2 Samuel 18:14

Three darts; Hebrew, three staves (see 2 Samuel 23:21 ). The weapons of the ancients were of a very inferior kind, and stakes sharpened at the end and hardened in the fire were used by the infantry, until the increasing cheapness of iron made it possible to supply them with pikes. Joab's act was not one of intentional cruelty, but, picking up the first weapons that came to hand, he hurried away to kill his victim. His thrusts with these pointed sticks were brutal, and inflicted mortal wounds; but as they were not immediately fatal, Joab's armour bearers, who had followed him, and who had with them Joab's own better weapons, were called upon to put an end to Absalom's sufferings. His heart does not mean that organ anatomically, but the middle of his body. So at the end of the verse, in the midst of the oak, is, in the Hebrew, in the heart of the terebinth.