John Kitto Morning Bible Devotions: September 7

Online Resource Library

Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | Download

John Kitto Morning Bible Devotions: September 7

Today is: Wednesday, April 24th, 2024 (Show Today's Devotion)

Select a Day for a Devotion in the Month of September: (Show All Months)

Treachery Punished

2 Samuel 4

At the first view, the death of Abner may seem to have been disastrous to the cause of David; but it may be doubted whether it was not eventually an advantage to him. Abner had been the chief, if not the sole, obstacle to the union of the tribes under Jesse’s son. His consent had already removed that obstacle, and his death did but the more effectually remove it. Besides, had he lived, he was likely to have claimed all the merit of David’s exaltation, and it would have been difficult to recompense him adequately, to his own sense of his deservings. The command of the army he must have had, and this was probably the first of his stipulations; and a man of his temper, and in his position, would have been likely to vaunt (like our Earl of Warwick, under Edward IV), on any occasion of discontent, that he could make and unmake kings at his pleasure, and might want but little inducement, from pique or ambition, to make further trial to establish the reality of that pretension. The high position which must have been given to him, could not but have excited discontent among the brave men who, in the dark day, had cast in their lot with David, and would have exposed him to the bitter taunt which Joab, at a later day, ventured to utter: “Thou hatest thy friends and lovest thine enemies!” Upon the whole, it seems well for David’s peace that Abner was removed at this time, however the mode of his removal may be abhorred.

When Ishbosheth heard of Abner’s death he gave up all for lost—not knowing that his death could not be more dangerous to the crown than his life would have been. The tribes were for the moment perplexed, less, it would seem, from any doubt as to the result, than because the conduct of their negotiation with David had been committed to Abner. They might also be under some doubt how to act with reference to Ishbosheth, who had been acknowledged as their king, and whose very feebleness of character prevented him from having any enemies, and rendered him an object of compassion. It is very probable that, unless some other strong man had risen up to maintain his cause, Ishbosheth would in a short time, when he came to comprehend the real state of the people’s mind, have made a voluntary resignation to David. But while men were talking together about these things, the news spread rapidly through the land that Ishbosheth also was dead.

It was even so. At his own court, his cause was despaired of, and men began to consider how to do best for themselves. Two officers of his guard, named Rechab and Baanah, formed the notion, that their advancement under the future king would be essentially promoted by their sweeping from his path the feeble life which seemed to lie between him and his destined throne. They therefore conspired to slay their master. In the heat of the day, when the king and most of the persons about were taking the repose customary in eastern lands, they entered the palace as if to procure some corn from the royal stores; and, penetrating to the private apartment in which Ishbosheth slumbered, they smote off his head, and bore it away undiscovered, probably placing it in the bag among the corn they had pretended to require. They posted away to Hebron with their prize, and presented the ghastly trophy of their crime to David, with the words—“Behold the head of Ishbosheth the son of Saul, thine enemy, who sought thy life: and the Lord hath avenged my lord the king, this day, of Saul and of his seed.” These words were artfully concocted, to put David into a frame of mind favorable to their views. But it was in vain. The king was, for a moment, mute with horror and detestation. It was dreadful, that men should thus continually seek to win his favor by crimes which his soul abhorred. He spoke at last, and terrible were his words—“As the Lord liveth, who hath redeemed my soul out of all adversity, when one told me, saying, Saul is dead, I took hold of him and slew him in Ziklag; who thought I would have given him a reward for his tidings. How much more, when wicked men have slain a righteous person in his own house, in his bed? Shall I not therefore require his blood at your hands, and take you away from the earth?” He then immediately commanded them to be slain, and their hands and feet, the instruments and messengers of murder to be cut off and hanged up over the pool in Hebron, as monuments of the condign punishment of such frightful treachery. The head of Ishbosheth was honorably deposited in the tomb which had been prepared for Abner.

We have quoted at length the words of David, that we may be enabled to invite the reader to observe how finely his indignation is painted in that hurry and impetuosity of language, which carries him directly to the execution of the Amalekite, without waiting to mention any of the circumstances which tended to alleviate his guilt; and yet he adds, as if he had mentioned them all at large—“How much more, when wicked men have slain a righteous person!” etc. If he had put the Amalekite to death for merely saying that he had slain Saul, even at his own command, and when he despaired of his own life, how much more would he take signal vengeance of their united treachery and murder? The Amalekite might have some ground of vengeance against Saul, in respect of the destruction he had wrought upon his nation; but what had they—the trusted servants of Ishbosheth, the appointed guardians of his life—what had they to allege against their master?

The conduct of David towards the murderers of one who was, at least officially, his chief public enemy, may well be compared with that, of Alexander to the slayer of Darius, and contrasted with that of Antony to the assassins of Cicero. In the former case, when Darius found that Bessus was plotting against his life, he did his great enemy the credit of believing, that the traitor would fail to win from the generous conqueror the approbation and reward he expected. Nor was he mistaken in this. Alexander sternly and terribly rebuked the assassin—“With what rage of a wild beast was thou possest, that thou durst first bind and then murder a sovereign to whom thou wast under the highest obligations?” and, rejecting his attempted extenuation of his crime with abhorrence, gave him over to the torture and death of the cross. On the same principle it was that Caesar put to death the murderers of Pompey; and that the Romans sent back the Faliscian schoolmaster under the lashes of his own scholars.

With all this, and especially with the conduct of David, contrast the behavior of a man of far meaner spirit, though of immortal name. Mark Antony caused Cicero to be most cruelly murdered, and commanded his head and right hand to be cut off and brought to him. When these melancholy memorials of that eloquent tongue and gifted intellect—able, one would think, to move the sternest enemy to tears—were laid before him, Antony beheld them with visible and avowed satisfaction, and even broke forth into peals of exulting laughter; and after he had fully satiated his indecent joy with the sight, he ordered the head to be placed upon the rostra of the Forum, to insult him yet more after his death.

The cutting off the murderers’ hands and feet, is clearly intended as a real, though somewhat metaphorical, application of the lex talionis—the crimes which the hands or feet have committed, being punished by the excision of these members. It is remarkable that in our own law—that is, in the letter of it—such mutilation only remains as a punishment for offences against the majesty of the sovereign; the loss of the hand being ordained for striking within the limits of the king’s court, or in the presence of his judicial representative. In the Book of Moses the lex talionis, “eye for eye, and tooth for tooth,” is distinctly laid down; but we find no examples of its literal enforcement, unless in the instance of Adonizedek, Note: Twenty-Second Week—Friday. and in the present case, in which it is executed upon the dead body, as superadded to capital punishment. We infer from this, that, as among the Arabs of the present day, mutilations were generally commuted for pecuniary fines, so much being the assigned value of an eye, so much of a tooth, and so on. In fact, there is no history of ancient times, nor any of the modern East, in which we read so little of mutilations as in the Bible. At the present day, mutilating punishments are frequent among Orientals; and are inflicted, according to no definite rule, upon those whose situation in life renders them subject to the immediate operations of arbitrary power. But in other cases, where the law is left to its regular action, the excision of the hand is usually for offences of the hand, as theft, forgery, etc. In some Mohammedan nations, as Persia, robbery and theft are punished with death, though the Moslem law directs only mutilation; and this law was formerly so much observed in Moslem countries, that, as the readers of the Thousand and One Nights will recollect, the loss of the hand was a permanent stain upon a man’s character, as evincing that he had been punished for robbery or theft.