In 2009, I wrote two posts on Bathsheba and David. The first one was https://www.orthocuban.com/2009/03/bathsheba-inkblot-test/. I wrote a follow up post the next day commenting on Bathsheba’s revenge in the sense of her ending up becoming a type of Mary. But, there was some further revenge that Bathsheba had. Her first son dies; it is the punishment that God exacts from King David. But, eventually Bathsheba gets a revenge of a different type. As King David is dying he says:
“Moreover you know also what Joab the son of Zeruiah did to me, and what he did to the two commanders of the armies of Israel, to Abner the son of Ner and Amasa the son of Jether, whom he killed. And he shed the blood of war in peacetime, and put the blood of war on his belt that was around his waist, and on his sandals that were on his feet. Therefore do according to your wisdom, and do not let his gray hair go down to the grave in peace.
King Solomon carries out King David’s orders:
Then news came to Joab, for Joab had defected to Adonijah, though he had not defected to Absalom. So Joab fled to the tabernacle of the Lord, and took hold of the horns of the altar. And King Solomon was told, “Joab has fled to the tabernacle of the Lord; there he is, by the altar.” Then Solomon sent Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, saying, “Go, strike him down.” So Benaiah went to the tabernacle of the Lord, and said to him, “Thus says the king, ‘Come out!’”
And he said, “No, but I will die here.” And Benaiah brought back word to the king, saying, “Thus said Joab, and thus he answered me.”
Then the king said to him, “Do as he has said, and strike him down and bury him, that you may take away from me and from the house of my father the innocent blood which Joab shed. So the Lord will return his blood on his head, because he struck down two men more righteous and better than he, and killed them with the sword—Abner the son of Ner, the commander of the army of Israel, and Amasa the son of Jether, the commander of the army of Judah—though my father David did not know it. Their blood shall therefore return upon the head of Joab and upon the head of his descendants forever. But upon David and his descendants, upon his house and his throne, there shall be peace forever from the Lord.”
So Benaiah the son of Jehoiada went up and struck and killed him; and he was buried in his own house in the wilderness.
And so, King Solomon revenged his mother for the murder of her first husband Uzziah. Though the Bible says that he killed Joab at the behest of King David, his father, for murders committed against King David’s best interests, yet a part of me suspects that Bathsheba had told King Solomon the story, more than once, of how Joab had her first husband Uzziah murdered. And so, she passed the story on. The Bible portrays a marriage between King David and Bathsheba that was filled with enough regard, one for another, that he ends up promising her that her son will be king. King David had multiple wives. He had a harem, and when one of his sons rebelled against him, he raped his stepmoms on the roof of the palace in order to show that he was now in control. Of course, being killed taught him differently, but that is another story. Interestingly enough, Bathsheba avoided being one of those wives. This tends to show that she was not part of the harem, but had received some special treatment. And, she had obviously fled with King David, the husband who had started out by raping her but ended up by loving her.
Yet, she obviously never forgot who had set up the murder of her first husband. Even though King David was responsible, nevertheless, it is obvious that Bathsheba blamed Joab for the carrying out of the actual murder. She ended up loving King David, but she never forgot her hate of Joab. And, when the time came, she had prepped King Solomon, her son. And when King David only reinforced that in his final instructions to his son, it must have confirmed every thought that King Solomon had received from his mother.
And, so, Bathsheba was revenged upon Joab.
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