Let it rest on the head of Joab— Houbigant very properly renders this in the future tense, but it shall, or will rest upon the head of Joab, and on all his father's house, and there will not fail, &c. by which rendering every thing doubtful in the text is removed. The king commanded a general mourning to be made for Abner; and it is remarkable, that the command begins with Joab. David wept over Abner, and buried him with all solemnity, himself attending the bier, which was not the custom of kings; and he added a lamentation (2 Samuel 3:33.) which every eye will discern to be truly poetic in the most literal translation, though none have pretended to determine the measure.
As dies the criminal, shall Abner die?— Thy hands not bound, Nor to the fetters were thy feet applied: As is their fate that fall Before the faces of the sons of guilt, So art thou fallen.
Josephus says, that David interred Abner magnificently, and that he wrote funeral lamentations to his honour; i.e. as some suppose, he raised a magnificent tomb for him, and engraved upon it an epitaph in his praise.