David followed his spiritual and practical political advice concerning things that Solomon should do to render himself secure as king. This advice concerned three men: they were Joab, Barzillai, and Shimei. It is noteworthy, especially concerning the amount of scholarly criticism of the words of David, that 1 Kings 2:5 begins with a conjunction that links it with what has gone before. In David’s mind, the ideas were connected.
1 Kings 2:5 contains David’s advice concerning his troublesome commander Joab. Joab was David’s nephew, the son of his sister Zeruiah. There is no clear evidence that Joab’s service to David predated David’s taking of the throne of Judah. His name is mentioned one other time, earlier in 2 Samuel as the brother of Abishai (1 Samuel 26:6), but this might be a means of identifying Abishai to a later generation more familiar with Joab.
David based his advice at this point on knowledge that he assumed that Solomon possessed as to the murder of two men. The first was Abner, the son of Ner, commander of the armies of Israel under Ishbosheth. The second was Amasa, the commander of Absalom’s army. These were murders that had taken place some years in the past. We consider them murders because the deaths took place in times of peace and could not be justified based on military necessity. David said they were acts of revenge for bloodshed in wartime. This situation is probably what David meant when he said that Joab put the blood of war
on his belt and around his feet.
This circumstance should bring an important point to our attention. The unjust shedding of blood brings blood guilt
upon the land. Knowing this truth should keep us from judging David harshly for his advice to Solomon in these two verses. This is the same issue that confronts us in 2 Samuel 21:1–9 regarding the famine that the Lord sent upon the land because of the slaughter of the Gibeonites by King Saul. This blood guilt is a matter that God takes seriously.
However, the previous statement leaves one question unanswered. Why didn’t David deal with Joab himself? The Bible gives us no direct answer to this question. The explanation that commentators seem to prefer is the idea that David needed Joab’s fighting prowess too much to illuminate him at an earlier time. This supposition gives little credit to David, but it may nevertheless be true. These things remind us that the sins of leaders sometimes have consequences for the whole nation, beyond the consequences to the individual sinner.
There is another explanation worthy of consideration. David might have feared that his execution of Joab would appear to the population of the kingdom as the elimination of one who was aware of secrets that David would not want to be widely known, such as the murder of Uriah the Hittite in an attempt to cover up his adultery. If people assigned Joab’s death to such a motive, the message it would have sent would be one not of divine justice but of a self-centred attempt to cover a heinous sin. The placing of justice in Solomon’s hands would remove David’s personal advantage from the matter.
David’s advice concerning Joab does not consist in a recommendation for immediate execution. Rather, he advises his son to use his wisdom to bring about the eventual execution of Joab. Joab’s part in Adonijah’s attempt to obtain the throne would have provided Solomon with a possible avenue for his wisdom to follow.
5 “Moreover, you also know what Joab the son of Zeruiah did to me, how he dealt with the two commanders of the armies of Israel, Abner the son of Ner, and Amasa the son of Jether, whom he killed, avenging in time of peace for blood that had been shed in war, and putting the blood of war on the belt around his waist and on the sandals on his feet.