Abishai

Abishai is one of the three sons of Zeruiah, David's sister, and the brother of Joab and Asahel. Across 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel, and 1 Chronicles he is David's hard-handed companion in the wilderness, a captain over divisions of the army, a striker of Philistines and Edomites and Ammonites, and the man who repeatedly volunteers a sword that David will not let him draw. He is also the elder of "the three" — the elite cadre named at the head of David's mighty men.

Lineage and brothers

Abishai is introduced through his mother. Zeruiah and Abigail are David's sisters, and Zeruiah's three sons — Abishai, Joab, and Asahel — make up a single fighting unit in David's service: "and their sisters were Zeruiah and Abigail. And the sons of Zeruiah: Abishai, and Joab, and Asahel, three" (1 Chr 2:16). The same three are named together on the field at Gibeon: "And the three sons of Zeruiah were there, Joab, and Abishai, and Asahel: and Asahel was as light of foot as a wild roe" (2 Sa 2:18). The brothers act together; their grudges are shared; their loyalty to David and to one another defines almost every scene Abishai appears in.

Restraint at Saul's camp

The earliest narrative scene puts Abishai with David in Saul's territory. David asks for a volunteer to descend with him into the camp where Saul is sleeping: "Then David answered and said to Ahimelech the Hittite, and to Abishai the son of Zeruiah, brother to Joab, saying, Who will go down with me to Saul at the camp? And Abishai said, I will go down with you" (1 Sa 26:6). Inside the camp Abishai sees an opportunity and presses David to take it: "So David and Abishai came to the people by night: and, look, Saul lay sleeping inside the place of the wagons, with his spear stuck in the ground at his head; and Abner and the people lay round about him. Then Abishai said to David, God has delivered up your enemy into your hand this day: now therefore let me strike him, I pray you, with the spear to the earth at one stroke, and I will not strike him the second time" (1 Sa 26:7-8). Abishai's offer is plain: one stroke, no second blow. David refuses. The pattern that recurs in later scenes — Abishai ready to kill, David holding him back — begins here.

The pursuit of Abner

After the battle at Gibeon, Joab and Abishai pursue Abner together: "But Joab and Abishai pursued after Abner: and the sun went down when they had come to the hill of Ammah, that lies before Giah by the way of the wilderness of Gibeon" (2 Sa 2:24). The killing itself is laid at the brothers' joint account: "So Joab and Abishai his brother slew Abner, because he had killed their brother Asahel at Gibeon in the battle" (2 Sa 3:30). The motive is family. Abner had cut down their brother Asahel; Joab and Abishai answer the death together.

Captain over a wing of the army

Abishai is given operational command in two of David's wars. In the Ammonite-Aramean campaign Joab takes one wing and gives the other to his brother: "And the rest of the people he committed into the hand of Abishai his brother; and he put them in array against the sons of Ammon" (2 Sa 10:10). The Ammonite outcome follows: "And when the sons of Ammon saw that the Syrians had fled, they likewise fled before Abishai, and entered into the city. Then Joab returned from the sons of Ammon, and came to Jerusalem" (2 Sa 10:14).

In the campaign against Absalom the army is split three ways and Abishai again gets a third: "And David divided the people in three [parts], a third part under the hand of Joab, and a third part under the hand of Abishai the son of Zeruiah, Joab's brother, and a third part under the hand of Ittai the Gittite. And the king said to the people, I will surely go forth with you⁺ myself also" (2 Sa 18:2). David's charge to his three captains is named in the next scene: "And the king commanded Joab and Abishai and Ittai, saying, Deal gently for my sake with the young man, even with Absalom. And all the people heard when the king gave all the captains charge concerning Absalom" (2 Sa 18:5). Abishai is one of the three on whom the order to spare Absalom is laid.

When Sheba the son of Bichri raises a revolt after Absalom is dead, David turns to Abishai first rather than Joab: "And David said to Abishai, Now Sheba the son of Bichri will do us more harm than did Absalom: you take your lord's slaves, and pursue after him, in case he found himself fortified cities, and tears out our eye" (2 Sa 20:6). The pursuit is then carried by both brothers together: "And Joab and Abishai his brother pursued after Sheba the son of Bichri" (2 Sa 20:10).

"Why should this dead dog curse my lord the king?"

Two separate scenes show Abishai pressing David to kill Shimei son of Gera. The first occurs as David is fleeing Jerusalem and Shimei is throwing stones and curses at him: "Then said Abishai the son of Zeruiah to the king, Why should this dead dog curse my lord the king? Let me go over, I pray you, and take off his head" (2 Sa 16:9). The second occurs after the revolt is over and Shimei comes out to meet the returning king: "But Abishai the son of Zeruiah answered and said, Will not Shimei be put to death for this, because he cursed Yahweh's anointed?" (2 Sa 19:21). In both scenes Abishai's instinct is the same as at Saul's camp — execute the offender — and in both scenes David refuses. The Shimei episodes line up with the Saul episode as a recurring rhythm in the narrative: Abishai offers a swift killing in defense of David's person or honor, and David rules the offer down.

Wars against Edom and the Philistines

Abishai's strikes against foreign enemies are recorded in concentrated form. Against Edom: "Moreover Abishai the son of Zeruiah struck of the Edomites in the Valley of Salt eighteen thousand" (1 Chr 18:12). Against the Philistines, in a moment when David is in personal danger: "But Abishai the son of Zeruiah helped him, and struck the Philistine, and killed him. Then the men of David swore to him, saying, You will not go out with us to battle anymore, that you do not quench the lamp of Israel" (2 Sa 21:17). The men's vow that David himself must no longer go out to battle is the consequence of Abishai's rescue; it marks Abishai as the man who in that hour kept David alive.

Chief of the three

Abishai's place in the roster of David's elite is given twice. In the Samuel list he leads the figure of "three": "And Abishai, the brother of Joab, the son of Zeruiah, was [of] the elite troops. And he lifted up his spear against three hundred and slew them, and had a name among the three" (2 Sa 23:18). The Chronicles list places him at the head of that group and ties him to the well-of-Bethlehem feat performed by "the three": David, longing for water from the well of Bethlehem, sees three of his elite break through the Philistine host to bring it back, and pours it out to Yahweh rather than drink it (1 Chr 11:15-19). The Chronicler then names Abishai immediately after that account: "And Abishai, the brother of Joab, he was chief of the three; for he lifted up his spear against three hundred and slew them, and had a name among the three" (1 Chr 11:20). The spear lifted against three hundred — the same notice as in 2 Samuel — is what gives him the name.

A composite portrait

Across these scenes Abishai is recognizable as a single figure: bound to his brothers Joab and Asahel by a shared mother and a shared cause; quick with the spear and the sword; willing to kill Saul, Shimei (twice), and any Philistine who threatens David; trusted by David with a third of the army at the most dangerous moment of his reign; and commemorated in the elite roster by the same feat of three hundred slain. He is the kind of soldier who saves a king's life from a Philistine, defeats Edomites in the Valley of Salt, drives Ammonites back into their city, runs Sheba down to Abel, and still has to be told, more than once, to put his weapon away.