The Way of Vengeance

Scripture: 2 Samuel 3: 22-39

Sermon: The Way of Vengeance

Topics: vengeance, violence, ambition, Joab

Preached: February 10, 2013 pm

Rev. Mike Abma

PREAMBLE

In our Friendship Ministry on Thursday evenings, we tell Bible Stories.

This winter we have been telling the stories of David:

David as a Shepherd Boy.

David Anointed as King over his many other brothers

David Defeating Goliath

David’s Kindness to Mephibosheth

All fairly nice stories – Sunday School Stories.

But many of us know there is also an Adult Version of David’s stories —

think of the stories of Bathsheba and later of Absalom’s rebellion.

Tonight we are going to be digging even deeper into what I’ll call the Gritty version of David’s story. Here we uncover the whole subtext of political intrigue and personal vendettas.

Before I read the text from 2 Samuel 3, let me set the context.

Saul has died in battle along with his son Jonathon.

Another son of Saul’s, named Ishbaal in some translations and Ishbosheth in others, has been crowned king in the northern tribes of Israel.

David has been crowned king in the southern tribe of Judah.

What occurs next is a Civil War between the North and the South.

Ishbaal’s military general is a cousin of his named Abner.

David has 3 military generals who are 3 of his nephews.

These are the sons of David’s sister Zeruiah,

who lead his army.

They are Joab, Abishai, and Asahel — Joab takes the lead role.

In the Civil War between these sides,

there is a battle.

In this battle Abner kills Asahel — reluctantly, but he kills him nonetheless.

By the time of our reading, the Civil War is coming to a close.

Abner has left Ishbaal and defected to David’s side.

Abner and David plan to talk peace in the southern city of Hebron, and things seem to be going splendidly.

That is where we pick up our reading.

2 Samuel 3: 20-39

20 When Abner came with twenty men to David at Hebron, David made a feast for Abner and the men who were with him. ²¹Abner said to David, ‘Let me go and rally all Israel to my lord the king, in order that they may make a covenant with you, and that you may reign over all that your heart desires.’ So David dismissed Abner, and he went away in peace.

22 Just then the servants of David arrived with Joab from a raid, bringing much spoil with them. But Abner was not with David at Hebron, for David^* had dismissed him, and he had gone away in peace. ²³When Joab and all the army that was with him came, it was told Joab, ‘Abner son of Ner came to the king, and he has dismissed him, and he has gone away in peace.’ ²⁴Then Joab went to the king and said, ‘What have you done? Abner came to you; why did you dismiss him, so that he got away? ²⁵You know that Abner son of Ner came to deceive you, and to learn your comings and goings and to learn all that you are doing.’

26 When Joab came out from David’s presence, he sent messengers after Abner, and they brought him back from the cistern of Sirah; but David did not know about it. ²⁷When Abner returned to Hebron, Joab took him aside in the gateway to speak with him privately, and there he stabbed him in the stomach. So Abner died for shedding^* the blood of Asahel, Joab’s^* brother.

²⁸Afterwards, when David heard of it, he said, ‘I and my kingdom are for ever guiltless before the Lord for the blood of Abner son of Ner. ²⁹May the guilt^* fall on the head of Joab, and on all his father’s house; and may the house of Joab never be without one who has a discharge, or who is leprous,^* or who holds a spindle, or who falls by the sword, or who lacks food!’

³⁰So 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 to all the people who were with him, ‘Tear your clothes, and put on sackcloth, and mourn over Abner.’ And King David followed the bier. ³²They buried Abner at Hebron. The king lifted up his voice and wept at the grave of Abner, and all the people wept.

³³The king lamented for Abner, saying,

‘Should Abner die as a fool dies?

³⁴ Your hands were not bound,

your feet were not fettered;

as one falls before the wicked

you have fallen.’

And all the people wept over him again. ³⁵Then all the people came to persuade David to eat something while it was still day; but David swore, saying, ‘So may God do to me, and more, if I taste bread or anything else before the sun goes down!’³⁶All the people took notice of it, and it pleased them; just as everything the king did pleased all the people.

³⁷So all the people and all Israel understood that day that the king had no part in the killing of Abner son of Ner. ³⁸And the king said to his servants, ‘Do you not know that a prince and a great man has fallen this day in Israel? ³⁹Today I am powerless, even though anointed king; these men, the sons of Zeruiah, are too violent for me. The Lord pay back the one who does wickedly in accordance with his wickedness!’

This is the Word of the Lord

Thanks be to God

THE MORAL FAILURE OF JOAB

There are some who try to put a positive spin on Joab’s actions in this chapter. They praise Joab’s unswerving loyalty to David.

They comment that David was actually privately pleased to be rid of Abner but that he needed to show public sorrow for the sake of a unified kingdom.

This is a pretty cynical reading of the text. It also fails to take into account that David continues to have a rather tense relationship with Joab for the rest of his reign.

The Biblical text is pretty clear in stating that Abner’s death was mainly a revenge killing. Abner had killed Joab’s brother, Asahel, and now Joab was killing Abner.

We didn’t read the text where Abner kills Asahel, but this is how that story went.

Abner was fleeing from a losing battle.

Asahel was in hot pursuit.

Abner implored Asahel twice to turn away – Abner did not want to fight Asahel.

But Asahel refused, and died as a consequence.

How different was that death from this vengeance killing of Joab:

summoning Abner back on false pretenses;

then killing him in a dark corner while Abner was basically defenseless.

And on top of that Hebron was officially a city of Refuge — a place where such revenge killings were strictly forbidden.

The more we read the David story, and Joab’s role in it, the more we realize that there was probably more than revenge going on here.

Abner was the head of the Israelite army.

David would need to reward Abner in some way for rallying all of Israel to David’s side. In other words, Abner stood to become David’s new military general.

There are two things consistent in Joab’s story:

he is absolutely loyal to David;

but he also does whatever it takes to remain his right-hand man.

So here we have a crime of vengeance and ambition.

a crime of getting even

but also of getting and staying ahead.

MORAL FAILURES OF DAVID

David clearly is not happy with what Joab has done.

Privately he curses Joab with a string of curses.

Some of them are clear enough –

that his house has someone with a discharge or leprosy (both types of illness);

that someone falls by the sword (violence) or lack food (poverty).

But the curse to hold a spindle is a mystery to most Biblical scholars.

The best guess is that Joab’s descendants are not very manly.

Privately David curses Joab.

Publicly David puts on sackcloth and ashes and mourns the death of Abner,

lamenting and fasting.

David laments that he is powerless to do anything to Joab or his brother Abishai.

They are too violent, too hard, too harsh for him.

There is no clear consequence for Joab.

There is no trial for his misdeed.

No reprimand.

No demotion of rank: Joab remains commander in chief of the army.

Not only that, but Joab remains David’s go-to person throughout his reign.

And when David has his eye on Bathsheba and wants to be rid of her husband Uriah, David gives Joab the job of making sure Uriah died in battle.

MACHIAVELLIAN POLITICS and NIETZCHIAN ETHICS

Eugene Peterson calls Joab an ideologue,

someone who saw the world in black in white;

someone who was either totally for you or totally against you.

He also calls Joab a thug – someone who kills first and thinks later.

I agree he was an ideologue, but I do not think he was a slow-thinking thug.

Read the whole story,

how Joab remains the commander in chief for all of David’s reign,

and you realize he is not only a strong man but a shrewd man.

I see him as a bit of a mix between Machiavelli and Nietzche.

Let me explain that.

Back in the early 16^th century a man named Nicolo Machiavelli wrote about the politics of his time. Machiavelli believed that the end justifies the means.

According to Machiavelli, sometimes leaders had to be ruthlessly ambitious.

Machiavelli commented on something that happened in Italy.

Pope Julius II had sent his troops to Perugia to arrest the leader of that city, a man named Baglioni. Now Baglioni was a bad man, guilty of a string of crimes. And that is why the Pope came to arrest him. When the Pope’s troops arrived, Baglioni surrendered without a fight.

Machiavelli wrote that Baglioni was foolish.

He let his regard for the Pope stand in the way.

He had the power to resist arrest,

and he should have used that power to trounce the Pope’s troops.

Interestingly, both Protestants and Catholics denounced Machiavelli’s views.

They called them immoral and indecent.

But Machiavelli believed that you often needed to do what it took to get rid of people who stood in your way – the ends justify the means.

Now mix some Machiavelli with a bit of Nietzche, the German philosopher of the late 19^th century.

Nietzche is complicated, and I am sure this is too simplistic a view,

but he basically believed we all act out of self-interest.

There is no such thing as compassion.

We are all basically ambitious, self-interested beings, with a desire for

power and control.

Can you see why Joab looks like a dash of Machiavelli and a pinch of Nietzche?

He does what it takes to get even.

He does what it takes to get ahead.

He seems to act beyond the bounds of right and wrong

and holding onto power means everything to him.

THE WORLD WE LIVE IN

We live in a world with many Joabs,

and many sons of Zeruiah.

I am thinking about what has been happening on the streets of our own city lately.

The end of 2012 and the beginning of 2013 we saw a rash of shootings in Grand Rapids. There were 7 killings alone in the month of December.

What perhaps started as a turf war,

escalated into one revenge killing after another.

And the people in these neighborhoods are afraid,

feeling much like David,

powerless to do anything in the face of such violence.

This mix of vengeance, ambition, self-interest

is perhaps most stark in these neighborhood shootings,

but similar attitudes and actions can be found in the white-collar world.

I just finished reading Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple computers.

What I learned is that Steve Jobs was also a bit of an ideologue,

someone who lived in a very black and white world

in which you were either for him or against him;

in which things were either excellent or garbage.

He could be, and often was,

ruthless in the way he conducted business and treated other people.

His biographer, Isaacson, even admits that Steve Jobs lived in a sort of Nietzchian world in which he did not think

rules or morals

applied to him.

He was above that.

He lived with very little compassion or compromise.

Vengeance and ambition were two huge motivating forces in his life.

Getting even and getting ahead were of utmost importance.

As I have thought about it this week,

getting even and getting ahead is the plot

of so many movies out there.

I began to realize that getting even and getting ahead

also dictates a lot of what we see happening in the world

as we drive down the road,

as we take classes at college,

as we work at our jobs.

In practically every enterprise,

we see the hard ways of the sons of Zeruiah

Some call this “the rough and tumble of the real world.”

Some say “To make a difference you need to get your hands dirty.”

But that begs the question,

What kind of difference are we trying to make?

What kind of kingdom are we trying to bring?

ANOTHER KINGDOM

We have been preaching through the Sermon on the Mount this winter

and that sermon describes a different kind of Kingdom.

In this Kingdom, it is not “any means necessary to achieve the end.”

No, in this Kingdom the means are the end.

We live peaceably to bring peace.

We live mercifully to bring mercy.

We live with kindness to bring kindness.

In this Kingdom, we also serve a King who embodies the opposite of

getting even

and getting ahead.

We serve a King who lowered himself,

who stooped down, way down,

in order to include us in his Kingdom.

We serve a King who was put to death outside the gates of a city.

He had the power to retaliate, to obliterate.

But instead he forgave his tormentors.

And only weeks later that same city was

invited to turn to this crucified and risen King and Lord,

and to accept his Kingdom as the only Kingdom which will not fail.

CONCLUSION

The Joab story we read is a violent story,

a disappointing story on so many levels.

Joab is a disappointment for his harsh vengeful ambition.

David is a disappointment for his seeming inability to confront this kind of evil within his own court and inner circle.

For me, one of the saddest things about this David and Joab story is David’s confession that he is powerless;

“I am powerless….these sons of Zeruiah are too violent for me, too hard for me.”

At times, we may feel powerless as well,

In the face of the murders on our streets,

In the face of the ruthless ambition we witness,

In the face of the corruption we read about in the world.

But the reality is that we are not powerless.

I remember studying the Russian Revolution.

It was led by some pretty ruthless and ambitious and vengeful leaders,

People like Vladimir Lenin then Joseph Stalin.

They certainly lived by the brutal laws of doing whatever it took

to get even and get ahead.

But I remember reading that both Lenin and Stalin had a simmering hatred

and even fear of faithful priests and those who were very religious.

Why fear?

Because here were people that could not be bullied,

Here were people who had an allegiance to things greater than their revolutionary agenda

Here were people who had a dignity that could not be denied even when they were persecuted.

Here were people who had power cloaked in weakness,

and might dressed in mercy.^[1]

We are not powerless.

For the King we serve,

and the Kingdom we seek to live

will come,

justice and peace will flourish

and all who have lived

not only on the Lord’s side

but also the Lord’s way

will be honored.

Amen

1. See Paul Johnson, Modern Times, pp. 50-51 ↑