What Does II Samuel 19:5 Mean?

Joab intervenes with brutal directness: "And Joab came into the house to the king, and said, Thou hast shamed this day the faces of all thy servants, which this day have saved thy life, and the lives of thy sons and of thy daughters, and the lives of thy wives, and the lives of thy concubines." The confrontation is the most insubordinate moment in Joab's long career, but the insubordination is justified by the crisis. David's grief is destroying the army, and Joab, as the general responsible for the morale and cohesion of the fighting force, must intervene even at the cost of offending the king.

Joab's list of the people saved by the victory, sons, daughters, wives, concubines, is designed to remind David that Absalom was not his only child. The king's fixation on the one child he lost has blinded him to the many lives his army preserved, and Joab's enumeration is a corrective that forces David to see the broader picture. The confrontation is harsh but necessary, and Joab's willingness to risk the king's wrath in order to save the king's throne is perhaps the noblest moment in an otherwise morally ambiguous career.

The Lord Jesus rebuked Peter with similar directness and for a similar reason: "Get thee behind me, Satan: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but the things that be of men." The correction of a beloved servant is an act of love, not cruelty, and the boldness that Joab displayed before David is a shadow of the boldness that the Holy Spirit displays in the conscience of every believer who has strayed from the path. The God who loves His people corrects them, because correction is the proof of love and the instrument of restoration.