(20) And Joab answered and said, Far be it, far be it from me, that I should swallow up or destroy. (21) The matter is not so: but a man of mount Ephraim, Sheba the son of Bichri by name, hath lifted up his hand against the king, even against David: deliver him only, and I will depart from the city. And the woman said unto Joab, Behold, his head shall be thrown to thee over the wall. (22) Then the woman went unto all the people in her wisdom. And they cut off the head of Sheba the son of Bichri, and cast it out to Joab. And he blew a trumpet, and they retired from the city, every man to his tent. And Joab returned to Jerusalem unto the king.
Joab, though a man of blood, desired to prove himself a man of justice, in war. What a blessed compromise this was! how honourable to the woman, whom the LORD had made the instrument of it. Reader! What a glorious event was that, when JESUS voluntarily offered himself a ransom for his people! What a gracious display of love: in GOD our FATHER, when accepting such a substitute! Deliver him from going down into the pit, I have found a ransom. Job 33:24.