The Pulpit Commentary — 2 Samuel — Section 86

Deferred punishment. It is natural to ask-If Joa.b's crime was so base, and David's repudiation of complicity with it so emphatic, why was he not punished as an offender against morality and the principles of the new administration? Tile answer is 11icril at hand. David was averse to signalize the establishment of his supremacy over ail the tribes of Israel by the shedding of blood, and a less punisilment than death in those times would have been misinterpreted to his injnry. His cause at that juncture was in a critical position, and to have cleared off so competent and influential a man would have been perilous. Moreover, the execution of Joab would have tallied best with complicity in his guilt; the sparing of bis life and abiding the issue of events was most favouraule to the establishment of his own innocence. But most of all he was desirous or leadng the judgment in the hands of God, having in most scathing language stated his own sense of the evil desert of the man (ver. 29). Herein we may trace analogies. I. TnE PRESEJIT STAGE OF THE GOVERNMENT OF Gon DOES NOT PROVIDE FOR THE IMMEDIATE PUNISHMEN'r OF ALL SIN. Many a modem Joab does not at once suffer for i,is sin as conscience and public opinion would demand. There are vile deeds per-:- formed, horrible vices indulged, characters and fortunes ruined, and widespread miseries induced, by persons whose actions are not discovered, or, if discovered, are such ,as civil authority does not touch. The common judgment of men is that severe punishment is due to such, hut it comes not in their life. The betrayer of purity, the licentious liver who bides bis vices, the forger who escapes discovery, are but instances of many. They Reem to escape any open and public infliction of punishment, and ca,i;ry no more on their conscience than Joa.b did on his, which would be little,just in proportion as it was debased. The solution of this apparent anomaly is really to be found in the conside.ra- tion that the government of God extends over an area wider than this present life, and that for profound reasons, not all revealed, it is not best for judgment to fall all at onco and at the time of the committal or even discovery of the sin. Bishop Butler has dwelt on this aspect of the Divine government with great wisdom and sobriety of ju~"lll.ent. With God a thousand years are as one day. His methods of ruling men .here evidently proceed on the fact that there is a future and a great day of account, when men shall receive according to the deeds done in the body. II. ALTHOUGH Pm"IBllMENT IS DEFERRED, THE PERPETRATORS 01!' EVIL ARE UNl)ER THE PERSONAL DISPLEASURE OF Gon. David's mind was averse to Joab. He cherished distrust and displeasure toward him. He bad scope for action, and possibly for true repentance, but in bis monarch's estimation he was a base and condemned man. No ea,;y, jaunty spirit on the part of Joab could alter this serious fact. There existed in the mind of bis king the condition of feeling which was prophetic of a doom one day to be actualized. ln like manner "God is angry with the wicked every day." Those who seem to escape present punishment are already condemned in the sure, infallible judgment of God. Merciful and pitiful as he is, and not willing that. any should perish, 1,e cannot but regard their secret sins with abhorrence, and see in them, unless they repent and seek newness of life and forgiveness in Christ, a debased form of humanity gradually maturing to receive into themselves the wrath treasured up against the day of wrath (Rom. ii. 4-6). The prosperous wicked seldom refl~ct on how the Holiest e..nd Wisest of all looks on them. Men great and esteemed 10 the world are often despised by God because he knows what their true character is. HI. TBE llIND -OF GoD IS REVEALED TO HIS SERVANTS AS TO THE DESERT 011' THll WICKED, AND SOME INTIMATION 18 GIVEN OF WHAT WILL COME UPON THEM. The imprecation (ver. 29/ of David the king was b~ wa_y of reveal~g. to ~11 offended _by the crime of Joab his sense of desert; and, considering how a d1st1ngu1sbed posterity was regarded in the East as the crowning good of a long life, and bow evidently ambitious Joob was to figure b history, it was not easy for the king to select terms u,ore indicative of a terrible vunishwent. The utterance was not that of vindictivc,- CII. Ill, 1-30.] 'l'HE SECOND BOOK OF SAMUEL.