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On the other hand, we may, at this stage of our inquiries, be allowed to place by the
side of Barzillai another representative man of that period. If Barzillai was a type of the
spiritual, Joab was of the national aspect of Judaism. He was intensely Jewish, in the
tribal meaning of the word, not in its higher, world-wide bearing, only Judaean in
everything that outwardly marked Judaism, though not as regarded its inward and
spiritual reality.
Fearless, daring, ambitious, reckless, jealous, passionate, unscrupulous, but withal most
loving of his country and people, faithful to, and, no doubt, zealous for his religion, so
far as it was ancestral and national - Joab represented the one phase of Judaism, as
Barzillai the other. Joab stands before us as a typical Eastern, or rather as the typical
Eastern Judean. Nor is it without deep symbolical meaning, as we trace the higher
teaching of history, that Joab, the typical Eastern Judaean, -may we not say, the type of
Israel after the flesh? - should, in carrying out his own purposes and views, have at last
compassed his own destruction.
David's difficulties did not end with the crossing of Jordan. On the contrary, they
seemed rather to commence anew. He had been received by the tribe of Judah; a
thousand Benjamites had come for purposes of their own; and probably a number of
other tribesmen may have joined the king during his progress.^33 But the tribes, in their
corporate capacity, had not been asked to take part in the matter, and both David and
Judah had acted as if they were of no importance. Accordingly, when the
representatives of Israel arrived in Gilgal, there was fierce contention between them
and the men of Judah about this unjustifiable slight - the men of Judah being the more
violent, as usual with those who do a wrong.
It needed only a spark to set the combustible material on fire. A worthless man, one
Sheba, a Benjamite, who happened to be there, blew a trumpet, and gave it forth to the
assembled representatives of the tribes that, since they had no part in David, they
should leave him to reign over those who had selected him as their king. It was just
such a cry as in the general state of excitement would appeal to popular feeling. David
soon found himself deserted by his Israelitish subjects, obliged to return to Jerusalem
with only his own tribesmen, and threatened by a formidable revolution in front. To
suppress the movement before it had time to spread and disintegrate the country by
everywhere exciting tribal jealousies - such was David's first care on his return to
Jerusalem, after setting his household in order (2 Samuel 20:3). But the fatal
consequences of David's late conduct now appeared. True to his promise, he proposed
to entrust to Amasa the command of the expedition against Sheba and what, to borrow
a modern term, we may call the "Federal Republic." But, whether from personal
incapacity, or, more probably, from the general want of confidence in, and
dissatisfaction with, the new commander, Amasa did not even succeed in bringing
together a force. As time was of the greatest importance,^34 David felt himself obliged
(^)