Joab’s Betrayal
12Abner the son of Ner, and the servants of Ishbosheth the son of Saul, went out from Mahanaim to Gibeon. 13Joab the son of Zeruiah and David’s servants went out, and met them by the pool of Gibeon; and they sat down, the one on the one side of the pool, and the other on the other side of the pool. 14Abner said to Joab, “Please let the young men arise and play before us!” Joab said, “Let them arise!” 15Then they arose and went over by number: twelve for Benjamin and for Ishbosheth the son of Saul, and twelve of David’s servants. 16They each caught his opponent by the head, and thrust his sword in his fellow’s side; so they fell down together: therefore that place in Gibeon was called Helkath Hazzurim. 17The battle was very severe that day; and Abner was beaten, and the men of Israel, before David’s servants. 18The three sons of Zeruiah were there, Joab, and Abishai, and Asahel: and Asahel was as light of foot as a wild gazelle. 19Asahel pursued Abner; and in going he didn’t turn to the right hand or to the left from following Abner. 20Then Abner looked behind him, and said, “Is that you, Asahel?” He answered, “It is.” 21Abner said to him, “Turn away to your right hand or to your left, and grab one of the young men, and take his armor.” But Asahel would not turn away from following him. 22Abner said again to Asahel, “Turn away from following me. Why should I strike you to the ground? How then could I look Joab your brother in the face?” 23However he refused to turn away. Therefore Abner with the back end of the spear struck him in the body, so that the spear came out behind him; and he fell down there, and died in the same place. As many as came to the place where Asahel fell down and died stood still.
Betrayal means abandoning trust or loyalty. When we trust someone completely and build a relationship with them, it stays good only if the other person keeps faith on the same footing. If we trust someone and give them our whole heart, and they then act without regard for what is right for their own gain, or repay kindness with betrayal, the relationship will break. Yet hurt feelings and the anger of betrayal are, after all, the conclusions of human reason, and as such they cannot help being relative. Because these feelings are tangled up with interests, deciding who is right and who is wrong calls for strict objectivity. And what we feel in close relationships is more relative still. Such relationships rest not on what is universal but on a particular bond, so everything a person feels shifts with the other person’s words and actions.
The betrayal and hurt one person feels toward another are different from humanity’s betrayal of God. People make themselves the standard, but God’s standard is his word. Through the law God set before his people an absolute standard, and he called it sin not to live by that law. So betraying God is entirely different from human relationships, which change with the other person.
God’s word is law, and to break that law is sin. That is why betraying God means death. God’s law never changes; people must therefore live by the law God has laid down. But knowing that people could not keep his law, God sent Jesus into the world to fulfill what the law requires and caused Jesus to fulfill the law. Those who believe that the Son of God has atoned for their sin are saved. It was to make this will of God known to the world that he called the disciples. Jesus taught them that salvation does not come by keeping the law but by hearing the gospel and receiving Jesus Christ. When Jesus asked them who they said he was, Peter answered that he was the Christ, the Son of the living God, and was commended for it. That Peter could put into words God’s astonishing work, something no one would presume to imagine, was something like a miracle, because it was the Holy Spirit who had revealed God’s will to him.
After warmly praising Peter’s answer, Jesus told them a great secret: he would now go up to Jerusalem and be killed by the elders, chief priests, and scribes, but on the third day he would rise again. Wanting to share an even greater secret with Peter and the disciples, who had come to understand the truth, he told them that he would atone for sin and rise from the dead. At that, Peter took hold of Jesus and protested, trying to stop him: far be it from him, this must never happen to the Lord. Peter loved Jesus deeply, so when he heard that Jesus would be killed, he must have thought he had to prevent that suffering.
Then Jesus rebuked Peter sharply, calling him Satan and telling him to get behind him: Peter was a stumbling block to him, for he was setting his mind not on the things of God but on the things of men. When Jesus spoke of his death, Peter heard that he would rise again after three days, yet he paid no attention to the resurrection and fell into the folly of trying to block God’s plan.
We must set aside merely human thinking and grow spiritually. Only then will we have the discernment to stand firm when the world and Satan threaten and tempt us. Had Peter understood the words he had learned from Jesus until then, he would have grasped exactly what Jesus meant when he said he would rise after being killed. Lacking spiritual maturity, Peter could not discern what was right in each moment, and he thought he could prevent Jesus’ suffering himself. When people are angry and worked up, they can easily say sinful things even though they know the truth. We therefore need training in weighing things with spiritual maturity.
There are things a person may say and things they must never say. If we cannot tell the difference, then, like Peter, who was rebuked by Jesus as Satan, we will keep making decisions that obstruct God’s plan, and in the end we will betray him. Without realizing that we have become Satan’s tool, we think it is faith.
The prime example is Joab, and I want to look at how a man who served David at the risk of his own life could come to betray him. If we look at Joab’s conduct in the light of the law God has laid down, we can easily trace the process by which he went bad.
Joab was born the son of Zeruiah. The three brothers Abishai, Joab, and Asahel were mighty warriors who won every time they went to battle, so David loved these three nephews more than anyone. Joab respected and followed David even before David became king. Later, when David decided to take a census, Joab tried to stop him, saying it would be a sin against God, which suggests that he truly loved David. He tried that hard to keep David from going the wrong way, yet when David stubbornly ordered the census, Joab obeyed at once. He showed the loyalty of a servant doing his utmost to carry out the count so that David could have what he wanted.
Joab respected David’s judgment above his own. If it was for David, he would charge even into the enemy’s ranks and win David the victory. Later he also achieved great things, conquering many nations besides Edom, Ammon, and Syria so that David and Israel could flourish. It is perhaps no exaggeration to say that Joab contributed more than anyone to David’s founding of the united kingdom. God loved Joab for his loyalty to David and protected his life so that he could go to war and win great victories. Since helping Joab was the same as helping David, God likely gave Joab strength and wisdom.
This loyal Joab gradually changed. Once he came to think he had done much to make David king, he began to crave power as well. It is true that he respected David and served him loyally, but in it he was displaying his own righteousness. This is the most dangerous time, when someone who has been blessed can betray God. When people think they have grown in body and spirit, they stop listening to God and to David, and they become proud, stubborn, and self-willed. At first Joab listened to David, but the moment he began to form his own opinions, he grew proud enough to sit in judgment on David. That is the danger we must guard against. To make decisions that differ from those of David, who lived by God’s will, is betrayal. David’s faith toward God never wavered, so it was Joab who had changed. The proud notion that David could become king only because he himself had risked his life and won the battles is what eventually led him to throw away obedience and choose betrayal.
As Joab’s self-regard grew, he no longer feared God and became a wicked man who paid no heed to David’s wishes. Pride makes a person disregard the authority David held, and so Joab came to commit the terrible sin of murder to avenge his brother. Peter was at Jesus’ side yet in one moment misjudged and became Satan’s tool; in the same way, Joab watched David obey from close at hand and saw God’s astonishing works with his own eyes, yet he betrayed God and David. Until then Joab had sincerely loved David and the people and had served with his life on the line so that David could become king of Israel. It is heartbreaking that such a man turned away from David and grew wicked.
You, too, love God sincerely and serve him faithfully. But if, like Joab, you think the church grew because of your service and your offerings, you can become Satan’s tool. We serve not for God or the church but for our own salvation and growth; we must not, then, put our own righteousness on display. For the health to serve faithfully and the means to give were all given by God. God simply uses our service to do his work. God is able to make David king without Joab, and he is almighty, able to make the church grow without our loyalty. Joab’s loyalty shone brighter because David became king; in the same way, the faithfulness of God’s people shines brighter because the church has grown.
Had Joab served David humbly to the end, God would have blessed him and his descendants with peaceful lives. He gave his life to David and Israel, but, as Scripture says, pride goes before destruction, and his last years were miserable. Pride makes a person judge by themselves alone, which keeps them from letting go of their own righteousness. And finally it leads them into the folly of abandoning even David.
Even if Joab could not make spiritually mature decisions, had he obeyed David he would not have betrayed God and David. Once he was gripped by the conviction that his judgment was better than David’s, he lost his way in the darkness and made an evil choice. Forgetting that everything until then had come to pass within God’s plan, he was no longer afraid even of the fact that David was God’s man. Proud enough to think that he had handed David his power and built the throne for him, he committed the evil sin of disregarding even David. We, too, can make the same foolish choice as Joab. We can be satisfied with the effort we offer rather than with the faith God desires, and zealously offer a service that has gone bad.
The work of God is to believe in Christ. Faith is not our own ability but the grace of Christ, who laid down his life. The moment we forget that grace, we will fall into the pride of thinking we received even our salvation by our own faith, and we may perish. Had Joab not grown proud, he would have spent a peaceful and happy old age, because David would always have thanked him and relied on him. That is what a good relationship looks like, but Joab’s pride ruined it. We, too, have been rescued from death by believing in Christ. Holding on to that grace is faith, and that is why we must keep our salvation by living a good life. To live that way, we must mature spiritually and always stay awake in prayer, never letting greed and lust capture our hearts.
2 Samuel 2:14
14Abner said to Joab, “Please let the young men arise and play before us!” Joab said, “Let them arise!”
When David became king of Judah, Abner, the commander of Saul’s army, took Saul’s son Ishbosheth to Mahanaim and made him king over Israel. Israel is a small country, only a tenth the size of the Korean Peninsula, yet with one king set up in Israel and another in Judah, it was split in two. One day, when Joab led his men to the pool of Gibeon, Abner and the soldiers of Israel had come out there. Abner proposed to Joab that they have their young men contend with each other, and twelve were sent from each side and made to fight.
Abner made this proposal, probably because he wanted to show that Israel, though on the run, was by no means weak. When the soldiers saw their comrades die, the contest flared into a fierce battle. In this battle Joab lost Asahel and nineteen men, while Abner lost 360. Though Joab had lost his brother to Abner, the battle ended in Joab’s victory. As the tide turned against them, Abner and his men began to flee. Then Joab’s brother Asahel ran after Abner to kill him. It looked as if Abner was running from Asahel, but in fact Abner was a far better fighter. Abner tried to talk him out of it: if Asahel stopped chasing him and went after some other soldier, would he not keep his honor? But with Judah so strong and Israel in flight, Asahel had no intention of turning back.
David’s great power had nothing to do with Asahel. Judah’s victory in this battle was not his doing either, yet Asahel fell into the pride of thinking it was all his own strength. Surviving in battle also takes wisdom and skill. Chasing the formidable Abner meant certain death, as plain as day, yet Asahel mistook Israel’s victory for his own strength and ran at Abner. And he could not escape Abner’s sword, and he died.
God’s people, too, mistake it for their own faith when they worship at a large church, hold a church office, or have great wealth. God asks whether we have faith in Christ, yet people boast that their church has many members, that their pastor is famous, and that they are wealthy, giving answers that have nothing to do with their own faith. Faith like this, like Asahel without strength or wisdom, can only die on the spiritual battlefield. Just as Asahel could win only if he had the skill to take on Abner, we must have a mature faith that believes in Jesus Christ, because the church, our office, and our worldly possessions are not our faith.
Abner knew all too well what would happen if he killed Asahel, so that was the one thing he wanted to avoid. But Asahel kept after him to the end with almost foolish persistence, and with no way to shake him off, Abner killed him. This small incident became the occasion for Joab’s easy betrayal of David, and it led him into the sin of killing Absalom, Amasa, and Abner, whom David cherished. Committing a sin the first time is hard; repeating it is not.
Joab had seen for himself that David did not take life lightly. Even so, when his brother was killed, he thought of nothing but revenge. Once pride had him in its grip, Joab feared neither God nor David. Until then he had given his all in countless battles, as if protecting David and the people were his own responsibility. Through his labor all the hardship was now over, yet because Joab could not let go of his pride, he fell at last into ruin.
Without spiritual eyes to see the whole of what comes upon us, we, like Joab, can destroy ourselves just when we should be enjoying blessing. The blessings we have received can instead become the link by which we fall to Satan’s temptation, so we must not look only at one part. If we claim to believe in God yet view our circumstances with misguided arrogance and self-regard, we lose the discernment we need to see problems clearly and judge them well. When a problem comes, what matters is the angle from which, and the way in which, we look at it with the word in hand. Because we are human, troubles are bound to come, and if we keep training ourselves to overcome each one by faith, we can clothe our whole life in steadfast faith. Live by such faith, and before you know it, you will have grown.
We must take Joab as a mirror and hold to a right faith. Working hard for our own gain ends up making us spiritually blind, and in that blindness we are bound to be caught in Satan’s snare. Sin is like a serpent. Like a long serpent that goes on without end, sin runs on unbroken, so if we do not leave the place of sin, we will forget all the grace we have received until now. Joab had helped make David king, and the weighty work of making the nation strong still lay ahead, yet he clung recklessly to revenge. Once his enemies were all dead, he felt no guilt in betraying David, and no regret in throwing himself into the pit of darkness.
2 Samuel 2:27
27Joab said, “As God lives, if you had not spoken, surely then in the morning the people would have gone away, and not each followed his brother.”
Joab was deceived by Abner. David would probably have turned down such a proposal, a battle that sacrificed soldiers’ lives for no reason. But in his eagerness to show off his strength, Joab ignored the will of David, who loved God and life, and accepted Abner’s proposal. Joab’s overconfidence in his own ability is what got his beloved brother killed. This is exactly what believers look like when Satan deceives them. When those who should look to God alone grow overconfident in themselves, they become proud and lose all the fruit of faith they have stored up before God. Anyone could think, as Joab did, that they had gained power because David became king. Such a thought is not the wrong in itself; the sin is refusing to the end to give up one’s own righteousness. Had Joab, when he gained power, exalted God and helped David govern the nation well, he would have left a name for later generations. But his pride and disobedience made him lose everything. No one took it from him by force; he threw away the blessing he had been given.
When we suffer, we give ourselves to God with all we have, but once the suffering passes and peace comes, we begin to show the feelings, temper, boasting, and stubbornness we had held down all along. Everyone goes through this at some point in life, and if at that time we live by God’s will with a faith that does not change, the blessing will last forever.
I hope you will not be deceived by Satan into approving of yourselves, because, just as Joab’s decision was not David’s mind, what you weigh and decide may not be what Jesus Christ wants. It was not because he never met David that Joab sinned, nor because he never saw David live by faith that he lived for himself.
You, too, are giving yourselves to the Kingdom of God. But if you turn your back on grace or fail to master an evil nature, you will slip your own merit into God’s absolute protection, and, like Joab, you may go the way of sin. If you disregard God’s absolute power and David’s ability, you may miss your chance to turn back. We must rise from the seat of folly and take the seat of wisdom, cast off an evil heart, live with a good one, and fear God. You know the word and have come to understand the truth; I hope you will repent every day, live in obedience to the word, and receive and enjoy a peace, wisdom, and blessing that cannot be taken away.