Gospel Reflections #1151: Unchecked emotions

2 Samuel 20:9 “‘Joab called out to Amasa, “My brother, are you well?”, and as he was about to kiss him, he seized Amasa by the beard with his right hand.’”

This scene depicts Joab, commander of King David’s army, ambushing and assassinating his rival, Amasa.

Behind this incident lay the fierce power struggles within King David’s court, as well as Joab’s intense jealousy and obsession.

Amasa had originally been the commander of the forces loyal to Absalom, David’s son who had rebelled against him.

After the rebellion was quelled, King David, in an effort to foster national harmony and to remove Joab—who had been a constant source of trouble for him—from his position as commander-in-chief, deliberately appointed Amasa, who had been on the side of the rebels, as the next commander-in-chief.

 For Joab, who had fought as David’s mainstay up to that point, Amasa—the man who had taken his position—was utterly unforgivable.

Furthermore, when a new rebellion (the rebellion of Sheba) broke out, Amasa was slow to muster the troops, forcing Joab to take the field once more.

Joab seized this opportunity and moved to eliminate Amasa.

Joab and Amasa were cousins.

By addressing him as ‘brother (my dear friend)’, Joab feigned a complete lack of hostility and completely lulled Amasa into a false sense of security.

At that time, it was a common gesture of respect for close male friends to grasp each other’s beards and exchange a kiss on the cheek as a greeting.

Joab grasped Amasa’s beard with his ‘right hand’.

Seeing that his right hand was occupied, Amasa became completely complacent, thinking, ‘There is no risk of my weapon being drawn here.’

In verse 8 immediately preceding this, there is an unnatural description stating that ‘the sword fell from its sheath’ whilst Joab was walking.

Joab had deliberately dropped the sword, picked it up with his ‘left hand’ and concealed it.

Whilst showing affection with his right hand, he inflicted a fatal wound with the sword in his left hand, which was hidden from Amasa’s view.

The sight of Joab using a kiss—a ‘symbol of affection’—as a tool for assassination, the ‘worst form of betrayal’, vividly depicts the cruelty and hypocrisy hidden within human nature.

Joab was a capable military commander who contributed to David’s kingdom, yet he was a man who would stop at nothing to protect his own position and pride.

He sought to control his life not through God’s justice, but through his own physical strength and cunning.

There is a verse in the Book of Revelation that says, ‘Let the unrighteous continue to practise unrighteousness, the defiled continue to practise defilement, the righteous continue to practise righteousness, and the holy continue to practise holiness’;

God grants all of us a chance right up to the very end and works to draw us back to Him.

However, if we remain hard-hearted like Joab, even God’s guidance will cease to have any effect on us.

Through Joab, we have learnt that leaving even the smallest negative emotions unchecked in our hearts leads us further away from God.

Through our daily lives and our relationships with others, we should seek God’s guidance so that our days may shift from being self-centred to God-centred; and, trusting in God’s promises, we should continue to entrust everything to Him.

AUTHOR'S BIO: This Gospel Reflections page is written by Masae San, who resides in Hiroshima, Japan. Masae is a dedicated student of the Bible with a deep passion for the Gospel of Jesus Christ. She shares her daily reflections on Gospel perspectives to reach out to others and spread the message of God's true love through a Christ-centered approach. We are sharing her insights here so that you, too, can experience the joy that comes from knowing and understanding the true Gospel and the love of God through Jesus Christ.