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Is David the Godfather?

Joab was a loyal captain in charge for King David and he won lot of battles for his king. He had also risked his life in many occasions for the sake of Kingdom of Israel and David. (2nd Samuel 2, 10-12)

He did make some mistakes, however:

  1. He killed Abner who came to reconcile with David. Joab might have felt threatened by this reconciliation. (2nd Samuel 3:26-30)
  2. He killed Amasa who was made captain by David. (2nd Samuel 20)
  3. He killed Absalom for whom David had given specific instructions not harm him in any ways. (2nd Samuel 18)

Why did David not forgive the mistakes of Joab? After all, wasn't he the man after God's own heart:

But now your kingdom shall not continue. The LORD has sought out a man after his own heart, and the LORD has commanded him to be prince over his people, because you have not kept what the LORD commanded you.—1st Samuel 13:14 (ESV)

I still don't feel that Joab should have been punished and given death sentence for his mistakes.

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migrated from christianity.stackexchange.com Oct 11 '12 at 16:26


marked as duplicate by Jon Ericson Oct 11 '12 at 16:57


Welcome to Biblical Hermeneutics! This is an excellent question. In fact, I think it's been asked under the provocative title: Is David the Godfather? Do the answers there help answer your question? –  Jon Ericson Oct 10 '12 at 17:51
looks like it. But there are some missing links. e.g. What would have happened to Joab if he had not followed Adonijah? Did following Adonijah make Joab a potential risk to the new king Solomon? –  Jeril Nadar Oct 11 '12 at 10:13
For the moment, I'm going to close this question in favour of the other one. I think the questions you raise in your comment are worth exploring in a separate question. –  Jon Ericson Oct 11 '12 at 16:57

2 Answers 2

up vote 7 down vote accepted

While it is true that David was a man after God's own heart, he was also a man who had no scruples about killing.

Take, most famously, as an example, Uriah. Uriah was killed for the grievous offense of having a hot wife!

In the case of Joab, it was a political revenge killing, pure and simple. David says in 1 Kings 2:


In short, just because David did good, didn't mean he was perfect. There is a common hermeneutic that says people in the Bible are good. They aren't. This is not a children's book! It records bad people doing bad things in a bad world.

Doesn't mean you need to emulate them, but do learn from them!

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Agreed, Bible is very particular in recording facts and not the good things only. And even though David was not perfect but God testifies that he was a man after His heart. A good testimony for the old testament saint. –  Jeril Nadar Oct 12 '12 at 7:40

...I still don't feel that Joab should have been punished...

Feelings. Bah. Remember, this was David passing sentence, not God. Nothing says that David has to feel about things the same way you do, especially considering he lived in a very different and more brutal age. For that matter, even if it was God, at no time should we ever be so arrogant to believe that God feels about things as we do.

Beyond that, Joab was a tough case. As commander of the army, there were likely significant troops who were loyal to him directly, rather than David. Simply dismissing him may not have been an option. At the same time, Joab has now repeatedly disregarded direct commands from David, likely making it untenable for David to leave Joab in his role. Again remember that this was a more brutal time, Joab may have left David little other option.

But notice all my weasel words above: "may", "likely", "might", etc. This is an area where we are limited almost entirely to speculation and tenuous deduction.

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