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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadGreater Men and Women of the Bible by James Hastings: 314. Joab and Solomon
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Joab and Solomon
Great masses, who knew Napoleon only in his public capacity, chiefly as a general, adored him to the last. The private soldiers who marched from France to Waterloo were inspired with an enthusiasm for him which at least equalled that of the soldiers at Marengo or Austerlitz. But that enthusiasm diminished in proportion to remoteness from the rank and file. Officers felt it less in an ascending scale, and when the summit was reached it was no longer perceptible. Berthier, his lifelong comrade, the messmate of his campaigns, his confidant, deserted him without a word, and did not blush to become captain of Louis xviii.'s bodyguard. His marshals, the companions of his victories, all left him at Fountainbleau, some with contumely. Ney insulted him in 1814, Davoust in 1815. Marmont, the petted child of his favour, conspicuously betrayed him. The loyal Caulaincourt found a limit to his devotion at last. Even his body attendants, Constant and Rustan, the valet who always tended him, and the Mameluke who slept against his door, abandoned him. It was difficult to collect a handful of officers to accompany him to Elba, much more difficult to find a few for St. Helena.1 [Note: Lord Rosebery, Napoleon: the Last Phase, 250.]
2. Solomon, upon his accession to the throne, considered it prudent to rid himself of Joab, whose influence with the army might have constituted a serious danger to the new monarch. No doubt a desire to wipe away from his house the stain of the unavenged blood of Abner and Amasa partly influenced Solomon, but State reasons must have predominated. Joab, on hearing that Adonijah had been put to death and Abiathar deposed, needed no further intimation that his own life was in danger, and he fled to the asylum of the altar. It was the hour of his desperation; the pressure of destiny was upon his heart, the hand of retribution had laid hold upon him; and rather than die like Judas, he would lay hold upon the horns of the altar as his only means of salvation. But he had no right to do so. He was one of those expressly forbidden by the law of Moses (Deu_19:12) to enter the tabernacle, or to lay hold upon the horns of the altar. As a murderer-as a murderer “with guile,” as a murderer with deliberate purpose-he had no right to take refuge in God's sanctuary, or to lay hold upon the altar with his defiled hands. As far as we can judge, he had shown little respect to religion during his lifetime. He was a rough man of war, and cared little about God, or the tabernacle, or the priests, or the altar; but when he was in danger, he fled to that which he had avoided, and sought to make a refuge of that which he had neglected.
Nemesis is lame, but she is of colossal stature, like the gods; and sometimes, while her sword is not yet unsheathed, she stretches out her huge left arm and grasps her victim. The mighty hand is visible, but the victim totters under the dire clutch.1 [Note: George Eliot, Scenes of Clerical Life.]
3. The same disregard of ceremonial sanctity as Solomon had shown in deposing the venerable Abiathar he now showed by deciding that even the sacredness of the altar was not to protect the man who had reeked with the blood of Abner and Amasa; and accordingly the white-headed warrior of a hundred fights, with his hands still clasping the consecrated structure, was slain by the hands of his ancient comrade Benaiah, whose readiness to act as executioner was doubtless all the greater because he thus secured the reversion of the office of commander-in-chief for himself. The body was buried in funeral state at Joab's own property in the hills overhanging the Jordan valley.
According to 1Ki_2:1-12, Solomon, in the execution of Joab, acted in obedience to the dying injunction of David. Wellhausen and Stade hold, however, that this passage is an unhistorical interpolation. The hand of the Deuteronomic redactor is certainly evident in 1Ki_2:3, but Budde, following Kuenen, defends the antiquity (without committing himself to the historicity) of at least 1Ki_2:5-9.
4. Joab died hated because he was a cruel, relentless man, and knew not what mercy was until he called for it himself-in vain. He never knew the greatness of gentleness, the hallowedness of failure; his life was an almost uninterrupted success, which is perhaps the worst thing that can happen to any man. And he did not mellow with the years, as some do, and as all should, but continued self-opinionated, dogmatic, and overbearing to the last; the hot, fierce noon of life had no soft gloaming, full of half-lights and shadows, but the sun was suddenly blotted out by midnight darkness. The land trembles as Joab rises on the stepping-stones of murdered men to the shining top of power and honour, only to fall under the sword of a too slow justice, an outlaw from the love and the pity of all men. When the curtain fell, there was no eye to pity, no tears were shed; there was only a sigh of relief that there was one tyrant less; for the world can get on better without its Joabs than with them.
Viewed as a strictly judicial proceeding, the trial of Strafford was as hollow as the yet more memorable trial in the same historic hall eight years later. Oliver St. John, in arguing the attainder before the Lords, put the real point. “Why should he have law himself who would not that others should have any? We indeed give laws to hares and deer, because they are beasts of chase; but we give none to wolves and foxes, but knock them on the head wherever they are found, because they are beasts of prey.” This was the whole issue-not law, but My head or thy head. “Put not your trust in princes,” exclaimed Strafford when he learned the facts. “I dare look death in the face,” he said stoically, as he passed out of the Tower gate to the block; “I thank God I am not afraid of death, but do as cheerfully put off my doublet at this time as ever I did when I went to my bed.” “His mishaps,” said his confederate, Laud, “were that he groaned under the public envy of the nobles, and served a mild and gracious prince who knew not how to be nor to be made great.”1 [Note: Morley, Oliver Cromwell, 88.]
5. Great as were his crimes, Joab had been a faithful friend to David. He had evidently made the Judæan monarchy secure, and had saved David's throne in two great emergencies. There is no doubt that his character has often been unfairly estimated, either from lack of a due regard to the spirit of the age in which he lived, or from prejudice in favour of David and Solomon. The least that can be said is that he was a man of far-seeing, statesmanlike views, a brave soldier, a skilful commander, and a loyal subject. The Oriental is not usually distinguished for generosity to his enemies or scrupulousness in his methods of revenge, and Joab was no exception to this rule; but, taking everything into account, we feel that this great man deserved a better fate, and it leaves a painful impression upon us when we learn that, after he had served his king and his country so faithfully, his grey hairs were not suffered to go down to the grave in peace.
No one can confidently say whether an early death is a misfortune, for no one can really know what calamities would have befallen the dead man if his life had been prolonged. How often does it happen that the children of a dead parent do things or suffer things which would have broken his heart if he had lived to see them! How often do painful diseases lurk in germ in the body which would have produced unspeakable misery, if an early and perhaps a painless death had not anticipated their development! How often do mistakes and misfortunes cloud the evening and mar the beauty of a noble life, or mortal infirmities, unperceived in youth or early manhood break out before the day is over! Who is there who has not often said to himself as he looked back on a completed life, how much happier it would have been had it ended sooner? “Give us timely death” is in truth one of the best prayers that man can pray.1 [Note: W. E. H. Lecky, The Map of Life, 349.]
Seneca says that death ought not to be considered an evil when it has been preceded by a good life. What makes death so formidable is that which follows upon it. We have, however, the shield of a most blessed hope to protect us against the terrors that arise from fear of the Divine judgments. This hope makes us put our trust, not in our own virtue, but solely in the mercy of God, and assures us that those who trust in His goodness are never confounded. But you say, “I have committed many faults.” True, but who is so foolish as to think that he can commit more sins than God can pardon? Who would dare to compare the greatness of his guilt with the immensity of that infinite mercy which drowns his sins in the depths of the sea of oblivion each time we repent of them for love of Him? It belongs only to those who despair like Cain to say that their sin is so great that there is no pardon for them, for with God there is mercy and plentiful redemption, and He shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities.2 [Note: The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales, 348.]