Abner Calls a Halt and Both Sides Bury Their Dead

Abner names the bitterness of brother-killing

Joab and Abishai pursue Abner. The sun goes down when they come to the hill of Ammah, before Giah, by the way of the wilderness of Gibeon. The children of Benjamin gather behind Abner and stand on a hill's top. Abner calls to Joab: Shall the sword devour for ever? Do you not know that it will be bitterness in the latter end? How long will it be then, before you bid the people return from following their brethren?

Joab answers that as God lives, unless Abner had spoken, surely then in the morning the people would have gone up every one from following his brother. He blows a trumpet. The people stand still and pursue no more, neither fight they any more. The halt is commanded after a day already full of dead brothers. Abner's appeal is true as a description of civil war's end; it does not wash the morning's pool contest clean.

Night marches, body counts, and a burial in Bethlehem

Abner and his men walk all that night through the plain, pass over Jordan, go through all Bithron, and come to Mahanaim. Joab returns from following Abner and gathers all the people together. Nineteen of David's servants are missing, besides Asahel. David's servants had smitten of Benjamin and of Abner's men three hundred and sixty. They take up Asahel and bury him in the sepulchre of his father, which is in Bethlehem. Joab and his men go all night, and they come to Hebron at break of day.

Each side accounts for its dead and returns to its royal center. The numbers are the narrator's tally of one clash, not a scoreboard to admire. Asahel goes home to a family tomb. The war between the houses is not over.