And David said to Joab, and to all the people that [were] with him, Rend your clothes, and gird you with sackcloth, and mourn before Abner. And king David [himself] followed the bier.
Ver. 31. And David said to Joab.] As a part of his punishment. So the Pope forced our Henry II to kneel and pray to Becket's shrine, yea, to go barefoot a great way in pilgrinmge thereunto for a penance. Joab might hereby be possibly brought to some sight of his foul sin. So could Henry hardly, for one Roger, a Norman doctor, maintained publicly that Becket had justly deserved death, for rebelling against his sovereign: and though the Pope sainted him, yet it was disputed among the doctors of Paris whether he were damned or saved, saith the French chronicler. a
And king David himself followed the bier.] Heb., The bed. So the grave is called a bed, Isa 57:2 and the burying place, κοιυητηριον, a sleeping place. It was not usual for princes to attend upon funerals; - there was a veil laid between Tiberius, who counterfeited grief at the funeral of Drusus, and the dead corps, for state's sake; - but David would do it in honour of Abner, and to clear his own innocency.
a Dan., Hist., fol. 99.