"What Bloody Man Is This?"

I cannot stop thinking of Joab, ever since Der Springer invoked his name. "Do not let his hoary head go down to the grave in peace," said David the King of him (I Kings 2:2-9). But as I read through the Old Testament, it struck me how Joab (who was David's nephew) and David had danced through a precarious and deadly measure for many years. Joab was always the General, the Enforcer, the autonomous and powerful Right Hand. He did things how he wanted, was adept at pushing blame to the King (which, to be honest, was sometimes deserved), and was a pretty effective general. For years, especially as David began to decline, he was Kingmaker, Godfather, Chancellor.

So wherefore David's angst? Joab was the bane of any man who was promoted to equal rank (or even looked like it). He took out his rivals with summary ruthlessness, no matter what their quality or value to the Kingdom. In this way, he cost the Kingdom the lives of the two generals Abner and Amasa. And as David found his own place in the grave, Joab was still trying to escape.

Sometimes, we're like that, I guess — too locked in internecine strife to see the bigger picture. I realise that Joab's guile and choleric nature are also traits that I can find in myself if I look deep enough and hard enough. It is a humiliating experience to see yourself that way. But having seen yourself that way, it is also possible to find it in others. And that is why the Good Book says, "There is none righteous, no, not one."

I am reminded of the theme of blood in Macbeth. At the beginning, a nameless soldier stumbles towards Macbeth, Thane of Glamis, with bloody injuries that make him seem a likely harbinger of news of battle. There's also the moment at which Macbeth sees Banquo's ghost at the table ("Shake not thy gory locks at me! Thy bones are marrowless; thy blood is cold!") In all the other incarnadine moments of that Scottish play, the appearance of blood presages doom and the intimations thereof. At the very end, it is the 'untimely-ripped' MacDuff who is the bane of the self-made king.

These are disturbing thoughts. I thrust them aside. I need to look after bees in Sussex, or at the very least, prune the hydrangeas. Cataloguing a library also helps. Hierophant, are you out there?