Hey Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble, and I'm your host for the Bible Recap.

We open today with David mourning the death of Absalom.

As far as we know, he doesn't have any idea how Absalom died or that Joab had anything to do with it.

But Joab knows, and it seems like he's feeling a lot of guilt over David's grief

and his own rebellion against David's orders to protect Absalom.

He rebukes David for not being more grateful over their victory

and for letting the death of his enemy weigh him down, even though it was his son.

David responds in the way Joab suggests by putting a stop to his grief and going home to Jerusalem

to appear before the people. But it seems like David might harbor some resentment for Joab's

harsh words, whether he was right or not. The people of Israel aren't really sure what to do with

David now. Should they still regard him as king?

There are two primary responses and they're divided along tribal lines. Judah, David's tribe,

and then the rest of Israel. Interestingly, the ones who are hesitating the most about reinstating

David as king are his own people, Judah. As he's attempting

to convince the leaders of Judah to reinstate him, David does something unexpected. He replaces

Joab, the commander of his army, with Amasa, who was the commander of Absalom's army approximately

24 hours earlier. Some people believe this was because Joab had disobeyed David's

command not to harm Absalom, but we have no evidence that David even knew about that. It seems

more likely that this choice is motivated either by David's bitterness over Joab's rebuke or by David's

attempt to get the tribe of Judah back on his side. Regardless, David's plan works, and Judah gets on board and reinstates him as king.

But you can imagine this whole thing probably feels like a slap in the face to Joab,

even though he sticks by David.

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