Amasa (עמשא) or Amessai is a person mentioned in the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. '' Abigail (), a sister of King

David David (; , "beloved one") was a king of ancient Israel and Judah and the third king of the United Monarchy, according to the Hebrew Bible and Old Testament. The Tel Dan stele, an Aramaic-inscribed stone erected by a king of Aram-Dam ...

(). Hence, Amasa was a nephew of David, and cousin of Joab, David's military commander, as well as a cousin of Absalom, David's son. David calls him "my bone and my flesh" (). Amasa's father was Jether (, ) who was also called Ithra (). Jether had dual-nationality, being an Ishmaelite and

Israelite Israelites were a Hebrew language, Hebrew-speaking ethnoreligious group, consisting of tribes that lived in Canaan during the Iron Age. Modern scholarship describes the Israelites as emerging from indigenous Canaanites, Canaanite populations ...

, although it might be a case of an assimilated Ishmaelite living in Israel. When Absalom rebelled against David and won over the tribes of Israel (), Absalom appointed Amasa as commander over the army (), in effect replacing Joab, who had served as commander for David. After the revolt was crushed and Absalom died (), David was invited back to Jerusalem and restored as king. David re-appointed Amasa as his military commander in Joab's stead "from now on" as his military commander (). Other versions translate this status differently: it is given as "permanently" in the

Jewish Publication Society The Jewish Publication Society (JPS), originally known as the Jewish Publication Society of America, is the oldest nonprofit, nondenominational publisher of Jewish works in English. Founded in Philadelphia in 1888, by Reform Rabbi Joseph Krauskop ...

1985 translation and "for life" in the New International Version. David's appointment of Amasa has been interpreted as "a bold stroke of policy, to promise the post of commander-in chief to the general of the rebel army". Kirkpatrick, A.
Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
on 2 Samuel 19, accessed 13 August 2017 While being fiercely loyal to David, Joab was also suspicious of any potential rivals for Joab's power or threats to David's kingdom, and had no qualms about taking the lives of any who might stand in his way (e.g., Abner: , and Absalom: ). So it was not difficult for Joab to also decide to murder Amasa (, ). Joab's own justification for killing Amasa may have been because he believed Amasa to be conspiring with Sheba son of Bichri the Benjamite, due to Amasa's slowness to mobilize the army against Sheba's rebels ().

References

{{Authority control Family of David Ancient soldiers Ancient Arabs