'Brother' in the Bible

I grieve over you, my brother Jonathan! You were very dear to me. Your love was more special to me than the love of women.

So Abner spoke again to Asahel, "Turn aside from following me! I do not want to strike you to the ground. How then could I show my face in the presence of Joab your brother?"

When Abner returned to Hebron, Joab took him aside at the gate as if to speak privately with him. Joab then stabbed him in the abdomen and killed him, avenging the shed blood of his brother Asahel.

So Joab and his brother Abishai killed Abner, because he had killed their brother Asahel in Gibeon during the battle.

They entered the house under the pretense of getting wheat and mortally wounded him in the stomach. Then Recab and his brother Baanah escaped.

David replied to Recab and his brother Baanah, the sons of Rimmon the Beerothite, "As surely as the Lord lives, who has delivered my life from all adversity,

He put his brother Abishai in charge of the rest of the army and they were deployed against the Ammonites.

When the Ammonites saw the Arameans flee, they fled before his brother Abishai and went into the city. Joab withdrew from fighting the Ammonites and returned to Jerusalem.

Now Amnon had a friend named Jonadab, the son of David's brother Shimeah. Jonadab was a very crafty man.

He asked Amnon, "Why are you, the king's son, so depressed every morning? Can't you tell me?" So Amnon said to him, "I'm in love with Tamar the sister of my brother Absalom."

So David sent Tamar to the house saying, "Please go to the house of Amnon your brother and prepare some food for him."

So Tamar went to the house of Amnon her brother, who was lying down. She took the dough, kneaded it, made some cakes while he watched, and baked them.

Then Amnon said to Tamar, "Bring the cakes into the bedroom; then I will eat from your hand." So Tamar took the cakes that she had prepared and brought them to her brother Amnon in the bedroom.

But she said to him, "No, my brother! Don't humiliate me! This just isn't done in Israel! Don't do this foolish thing!

Her brother Absalom said to her, "Was Amnon your brother with you? Now be quiet, my sister. He is your brother. Don't take it so seriously!" Tamar, devastated, lived in the house of her brother Absalom.

Then Absalom said, "If you will not go, then let my brother Amnon go with us." The king replied to him, "Why should he go with you?"

Jonadab, the son of David's brother Shimeah, said, "My lord should not say, 'They have killed all the young men who are the king's sons.' For only Amnon is dead. This is what Absalom has talked about from the day that Amnon humiliated his sister Tamar.

Now the entire family has risen up against your servant, saying, 'Turn over the one who struck down his brother, so that we can execute him and avenge the death of his brother whom he killed. In so doing we will also destroy the heir.' They want to extinguish my remaining coal, leaving no one on the face of the earth to carry on the name of my husband."

David then sent out the army -- a third under the leadership of Joab, a third under the leadership of Joab's brother Abishai son of Zeruiah, and a third under the leadership of Ittai the Gittite. The king said to the troops, "I too will indeed march out with you."

Joab said to Amasa, "How are you, my brother?" With his right hand Joab took hold of Amasa's beard as if to greet him with a kiss.

Amasa did not protect himself from the knife in Joab's other hand, and Joab stabbed him in the abdomen, causing Amasa's intestines to spill out on the ground. There was no need to stab him again; the first blow was fatal. Then Joab and his brother Abishai pursued Sheba son of Bicri.

Yet another battle occurred with the Philistines in Gob. On that occasion Elhanan the son of Jair the Bethlehemite killed the brother of Goliath the Gittite, the shaft of whose spear was like a weaver's beam.

When he taunted Israel, Jonathan, the son of David's brother Shimeah, killed him.

Abishai son of Zeruiah, the brother of Joab, was head of the three. He killed three hundred men with his spear and gained fame among the three.

Included with the thirty were the following: Asahel the brother of Joab, Elhanan son of Dodo from Bethlehem,