John Kitto Morning Bible Devotions: September 4

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John Kitto Morning Bible Devotions: September 4

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The First Blow

2Sa_2:12-32

It seems to us highly probable, that the whole of the tribes would have invited David to reign over them, had they been left to follow their own convictions and impulses. Even those most indifferent to his cause would have shrunk from the responsibility of setting up a rival, and of thereby dividing the realm into two kingdoms, and that must have been the result; for although they might assert the right of appointing over themselves another king than David, they had no right to interfere with the choice which Judah had made, or to say that David should not be its king. Besides, there was no motive for opposition to one who came before them under the highest sanctions known to their institutions. He was untried as a king; there was hence nothing of which complaints could be made against him; and nations are always disposed to hope more from an untried man than from one whose worst and whose best they know. But it was only as a king that David was not tried—as a public man, as a general, as one chosen of God, he was already well known and eminent; and what was thus known must have led to the expectation that his reign would be beneficent and glorious.

The natural result which might have been expected to flow from these considerations was, however, prevented by Abner, the first cousin of Saul, and who had long been chief captain of his host. This man was held in high respect throughout Israel, and his influence with the tribes was very great. This he determined to exert in upholding the house of Saul; and he acted with the promptitude and decision which evince the great abilities for which he had credit, and insured his success. From what eventually transpires, it is indeed clear, as was but too natural under the circumstances, that views of personal ambition, and an unwillingness to sink into an inferior position to that which he had hitherto occupied, swayed him against his own convictions that David ought to reign, and that it was for the good of the country that he should do so. Besides, he was aware there were great men about David, whose claims, by services and nearness of blood, upon his consideration, were greater than any he could produce; and seeing that David’s character had not yet been tried by the possession of power, he may have doubted the safety of so eminent, and possibly dangerous, a member of Saul’s family as himself.

Abner, not less than David, seems to have attached great importance to the adhesion of the tribes beyond the Jordan, and therefore he crossed into the land of Gilead with Ishbosheth, the only surviving son of Saul, and proclaimed him king at Mahanaim. This step was not miscalculated. The western tribes successively gave in their adhesion, and David was, for the present, shut out from the expectation of establishing his authority over the whole nation. It was adverse to his policy, and would in itself have been fruitless, to attempt to coerce the tribes to accept him; he was therefore content to await the course of the Lord’s providence, assured that not one of the things which had been promised him would fail to be realized. There is no appearance that he sought to enter into any conflict with the house of Saul. This did indeed arise; but it seems to have arisen rather through some attempt of Abner upon the kingdom of Judah, than of David upon that of Ishbosheth. As a general rule, the military aggressor is he who marches an a armed force towards the territory of the other; and we find that Abner concentrates a large force at Gibeon, close upon the frontier of Judah. This had a threatening aspect, whatever was its intention; and a corresponding force advanced from David, to observe its movements. It was under the command of Joab, whose valor, whose military capacity, and the rough energies of whose character, had already given him that power with David, which he managed to maintain during his reign. Two such forces could not long remain apart; nor could two men of such fiery spirits as Abner and Joab, long stand in presence of each other with folded hands. Very shortly, a proposal came from Abner, that twelve picked men on each side should fight the matter out for the rest. This had the show of a wish to avoid the needless effusion of brothers’ blood, and was therefore a decency suitable to both parties on the commencement of such a conflict; although both sides must have been aware, from repeated experience, that nothing could in this way be conclusively settled. Twelve men stood forth on either side, out in the midst, between the two armies, and assailed each other with an inveteracy only known in civil conflicts. Each of the twelve on the opposite sides seized his opponent by the beard, and the whole twenty-four fell to the ground, slain by contrary wounds. A pregnant instance this of the inconvenience of beards in warfare, and an apt illustration of the saying of Alexander, of whom it is related by Plutarch in his Apophthegms, that when all things seemed ready for action, his captain asked him whether he had anything else to command them? He answered—“Nothing, but that the Macedonians shave their beards.” Parmenio expressed his wonder at this, when the monarch added—“Know you not, that in fight there is no better hold for the enemy than a beard?”

This result, as almost always happens in such cases, whatever be the original intention, brought on a general action, in which Abner’s troop was, after a severe struggle, obliged to give way, and fled before that of Joab. Abner himself was pursued by Joab’s swift-footed brother, Asahel, who, having formed the purpose of possessing himself of the spoils of this great chief, suffered not himself to be diverted to any other object. Eventually they were both far away from their companions, Abner fleeing and Asahel pursuing. Perceiving this, and knowing himself to be a far more powerful man than the light and agile pursuer, he begged him to desist from the pursuit, being anxious, as he said, that a brother’s blood should not lie between him and Joab, which would create a deadly animosity, where only a generous rivalry in arms existed now. This reasoning was not likely to have much weight with one who believed himself a match for the other; for, had he not so believed, he would not have pursued him. Finding this to be the case, and that Asahel followed close upon his steps, Abner gave a backward thrust with the heel of his spear, which was sharpened in order to its being stuck into the ground when the army was in cantonments. There needed no second stroke; the brother of Joab had received his death-blow, and lay weltering in blood upon the ground. The body was laid aside in the wood by some that came up after, so that when Joab came on he was not aware of what had happened.

At length, as the evening approached, Abner, being joined by some Benjamites, no longer fled. He stood on a vantage-ground upon the top of a hill, and made an earnest appeal to Joab’s better feelings against farther bloodshed. “Knowest thou not,” he said, “that it will be bitterness in the latter end,”—a point he might well have considered before he provoked this disastrous conflict. Joab, however, felt the force of the appeal, and he forthwith recalled his men from the pursuit by sound of trumpet. Abner, on his part, afraid probably that Joab might change his mind when he knew that his brother had been killed, marched all the night, and rested not until he had passed the Jordan, and found himself once more at Mahanaim.

The combat of twelve on each side, at the pool of Gibeon, may call to mind many similar transactions in history. Such affairs are frequent in Arabian warfare. Roman history affords a familiar instance in the combat of the Horatii and Curiatii. Not less familiar now is the incident in Scottish history on which Scott founded his tale of “The Fair Maid of Perth.” We may adduce this in the version of a German traveller (Kohl), for the sake of his closing remark—“In this year (1390) reigned in Scotland King Robert III, who, perceiving that, the wild refractory clans would annihilate one another in their endless contentions, proposed to the two hostile clans, clan Chattan and clan Kay, that they should settle their differences in the following manner. They were each to select their doughtiest men, and appear with them upon the Inches of Perth. These were to fight together in the presence of the king and his court; the victors were to be declared to have been in the right, and the vanquished were to forget and forgive. Thirty chosen warriors, children of the Kays, and the same number of Chattans, came down…. In the fight the clan Chattan triumphed; all the children of the Kay were slain but one, who leaped into the river Tay, and fled to the hills. Although we have all read this narrative in the Fair Maid of Perth, yet we cannot abstain from thinking once more of the circumstances, when upon the very spot, especially if the Tschergisses of the Caucasus, and the ancient Bible histories of the Philistines, Carmelites (?) and the other inhabitants of the mountains, occur to the memory, who agree altogether so remarkably in their manners, and when we again discover in these clans, clan feuds and clan fightings, and that in a similitude so exact, that they coincide in almost the slightest particular.”

The parley at the end of the day, between Abner and Joab, may remind one of that between Hector and Ajax in the seventh book of the Iliad. Hector had been the challenger at the commencement, and it is he who, like Abner, makes the motion for the cessation of the combat.

“Now let the combat cease. We shall not want

More fair occasion; on some future day

We will not part till all-disposing heaven

Shall give thee victory, or shall make her mine.

But night hath fallen, and night must be obeyed.”