Now David had said, "Whoever striked down a jebusite first shall be chief and commander." Joab the son of Zeruiah went up first, so he became chief.Rarely do spur-of-the-moment decisions to reward someone lavishly based upon a short-term goal come out well. I can think of many occasions in history where someone said, "do this, and I'll give you that." In military affairs, those rarely end well.
In this case, Joab is given command of the army because he's the first to fight. That doesn't end well for David in the end. Joab is disobedient to David's commands multiple times, and is also complicit in the death of Uriah. He has one of David's sons killed, and ultimately is killed by David for his transgressions. How much of that could have been avoided if David had not made this hasty promise here?
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