A later midrashic legend reimagines Joab, the great general of King David, on one of his hardest campaigns. He had been hurled by the Israelites into a city called Kinsari, a fortified enemy town, and in the struggle his sword broke against the enemy's armor.
Joab ordered the local smith — a captive of the city's artisans' guild — to forge him a new one. The first two blades failed his tests. Only the third sword held its edge against his strength. With that third blade Joab cut the smith in two and then turned to the soldiers of Kinsari.
He fought until the blood of the slain had glued his hand to the hilt. The sword and the hand had fused; he could not set the weapon down. The people of the city, watching this prodigy of gore, advised him — with whatever dignity a defeated enemy can summon — to dip his hand and sword into the warm blood of the freshly slain, which would loosen the clotted grip without amputating the arm.
Joab obeyed. The blood softened, the hilt released, and the hand came free. He captured Kinsari that day and delivered it to the tribes of Israel.
Gaster's Exempla of the Rabbis (1924, No. 304, from Codex Gaster 185) preserves this gruesome scene as a folkloric expansion of the Davidic wars hinted at in 2 Samuel. Its picture of Joab — a soldier whose dedication becomes literal, whose weapon becomes part of his body — is the midrashic imagination's way of asking how a hand that has shed so much blood ever comes free of its sword.