David and Joab - The BAS Library
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Home > Magazines > Bible Review > August 2003

David and Joab

United by ambition

By Robin Gallaher Branch

Embedded in the biblical account of David’s rise to power as king of Israel is a parallel succession story—that of Joab. As the youthful David struggles against Saul, Israel’s first king, Joab fights beside him. When David secures the throne and becomes king, Joab is made commander-in-chief of the army, a job he keeps for 40 years (1 Chronicles 11:6). But as David lies on his deathbed, he advises his son Solomon not to let Joab’s “gray head go down to the grave in peace” (1 Kings 2:5–6). Throughout their adult lives, David and Joab, the two most powerful […]

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Footnotes

1.

The Book of Chronicles, stressing their codependent military ties, speaks in glowing terms of both David and Joab.

2.

Rather than put the Amalekites and their livestock to the sword as the Lord commands, Saul spares the best livestock for sacrifice. So Samuel tells him the Lord has torn the kingdom from him and given it to a neighbor, one better than he (1 Samuel 15:28).

3.

Similar incidents later happen in David’s household (2 Samuel 16:21–22; 1 Kings 2:13–25). See Ken Stone, “Sexual Power and Political Prestige,” BR 10:04.

4.

On the idea that David “protests too much,” see Steven L. McKenzie, King David: A Biography (Oxford, 2000); reviewed by Hershel Shanks in “King David: Serial Murderer,” BR 16:06.

5.

For more on how Joab entered the city, see Hershel Shanks, “I Climbed Warren’s Shaft (But Joab Never Did),” BAR 25:06.