ABNER ăb’ nər (אַבְנֵ֖ר), the most important Israelite military commander under both Saul and David. He was a member of the royal family and the first cousin of Saul through his father Ner (1 Sam 14:51). The various military campaigns of Saul (1 Sam 14:47, 48) were successful in extending the kingdom of the twelve tribes to the S into the Negev and to the W against the Gr. Philistines. The army was led by Abner. It was during the campaign against the Philistines that Abner presented David to Saul (17:55-58). Abner commanded the troops which pursued David and apparently acted as bodyguard to Saul (26:5-16). After Saul and the prince, Jonathan, were killed by the Philistines near Mount Gilboa, Abner placed Saul’s son, Ishbosheth (his actual pagan name was Ish-ba ’al), upon the throne. All the tribes except Judah, the most powerful, recognized his sovereignty in the hill town of Mahanaim (2 Sam 2:8-12). Warfare ensued between the remnants of Saul’s retinue and the growing house of David. The ritual combat at Gibeon (2:14-32) ended in the defeat of Abner and his troops. The fact that Ishbosheth was merely a figurehead and puppet of Abner was proven when Abner had intercourse with one of the royal concubines, Rizpah. In a rage at the rebuke of Ishbosheth, Abner arranged to yield the kingdom to David and brought an end to the house of Saul (3:7-11.) The fulfillment of Samuel’s choice of David was thus brought about by the treason of Abner. The fear and awe in which Abner was held by his contemporaries is evidenced even in Ishbosheth himself (3:11; 4:1). In his offices of peacemaker and king maker, Abner set out to address the twelve tribes and arrange David’s acceptance. He was praised by David after successfully approaching the last tribe, Benjamin (3:19). After Abner’s departure, the king’s commander, Joab, returned from a raid upon the surrounding country. He persuaded David that Abner had been obtaining intelligence for David’s downfall. Joab then pursued Abner and caught up with him at a well of Sirah. He brought him back to Hebron where, under guise of talking to him privately, Joab took him aside and stabbed him to death. The motive was to revenge Abner’s impalement of Joab’s younger brother, Asahel, after the battle at Gibeon (2:18-23). The treacherous murder of Abner contributed to the fall of the house of Saul, as few, if any, of his former military commanders were now left alive. To a certain extent the effect of this barbarism was to plant a deep-seated dissatisfaction in the hearts of a sector of the Israelite population which was to come to the surface and plague David throughout his reign and to split the kingdom under his grandsons (3:26-32.)

David grieved for Abner and gave him a princely funeral. The lament in fine parallel poetic verse is given in 2 Samuel 3:33, 34. This passage is of great antiquity and features some interesting terms. The short poem or dirge demonstrates a case of 1:2, or “staircase” parallelism. The two phrases, “Your hands were not bound,” and, “your feet were not fettered,” are in reverse order and in parallelism to the one phrase, “as one who fell before the enemies you fell,” and all are introduced by the question, “Should Abner die like a fool?” The people of Israel followed David in mourning for the dead commander. David’s extravagant grief was not only in honor of the victim but also indicated that he was not the instigator of the crime. This is made clear by the curse which he leveled upon those who had committed the crime (3:39). In this curse the patronymic of the brothers, the one himself a victim and the other a murderer, is used in the style of many another Biblical curse, e.g. Numbers 23:7-10. The overall effect of Abner’s career was favorable for the establishment of the blessing of the covenant through the rise of the house of David. Only two other references to Abner and his son are found in the OT; in 1 Chronicles 26:26-28 which records certain spoils of war dedicated to Jehovah, and 1 Chronicles 27:21 which records the son of Abner, Jaasiel, as a servant of David.