is like kind of an official everything was good they made the covenant they had the feast everything was settled everything was shalom everything was just peaceful as it should be between them but joab here's what joab says when he hears about this he comes to the king, and he says, what have you done? Look, Abner came to you. Why then have you sent him away? And I'm reading the New American Standard here, and he is already gone. Now, what's important,

if you were looking at this in Hebrew, you'd see three times, the Yelek Boshalom, the Yelek Boshalom, the Yelek Boshalom, and he went away in peace. Now, when Joab gets back, he says not the yalek b'shalom but the yalek halok halok can be translated he's already gone but what's interesting is that sometimes that is used as a synonym for dead it's almost there's almost a hint here job doesn't say he's gone away in peace he's already gone with especially from what we know happens afterward with a kind of an ominous threat that's attached to that like yeah he's a goner, we might translate it in English. He went away and he is a goner. So, and then he goes on to say, you know, he's talking to David, you know Abner the son of Ner. The reason he came was to

deceive you and to learn of your going out and your coming in and to find out all that you're doing. I think we've talked about before how to go out and to come in is a idiomatic Hebrew phrase that that's often connected with military activity so you go out you wage war you go out and you make a raid then you come back so he came to check out more or less to spy on what you're what you're doing yeah now this of course we know is not true uh even though even though joab says you know this is what happened he obviously is not as persuasive as abner when abner says you know something that you don't know you start to think that you know it uh joab not so much because this is not true and david doesn't think it's true yeah yeah and you well of course if you're joab uh you probably

would interpret every single action of abner negatively yeah yeah not only did he kill your brother and so you've got revenge on your mind but he is also the most powerful military leader almost in the history of israel so uh that's that's the way he responds now david interestingly he does not respond. At least if he did, we're not told how David responded to Joab when he says this. There's just kind of a break in the conversation. That's how it ends. Now, verse 26 says that Joab, he decided he would act unilaterally. So as soon as he leaves David, he sent some messengers. He's like, hey, I want you to go and find Abner. Evidently, he was still on his way back. So they brought him back from this place called the well of Sirah.

and David did not know about it. Now this chapter goes to pains to make sure that we know that David had absolutely nothing to do with what's about to transpire. That David is completely innocent here. Yeah, and David was probably used, or his name was used. Joab's going to send messengers to tell him to come back. And it doesn't seem like they went and captured him.

They just said to come back. And so they probably said, you need to come back, David. David wants you to come back. yeah yeah that's a bold move if you're joe abba because i i don't think i don't think kings like it when you do that when you do that sort of thing no it's the the equivalent of using the lord's name in vain right yeah using the it's like a yeah pinning a letter on the president's letterhead or something you're you're you're asking for trouble well uh what happens we're told very very briefly verse 27 what transpired abner comes back he comes to hebron now side note here hebron is one of the

cities of refuge so hebron is one of those places to which you flee if you have accidentally killed someone so that adds a kind of another layer to what's about to happen here hebron is supposed to be a neutral space in other words where people are safe where they can actually seek refuge if they've killed someone. So Abner goes back to Hebron. Joab takes him aside into the middle of the gate to speak with him privately. So Joab is acting kind of like, hey, we need to maybe talk about some military matters or whatever it might be. He's taking him aside. Listen, let me bend your ear for a minute. Let me talk to you about something. And when he gets him in there, it says that he struck him in the belly so that he died on account of the blood of Azahel, his brother.

so this is kind of a tit-for-tat murder revenge murder because as a hell joab's brother was killed when abner used his spear thrust it backward and it hit him in the belly and so probably joab thinks this is a uh you know a rightful way to seek his to seek his revenge but of course it's uh it's cowardly i mean this is this is there's nothing that's uh that's bold about this a courageous or warrior like this is nothing more than an assassination yeah and it probably tells you that joe ab doesn't necessarily think that he can maybe kill abner uh if he just faces him if he just you know says hey uh come over here and then you know says uh we're you and i are about to do this right now in front of everybody yeah apparently joe ab does not yeah apparently

joe ab doesn't think that that that will end well for him yeah so i mean it that particular episode So it tells you a lot about Joab. We'll see Joab's story unravel as we go through the rest of 2 Samuel and into in the book of 1 Kings. But he kills him, it says, on account of the blood of Aziel, his brother. So he's seeking revenge, doing the same thing that we discussed, I believe, last time, where you have this Goel Hadam, this redeemer of blood, where he's out to seek vengeance for the death of his brother. but of course this just unravels david hears about it and he says i and my kingdom are innocent

before the lord forever on the account of the blood of abner the son of nair and then he issues this five-fold curse on the house of joab so david's not discontent to say listen i had nothing to do with this he actually curses the house of joab who is his nephew he's cursing somebody who's a part of his own family he says may it fall on the head of joab probably meaning the blood guilt may the blood guilt fall on the head of joab and all his father's house and may they not fail from the house of joab one who has a discharge or is a leper who takes hold of a spindle or who falls by the sword or who lacks or who lacks bread so he's just he's kind of picking from various curses that could be uttered against uh against someone and we'll see as we're almost out of time now but

We'll see how this kind of unfolds in the rest of the chapter. But when I was going through this, I was reminded of one of my favorite quotes by Robert Capon. And listeners maybe have come across this too. But I often think this quote when something like this happens in the scriptures. The quote is this, what has really made a mess of our world? Grace, forgiveness, turning the other cheek? Or is it guilt, punishment, vengeance, and retribution? and this is just a classic case of classic case of of this because this is going to i mean the

chance that david had here of uniting the kingdom under the activity of abner as it's just been destroyed and not just destroyed but now you have you know people are going to think david was behind this and you have a man murdered and now you're going to you know you kill my family remember i kill yours it's going to kind of go back and forth and escalate all because someone was seeking vengeance seeking seeking retribution and man don't we don't we see this all over the scriptures and all over i mean our our our lives as well today that almost every single time you've got a mess of mess in the world it's not related to grace or forgiveness or turn to the other cheek but it's because of somebody seeking vengeance or guilt or punishment or retribution yeah and

And this is too, I mean, this isn't like Abner had killed his brother in this sort of cowardly way when we talked about that episode. This is easy to paint as self-defense. I mean, Abner was trying to get away from him and eventually somebody was going to have to die, but he wasn't chasing down his brother. And so the whole thing is cowardly. you have to think that if joab were not uh david's nephew that there's no chance that he survives this

no no i mean in fact i'm kind of surprised that david does not have him cut down as a result of this and i don't i don't know exactly why but david does everything to make sure that everybody knows i mean he kind of stages a media event you might say afterward we'll see that next episode but they have you know he chants a lament they have a funeral he makes he makes joab put on sackcloth and walk behind the uh the casket more or less so david wants to make sure that listen i had zero to do with this i was completely opposed to it this is all joab's doing now why did he not take joab out you know i well i suppose eventually that's going to happen he's going to let kind of uh not nature take its course but uh the the blood guilt take its course over

time yeah but yeah you you would have to assume that if there if this wasn't uh if this wasn't part of his family i don't think there's no chance that you that you survived this no no absolutely not because because like a like i said this was this was a perfectly wrapped present that was placed into david's lap that wasn't just good for david it's good for everybody you know north south everybody involved so many lives would have been saved but because of this one act of vengeance uh all of that was was ruined and so it's going to take some more time before the kingdom is able to unite under under david and that is it man we are we are much out of time we are way out of time uh and so we will pick it back up david uh pro lamenter that he is is gonna spin out another

good one it makes abner seem like pretty great guy especially when you're you're writing songs about the general of your enemy it's it's something man so we'll we'll check that out next week all right see you then