Pray For The Peace of Jerusalem

Personalities

2 Samuel 3:22-39

Joab Murders Abner

22 Just then David's men and Joab returned from a raid and brought with them a great deal of plunder. But Abner was no longer with David in Hebron, because David had sent him away, and he had gone in peace. 23 When Joab and all the soldiers with him arrived, he was told that Abner son of Ner had come to the king and that the king had sent him away and that he had gone in peace.

24 So Joab went to the king and said, “What have you done? Look, Abner came to you. Why did you let him go? Now he is gone! 25 You know Abner son of Ner; he came to deceive you and observe your movements and find out everything you are doing.”

26 Joab then left David and sent messengers after Abner, and they brought him back from the cistern at Sirah. But David did not know it. 27 Now when Abner returned to Hebron, Joab took him aside into an inner chamber, as if to speak with him privately. And there, to avenge the blood of his brother Asahel, Joab stabbed him in the stomach, and he died.

28 Later, when David heard about this, he said, “I and my kingdom are forever innocent before the Lord concerning the blood of Abner son of Ner. 29 May his blood fall on the head of Joab and on his whole family! May Joab’s family never be without someone who has a running sore or leprosy[a] or who leans on a crutch or who falls by the sword or who lacks food.”

30 (Joab and his brother Abishai murdered Abner because he had killed their brother Asahel in the battle at Gibeon.)

31 Then David said to Joab and all the people with him, “Tear your clothes and put on sackcloth and walk in mourning in front of Abner.” King David himself walked behind the bier. 32 They buried Abner in Hebron, and the king wept aloud at Abner's tomb. All the people wept also.

33 The king sang this lament for Abner:

“Should Abner have died as the lawless die?

34 Your hands were not bound,
  your feet were not fettered.
 You fell as one falls before the wicked.”
And all the people wept over him again.

35 Then they all came and urged David to eat something while it was still day; but David took an oath, saying, “May God deal with me, be it ever so severely, if I taste bread or anything else before the sun sets!”

36 All the people took note and were pleased; indeed, everything the king did pleased them. 37 So on that day all the people there and all Israel knew that the king had no part in the murder of Abner son of Ner.

38 Then the king said to his men, “Do you not realize that a commander and a great man has fallen in Israel this day? 39 And today, though I am the anointed king, I am weak, and these sons of Zeruiah are too strong for me. May the Lord repay the evildoer according to his evil deeds!”

Footnotes

a 2 Samuel 3:29 The Hebrew for leprosy was used for various diseases affecting the skin.

New International Version (NIV)

Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

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Since I was born less than eight years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki and a year before the first H-Bomb Test, my childhood was filled with images of Total Annihilation of Planet Earth. Creaky, Low-Budget Sci-Fi Movies (and some good ones too) filled my head with thoughts of The End of The World. My favorite was "The Day The Earth Stood Still". Along with Sci-Fi, I also watched a lot of Strategic Air Command Training Films, as my Dad spent quite a bit of time repairing them as part of his job. (I never figured that one out!). Along with Sci-Fi and the SAC films, there were constant ads on TV for Fallout Shelters and Civil Defense Instruction. In School, we had "Duck-and-Cover", "Air-Raid Drills", and, of course, The Cuban Missile Crisis, which scared the pants off of me.

Perhaps the scariest thing of all was when I would be watching Captain Kangaroo and suddenly the program would be interrupted by a loud siren. After the siren had screamed for what seemed like forever, a manly voice would intone:

"THIS HAS BEEN A TEST. HAD IT BEEN AN ACTUAL ALERT, YOU WOULD HAVE RECEIVED FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS. THIS IS ONLY A TEST."

Whew! But I knew in my heart that one day, the alarm would sound and the voice would say something different, as in:

"THIS IS NOT A TEST!"

I shudder to think of what the "Further Instructions" would be.

In spite of the enormity of the threat (The Total End of Everything), most Atomic Spies, War Criminals, and old Nazis received a trial before they were found guilty, and often, executed. Nuremberg, The Eichmann Trial, and the Rosenbergs are all examples. Whether one agrees with the verdicts or the sentences, at least there was some due process. Obviously, this was not the case in the time of David. There were lots of scores to settle, and it appears that both friends and enemies of David did whatever was right in their own eyes.

David's personality seems to have been at odds with this form of "Frontier Justice". Some enemies he forgave and won over to his side. Others he judged harshly and ordered executions.

One thing that he did NOT tolerate, though, was when people took justice and retribution into their own hands, without consulting him.

We will see in the days ahead how David dealt with the rocky first years of his reign, and Saul's entrenched bureaucracy.

Come and Pray For the Peace of Jerusalem, For Our FRiends in Need, For Persecuted Believers, and For Our Beloved Nation.

Blessed Is The Nation Whose God Is The LORD (Psalm 33)

God Bless America.

Blessings To All Who Visit This Garden of Prayer.

Hallelujah and Amen

ML/LTOS

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Pray For The Peace of Jerusalem

Pray For The Peace of Jerusalem