Abishai

Abishai was the eldest of the three sons of Zeruiah, David's sister, and therefore David's nephew. With his brothers Joab and Asahel he formed the inner circle of David's military leadership through forty years of fugitive years, civil war, and consolidation of the kingdom.

He first appears at night in the camp of Saul. While David and Abishai stand over the sleeping king, Abishai asks to drive a spear through Saul's body — let me smite him, I pray thee, with the spear even to the earth at once, and I will not smite him the second time — and David refuses, taking only Saul's spear and water-jug as proof he had been there (1 Samuel 26:6-12). The exchange becomes a pattern. Twice more — when Shimei cursed David at the Mount of Olives, and again after Absalom's defeat — Abishai offered to take off this dead dog's head and David refused. He is the kind of friend a king both needs and must restrain.

His military record is the longest of any of David's men short of Joab himself. He led one of the three divisions at the battle against Absalom (2 Samuel 18). He pursued Sheba son of Bichri across the northern hill country (2 Samuel 20). He slew eighteen thousand Edomites in the Valley of Salt (1 Chronicles 18:12). And once, in his old age, he saved David's life from the Philistine giant Ishbi-benob who was about to spear the exhausted king — the moment when David's men finally swore he would no longer go out to battle (2 Samuel 21:15-17).

The roll of David's mighty men records that Abishai lifted up his spear against three hundred and slew them, and had a name among three (2 Samuel 23:18-19). Whether he was reckoned chief of The Three or only chief of the second tier — The Thirty — is a textual question the church has never resolved; either way, he stood among the most feared warriors of the Iron Age. He outlived his brother Asahel (murdered by Abner) and likely his brother Joab (executed at Solomon's accession); scripture does not record his death.