The Pulpit Commentary — 2 Samuel — Section 50

Vere. 18-32.-Tho faots a.re: 1. Asahel, a younger brother of Joab, taking part in the pursuit, fixes his eye on Abner, and keeps on his track, and, being swift of foot, soon overtakes him. 2. Abner, conscious of superiority in arms, and remembering tho high family connections of the re.sh youth, chivalrously urges Asahel to try his prowess on some one else. 3. The counsel being proudly disdained, Asabel falls under the spear of Abner. 4. At the close of the day the scattered men of Israel concentrate on one spot, and pause, while Abner, perceiving the folly and misery of the civil war, appeals to J oab for a cessation of hostilities. 6. J oab, reproaching Abner for bis having brought on the conflict by his own acts and words in the morning, sounds the recall to his men, and henceforth they cease to fight their brethren. 6. Abner and his men retire to the east of Jordan, while Joab and his men bury Asahel, and proceed to David's seat of government. Instructive youthful impriidence. The historian here gives considerable prominence to the rash conduct of Asahel and its sad consequences. Without at all straining the narrative, or-indulging in fantastic methods of interpretation, we may call attention to the following considerations naturally suggested by the narrative. !. THE PRINCIPLE ON WHI0H THE MATERIALS ENTERL."fG INTO THE SACRED HISTORY WERE SELECTED; The Bible is a history formed by a selection of a few materials out of many. The unwritten history of a people is more ample than the written. The question naturally arises-On what principle did the sacred historians proceed in accept- ing some items of fact, and rejecting others equally true? Many a. noble youth besides Asahel must have fallen in the course of the ages traversed by the biblical story, but their name and deeds are unrecorded. 'l'he theory that the different writers of the •historic fragments which from time to time appeared in Jewish life, and now make up the whole Bible, were literary artists or philosophical historians, is not tenable. There is in the narratives an entire absence of the a.rt and the philosophy which may be ·traced in suoh writers as Thucydides, Niebuhr, Macaulay, and Froude; while, running through these fragments, there is a unity equal to anything found elsewhere. The casll of Asahel is an illustration of the :w·hole. The somewhat detailed reference to the occasion of his death is obviously connected with the subsequent reference to the occasion of the death of Abner, and the death of Abner is closely connected with the 'removal.of ihe IIiost influential harrier to David's consolidation of the entire king- dom, and David's life •e,nd reign are, we know, important in Hebrew history, because of their bearing· on the line of providence by which "David's greater Son" at last ea.me to reign in the true Zion. Here, then, we get a clue to the principle on which, by the unconscious guidance of the Spirit of God, facts were culled from Hebrew annals and incorporated in the sacred history. Direct or indirect bearing on the redemptive purpose in Christ was the criterion of incorporation. Not that everything related to that purpose is incorporated, but only such as is. The same doubtless applies to the principle on which the evaugelists were, unconsciously perhaps, guided to select out of the mass of fact connected with the life of Christ such items as we have in the four Gospels. II. THE WASTE INVOLVED' IN THE USE OF VALUABLE POWERS TO WSUITABLE ENDS. Asahel, the Hebrew Achilles without his skill in arws, was swift of foot--a valuable quality, and, in certain uses, likely to render !!,Teat service to the state; but, as employed against the superior prnwess of Abner in personal conflict, it only proved the occasion of premature unavoidable death. All the latent capacity for service in years to come, all the jo;y-s of domestic life, were thrown away by this rash encounter of the fleet-footed youth with a man of war. Looking' at his conduct from a distance, we can see its essential folly, Physical and mental qualities, like limbs, are adapted to specific uses.  THE SECOND BOOK OF SAMUEL. [OR. II. 1-32,