Asahel

The three sons of Tz'ruyah were there, Yo'av, Avishai and 'Asah'el. 'Asah'el was as fleet-footed as a gazelle in an open field.

'Asah'el chased Avner, going straight for him, veering neither right nor left.

Avner looked behind him and asked, "Is that you, 'Asah'el?""Yes, it is," he answered.

Avner said to him, "Turn off to your right or your left, catch one of the young men and take his armor." But 'Asah'el wouldn't turn aside and kept following him.

Avner said again to 'Asah'el, "Turn aside and stop following me! Why should I kill you? If I did, how could I look your brother Yo'av in the eye?"

But he still refused to turn aside; so Avner stabbed him in the groin with the back end of the spear, so that the shaft protruded behind him. He fell down and died on the spot. Everyone who came to the place where 'Asah'el lay dead stopped there.

Yo'av returned from following Avner. When he brought the troops together for review, nineteen of David's servants were missing, along with 'Asah'el.

They took 'Asah'el and buried him in his father's tomb in Beit-Lechem. Then Yo'av and his men marched all night, so that they reached Hevron at daybreak.

Upon Avner's return to Hevron, Yo'av took him aside into the space between the outer and inner city gates as if to speak with him privately; and there he struck him in the groin, so that he died - thus avenging the death of 'Asah'el his brother.

Thus Yo'av and Avishai his brother killed Avner, because he had killed their brother 'Asah'el during the battle in Giv'on.

'Asah'el the brother of Yo'av was one of the thirty, Elchanan the son of Dodo of Beit-Lechem,

and their sisters Tz'ruyah and Avigayil. The sons of Tz'ruyah: Avshai, Yo'av and 'Asah'el, three of them.

There were also these warrior-heroes: 'Asah'el the brother of Yo'av, Elchanan the son of Dodo, from Beit-Lechem,

The fourth commander, for the fourth month, was 'Asah'el the brother of Yo'av, with Z'vadyah his son after him; there were 24,000 in his division.