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Joab

[DAVID SAID],“TODAY I AM POWERLESS, EVEN THOUGH ANOINTED KING; THESE MEN, THE SONS OF ZERUIAH, ARE TOO VIOLENT FOR ME. THE LORD PAY BACK THE WHO DOES WICKEDLY ACCORDING TO HIS WICKEDNESS!”
2 Samuel 3:39

Joab’s Role
If you’ve read 2 Samuel, you know that it’s mostly the story of David. In fact, this might be all you remember about it. Therefore, I want to bring out a character that’s hiding in the shadows in almost every story. I say hiding in the shadows because this man is the epitome of shady. His name is Joab.

When David first becomes king, he only becomes king over Judah after he wars with Saul’s son, Ishbaal (or Ishbosheth). Right from the beginning, his general is Joab. Joab and his brothers, Abishai and Asahel, are the sons of Zeruiah, David’s sister, so they are his nephews, and David brings them into military leadership. This is important because David’s blindness to family member’s flaws is his second biggest weakness in leadership (other than stealing his soldier’s wife).

Almost every time Joab is mentioned in a passage, he is doing something sketchy—mostly manipulating David and killing people in cold blood. He is the dark side of the great king. Let’s follow the trail of blood.

Abner
As I mentioned, at first David is only the king of Judah and fights wars with Ishbaal. Ishbaal’s general is a man named Abner, who also was Saul’s head general. When it becomes clear that David is going to win, Abner defects to David. Joab tries to tell David that Abner is untrustworthy, but really he’s mad that Abner killed his brother, Asahel, in battle. In Abner’s defense, Abner pleaded with Asahel not to make Abner kill him, but Asahel left him no choice. So after the defection, Joab pulled Abner aside to have a private conversation, and stabbed him in the stomach. Joab kills him for revenge, but not only that, Abner also stands as a threat to Joab’s high position in David’s army. For David, Abner would have made it easier to bring the Benjaminites and those loyal to Saul onto his side, but Joab ruined that.

David, who was known to have people killed for violating his abnormally high sense of idealism and ethics, did not even demote Joab. Why? I can only speculate nepotism.

Bathsheba
Obviously, this one is David’s fault. David sleeps with one of his soldier’s wives, gets her pregnant, and then has the husband killed in battle. But….who’s there to do the dirty work? Joab. He’s the one who puts Uriah on the frontlines and orders everyone else to abandon him to die. To top it off, Joab uses this to manipulate David. When a messenger sends a report of a battle gone badly, Joab has the messenger also report the death of Uriah to keep David from being mad at him.

Joab is loyal to David, does his dirty work, but he also manipulates David and has zero conscience.

Absalom, part 1
Absalom, David’s son, kills his brother Amnon (for good reason), and then runs away. Joab uses a “wise woman” from Tekoa to manipulate David to bring Absalom back. Joke’s on him though, Absalom comes back, is mad that his dad won’t see him, so he petulantly sets Joab’s field on fire to give him an audience with the king. (I deal with this story at length in a Shuffle Text about Psalm 3, if you want to check it out)

Absalom, part 2
Absalom then takes over the throne, runs his dad out of town, and hires a man named Amasa to be his general instead of Joab. Long story short, Absalom’s guys fight David’s guys and get slaughtered. Why? David had a group of mercenary bodyguards called the Cherethites and the Pelethites, led by Benaiah who could handle just about anybody. (Amasa and Benaiah will come up later). Absalom flees, gets his hair stuck in a tree, and despite David’s expressed request that no one harm Absalom, Joab shoves three spears through him. Why three? No idea. Then, Joab has his men finish Absalom off like a piñata.

There’s a telling scene here where an unnamed soldier stands up to Joab. The soldier tells Joab that Absalom is stuck in the tree (still darkly funny, sorry). Joab asks why the soldier didn’t kill him. The soldier reminds him of David’s request. Joab tells the man that he would have given him 10 pieces of silver. The soldier calls him out and says even if you gave me a thousand pieces of silver I wouldn’t have done it, because you would sell me out to David. This dude is my hero. That’s a bold thing to say to your sketchy but scary general.

Amasa
Remember Amasa? Well, after Absalom is defeated, David brings him back into the army. During another rebellion, David checks Amasa’s loyalty and finds it possibly in question (actually, David didn’t seem to think so). Joab uses this opportunity to take Amasa aside (just like Abner) and stab him, too. Wait, there’s more to the story. Amasa, is Joab’s cousin, also David’s nephew (well, great-nephew). And when David returned to power he put Amasa in power instead of Joab in order to consolidate all the people that left him for Absalom. This was another power play, and he killed his own flesh and blood to make it.

It gets weirder. He left Amasa dying in the road, and all the soldiers were confused by the sight. So, Joab dragged him into a field and covered him up, nothing to see here. After that, everyone shrugged their shoulders and followed Joab.

Application
Joab was a selfish jerk who justified himself by claiming he was doing what was best for David even when it violated David’s code of ethics and messed up his ability to lead. David, ever the idealist, nevertheless had a weak spot when it came to family (Joab, Amnon, Absalom, Adonijah), so he never fully dealt with Joab.

We are all tempted, like Joab, to sacrifice morals for practicality, especially if it benefits us. We are all tempted, like David, to overlook the flaws of the people we are sentimental towards and let them abuse others around us. And….

There’s always justice. On his deathbed, David tells his son and successor, Solomon, to deal with Joab because of all his sin and probably because he backed Adonijah against Solomon (David’s son and another usurper like Absalom). Solomon sends in Benaiah to deal with Joab, who kills him in the tabernacle because Joab won’t leave. I told you Benaiah would come back up. He’s the one general that Joab never killed. I wonder why? Probably because Benaiah was known for killing a lion in hand-to-hand combat on a snowy day (see 2 Samuel 23:20, not sure why the weather was important). He was a real warrior instead of schemer.

Christ in Us, Us in Christ (A paradox)

Colossians 1:27- God wanted to make the glorious riches of this secret plan known among the Gentiles, which is Christ living in you, the hope of glory.

Colossians 2:6- So live in Christ Jesus the Lord in the same way you received him.

Intro
These are some of the most important verses in the Bible. A lot of ink (or data) can and has been spilled to understand these verses. I’m not going to try to explain exactly what each means and how it relates to the gospel and systematic theology. At least not today.
Instead, I want to use these two verses to give an idea of how we should think about our lives throughout each day.

Our Power
First, Christ in us. Paul calls it a “mystery” which is translated here as “secret plan.” That’s because a mystery in Greek is not a problem to be solved like Sherlock, it’s a truth that has to be revealed. You can’t learn it without God telling you—in this case, through Scripture.

Jews were waiting for the presence of God to return to the temple. The secret plan revealed here is that the presence returned in Jesus and now lives in us.

Sorry, I couldn’t resist the background details.

What I want you to take away from this today is that you can be transformed into the person God called you to be because God lives in you and is doing the work.

So spend a few moments today and every day recognizing the power living in you and calling on Jesus to guide you through the day—loving your neighbor and focusing on what’s important.

Future Glory
This verse also means that the presence of the Spirit in you is the down payment that you have a place in heaven, in the final kingdom, when God’s realm takes over Earth’s realm. You have the assurance of your salvation.

It’s Not About You
But I also included this second verse because it presents a paradox, a seeming contradiction. The second verse says that rather than focusing on Christ in us, we should live in Christ.
I like this because if we focus only one what God is doing in us, we might think the story is just about us. However, we are called into God’s story. We play a small role in a drama that began before we were born and will continue after we die.

Keep this focus so that you’re more worried about what God wants to do in the world instead of your smaller concerns. It also means that if you don’t finish something, God can raise up others to do finish it. You’re not alone. Everything doesn’t depend on you, and we’re not the focus of the universe.

Conclusion
So let the Spirit of God transform you in your day to day life to carry out the mission that’s a part of a story much bigger than us.

Revelation 8:1-4: Purified Prayers
8 1When he opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour.
2 And I saw the seven angels who stand before God, and seven trumpets were given to them.
3 Another angel, who had a golden censer, came and stood at the altar. He was given much incense to offer, with the prayers of all God’s people, on the golden altar in front of the throne. 4 The smoke of the incense, together with the prayers of God’s people, went up before God from the angel’s hand.

Prayers of the Saints
I’ve been in a lot of prayer meetings at different churches and in different traditions. A common theme is this reference to Revelation where the prayers of the people are referred to as incense. In this passage, it says incense is the with the prayers, but in Revelation 5 it says that the incense is the prayers.

When these passages are mentioned at prayer meetings, it usually goes like this. Keep praying. Your prayers are incense. When you pray, God likes the way your prayers smell. He’ll smell your beautiful, aromatic prayers and go do something awesome.

What Does Incense Do?
That’s pretty motivating to keep praying, but I recently heard an episode of the Holy Post podcast where Kaitlyn Schiess gave an alternate explanation that’s more in line with the full context of the passages. I did some digging and found others that agree with her, including famed Chinese pastor Watchman Nee. Here goes.

The incense needed to be burned in order to offer the good smell. Burning incense in the temple was a purification ritual. Between Revelation 5 and Revelation 8, the incense catches fire. Also, between Revelation 5 and Revelation 8, Jesus shows up to change the spiritual realm. In other words, Jesus set our prayers on fire with his death and resurrection, purifying them and making them effective.

Purifying Our Prayers
This is the most revolutionary part of the interpretation. By Jesus’ blood and the power of his resurrection, our prayers are purified. That’s amazing because I’ve prayed some dumb prayers. I prayed for a lot of girlfriends in middle school. I’ve prayed for the outcome of many football games. I’ve prayed for money and cars and for my kid to just go to sleep. I’m sure I’ve prayed against my enemies like David does in the Psalms.

So the idea that God will take my less than noble prayers and use them for his kingdom is a big comfort and really lowers the stakes for wanting to pray. I can approach God, with good motives or not so good motives and the God will use my prayers to change me and change the world. No more pressure to be perfect before I start praying.

This lines up well with some the ideas in Romans 8:26-27 if you’re still not convinced.

Conclusion
So to be clear, I now interpret the prayers of the saints as burning incense to be the effect of Jesus on our spiritual life. When we pray, regardless of how well, God will change us. And if he doesn’t like our prayers, he’ll do something better than what we asked for in the world.

So yes, we should keep praying because our prayers smell good (relax, it’s a metaphor), but also, we should keep praying to change our hearts and world.