Joab’s rebuke: How to hear unwelcome truths
2 Sam 19:1-8
During an outreach in my twenties, I was in a team with a young Christian who was a bit of a know-it-all. He was forever correcting others on their theological views and generally giving the impression that he knew more and understood better than others what the Christian faith was about. His attitude came into conversation one day when I was chatting to our supervisor, who admitted that the young man could be a little immature in this respect. However, he also acknowledged that this same person was surprisingly willing to take correction on board. He might argue when he first encountered an unwelcome truth, but he would often come back after a day or two with a changed perspective and an admission that he had been wrong. Listening to someone’s advice or unwelcome correction is never easy to do, but it can be especially hard from a person whom we do not respect or who is antagonistic towards us.
Joab’s rebuke
When Joab hears of the king’s inconsolable grief (2 Sam 19:1), he swings into action. His forthright speech makes several points. First, he rebukes the king for his misplaced loyalties using the language of love and hate (2 Sam 19:5-6). As elsewhere (e.g. Luke 14:26), this does not mean that the king literally hated his followers, but that he put his rebellious son’s welfare higher than that of his faithful servants. In this way, the king implicitly belittled their loyalty (i.e. shamed them). Secondly, Joab reminds David of other members of his family who have been saved through the victory (v.5). The king ignored them as much as his servants. He behaved as if he had only one son. Finally, David does not have the luxury to wallow in his grief (much as his anguish is understandable). It is time to judge rightly, something that the king has struggled to do well ever since his sin with Bathsheba.
David’s response
Given Joab’s track record of dealing with perceived issues through violence, the king’s willingness to listen is all the more admirable. The general is an unlikely counsellor and his approach is brutal. There is no soft touch, no court language, no deference. It is, in fact, a metaphorical slap in the royal face and it would not be surprising if the king replied with fury and outrage, if he demanded to know who Joab thought he was to give advice to the king or to use such a tone towards his monarch. But David does none of those things. It is, in fact, one of the traits that makes him great that he is willing to hear unpleasant truths even about himself. We are not given any of his words (or was he too stricken to say anything?), but his actions that follow speak of a crucial shift. The king goes out and sits down in the gate (2 Sam 19:8), in the place where justice is administered by the court (Deut 17:24; Isa 29:21); a clear indication that he has put aside his private grief to serve his people again.
How to take unwelcome truths to heart
What can enable us to take unwelcome truths to heart? Honesty is an important start in the way we look at ourselves and reality. Humility is another asset, a willingness to consider at least what someone else may see that we are blinded to. Perhaps the one word that sums it up best is being teachable. Like David, we all need correction because we are all confused and mixed-up in our priorities and what we love. St Augustine helpfully describes the issue as the right ordering of our loves (On Christian Doctrine, I.27-28).[1] We often love what we should not love at all and fail to love what we ought. Sometimes we put our love for certain people or things before God and out of these misplaced priorities flow wrong actions. It is a life-long task to order our loves right and it is only by God’s grace and being open to the Spirit’s leading that we can learn to love God above all.
[1] ‘Now he is a man of just and holy life who forms an unprejudiced estimate of things, and keeps his affections also under strict control, so that he neither loves what he ought not to love, nor fails to love what he ought to love, nor loves that more which ought to be loved less, nor loves that equally which ought to be loved either less or more, nor loves that less or more which ought to be loved equally.’ https://ccel.org/ccel/augustine/doctrine/doctrine.xxvii.html
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