He had hardly departed from the royal presence, when Joab returned from a foray, and was informed of this unexpected visit. Jealous probably of a possible rival, and burning with rage against his brother’s murderer, he remonstrated in no measured terms with David for his imprudence, as he termed it, in admitting the general of Ishbosheth to an audience and sending him away in peace. Then, unknown to the king, he sent messengers after Abner to call him back. Not suspecting treachery the latter returned to Hebron, and, as he entered the gate, Joab took him aside, and stabbed him to death, as he had stabbed his brother Asahel. News of this cruel and treacherous deed roused David’s unbounded indignation. Unable to punish the assassin, he imprecated on the house of Joab the most fearful curses, and compelled him to attend the funeral of his murdered victim, robed in sackcloth, and wearing all the signs of mourning. He himself fasted till sunset, and as he followed the bier to the burial-place at Hebron, poured forth a solemn dirge. This incident gave David an insight into Joab’s unscrupulous character, which he never forgot. _These men_, he said, _the sons of Zeruiah, be too hard for me, and I am this day weak though anointed king_ (2 Sam. iii. 39). The death of Abner was the signal for the dissolution of the tottering kingdom he had supported. On receiving the tidings of his kinsman’s murder, Ishbosheth’s _hands were feeble, and all the Israelites were troubled_ (2 Sam. iv. 1). His body-guard was composed of men from his own tribe of Benjamin, but two divisions of it were commanded by two men, Baanah and Rechab, who, though descendants of the Canaanitish natives of Beeroth[278], were reckoned among the Benjamites. In revenge, it has been suggested, for some injury they had received from Saul――possibly the slaughter of their Gibeonite kinsmen (Comp. 2 Sam. xxi. 1, 2)――and certainly with the hope of conciliating the new king at Hebron, these two resolved to take the life of Ishbosheth. _About the heat of the day_ (2 Sam. iv. 5), therefore, they entered the palace under pretence of fetching some wheat piled up near the entrance (2 Sam. iv. 6), and finding Ishbosheth lying on his bed they stabbed him to the heart, and cut off his head. Then hurrying all that afternoon and all night (2 Sam. iv. 7) down the valley of the Jordan, they presented themselves before David at Hebron with the bloody head in their hands. But they met with no better reception than the pretended slayer of Saul. David sternly rebuked them for their cold-blooded _murder of a righteous person in his own house upon his bed_, and ordered their instant execution. Their hands and feet were cut off, and their bodies were suspended over the pool at Hebron, while the head of Ishbosheth was buried with all honours in the sepulchre of Abner (2 Sam. iv. 8–12). CHAPTER II.