At the decisive moment of the rebellion, Joab refuses to delay and takes the initiative to deliver the first blow against Absalom, who hangs helpless from the branches of a tree. Confronting the soldier who originally found Absalom, Joab declares that he will no longer wait or plead for the man to take action. The primary approach among commentators is that Joab decides to strike Absalom himself rather than wait for the hesitant soldier [רש״י, רד״ק, מצודת דוד]. Others suggest Joab is simply scolding the man to stop speaking nonsense [שטיינזלץ]. Another perspective is that Joab merely asks the soldier to show him the location and stand aside to witness the execution [אברבנאל]. From a moral standpoint, Joab chooses to strike the first blow himself so that the heavy burden of harming the king's son will fall solely on his own shoulders, sparing the simple soldier from the guilt [מלבי״ם].
To carry out the execution, Joab arms himself with three thin branches, sharpened wooden rods [מצודת ציון, רלב״ג, שטיינזלץ], or perhaps thin spears equipped with blades [רד״ק]. He forcefully thrusts them into Absalom's body [מצודת ציון, אברבנאל]. The choice of exactly three weapons is not a coincidence but a precise, measure-for-measure punishment. During his rebellion, Absalom stole three hearts: the heart of his father, the heart of the high court, and the heart of the people of Israel. Therefore, three rods are driven into his own heart [רד״ק, חומת אנך, אברבנאל].
Joab strikes with such immense force that the rods pass completely through Absalom and embed deeply into the center of the tree itself, echoing the way King Saul once tried to pin David to a wall [רד״ק, אברבנאל]. However, because the wounds are inflicted by wooden rods rather than a standard sword, Absalom does not die immediately [רלב״ג]. Seeing that he is still alive, Joab's ten young armor-bearers step forward to complete the execution [מלבי״ם, מצודת דוד, רלב״ג, רד״ק]. Their involvement also carries deep symbolic weight. Ten men strike him as a punishment for Absalom violating his father's ten concubines, or because a person who rebels against the kingdom is viewed as having broken all Ten Commandments [רד״ק, אברבנאל].
A lingering question remains regarding the moments before the strike: why did Absalom, a mighty warrior armed with a sword, not simply cut his tangled hair to free himself from the branches? A Midrashic tradition explains that as he hung there, a terrifying vision of hell opened up beneath him. Faced with this abyss, Absalom chose to remain suspended in agony by his hair rather than fall into the fire below [אברבנאל].