David, Amasa and Joab
One of our readers writes, “It seems strange that David should make Amasa, recently head of the rebel army of Absalom, his commander in chief (II Sam. 19-20).”
David, Amasa, Joab and Absalom were all related. Amasa, Joab and Absalom, David’s son, were cousins; Amasa and Joab were sons of David’s sisters (II Sam. 17:25; I Chron. 2:16-17). Amasa and Joab, therefore, were both nephews of King David. Amasa had supported Absalom and was the commander of his forces in his rebellion against David (II Sam. 17:25). Joab was one of David’s commanders in the battle against Absalom and the one who saw to it that Absalom was killed (18:1-17). David, who had told Joab to spare Absalom, was angry with him for having Absalom killed. So he fired Joab, making Amasa commander in his place (19:13).
David’s appointment of Amasa does seem strange. Some believe that David was attempting to reunite the people by appointing Amasa, the commander of the rebel army, but, because this happened immediately after the battle in which Absalom was killed, it is more likely that Amasa was appointed to spite Joab (19:13). Joab, always jealous for his own prestige and position, soon murdered Amasa, using as his excuse Amasa’s sluggishness in mustering the army against another rebel, Sheba the son of Bichri (20:1-13).
Of Amasa we know little. David seems to have appointed him not only to spite Joab but also because he was his nephew (17:25). Though captain, first under Absalom and then under David, he does not seem to have been very competent as a military leader. Not only did he lose the battle as Absalom’s commander, but he was tardy in mustering the men of Judah against Sheba (20:4-5) and naively did not take heed to the murderous sword of crafty Joab (8-10). At that point, David had, in effect, reappointed Joab and Joab’s brother, Abishai, but Joab murdered Amasa anyway (6-10).
Joab, though fiercely loyal to David and unafraid of telling him when he was wrong (e.g., 19:1-8), seems to have been an evil man. He not only murdered Amasa but had previously murdered Abner, who had commanded the armies of the other tribes against David, before David became king of all Israel. Abner, Saul’s cousin (I Sam. 14:50), had been Saul’s general and, when Saul died, he had supported Saul’s son, Ishbosheth (II Sam. 2). Abner abandoned Ishbosheth after a dispute about one of Saul’s concubines and came over to David, but Joab, to avenge his brother, Asahel, who had been killed in a fair fight by Abner, and perhaps out distrust, murdered Abner (II Sam. 3).
David seemed unable to handle Joab but, before he died, he gave instructions to Solomon to deal with Joab (I Kings 2:5-6). Benaiah, under Solomon’s orders, dispatched Joab (28-34), after he supported Solomon’s rival and half-brother, Adonijah.
However, it is not Amasa or Joab but David who is the main character in this history. David, born around 1040 BC, would have been in his 60s at the time of Absalom’s rebellion and Amasa’s murder, with only a few years left before his death at 70 years of age.
The disorder of David’s latter reign included not only Absalom’s rebellion and death, and the rebellion under Sheba the son of Bichri, but near civil war between Judah and the rest of Israel (II Sam. 19:40-43). Just before David died, another son, Adonijah, tried to take the throne, and was supported by Joab and Abiathar the priest (I Kings 1). This was partly David’s own fault for not making it sufficiently clear that Solomon was his heir. It was obvious at this time that David was failing. He was nearly killed in a battle with the Philistines (II Sam. 21:15-17) and needed a concubine to keep him warm (I Kings 1:1-4). It may also have been during this time that David took a census of the people, angering God who then slew 70,000 men with a plague (II Sam. 24).
This disorder was not only the result of David’s age and weakness, but was God’s judgment on him and his house for his sin with Bathsheba, whose husband he had murdered (II Sam. 11). God had forgiven David (II Sam. 12:13; Ps. 32; 51), but David and his family suffered the consequences of his sin. God said to David through Nathan the prophet, “I anointed thee king over Israel, and I delivered thee out of the hand of Saul; And I ... gave thee the house of Israel and of Judah; and if that had been too little, I would moreover have given unto thee such and such things. Wherefore hast thou despised the commandment of the Lord, to do evil in his sight? thou hast killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and hast taken his wife to be thy wife, and hast slain him with the sword of the children of Ammon. Now therefore the sword shall never depart from thine house; because thou hast despised me, and hast taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be thy wife. Thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will raise up evil against thee out of thine own house” (II Sam. 12:7-11).
David, the greatest of Israel’s kings, was a man after God’s heart (I Sam. 13:14) and a picture of Christ as the Captain of our salvation who delivers us from our enemies. The two are so closely identified in the Psalms that it is often difficult to say, “This is David” or “This is Christ.” Psalm 45 is an example of the intimate relationship between David and Christ as warrior kings. David the shepherd speaks of Christ the Good Shepherd in Psalm 23. In Psalms 41:9 and 55:12-14, David complains of Ahithophel’s betrayal (II Sam. 15-17), but one can hear Christ speaking through David of Judas and his betrayal.
Nevertheless, David was only a shadow of Christ and, though in some ways he pictured the might and victories of Christ as king, his failures pointed to the need for a better king than himself. The disorder in which his reign ended showed that no mere man could bring the deliverance Jesus brings by His great victory over sin, that is, everlasting righteousness and peace. Psalm 72 and Isaiah 11 speak of Christ as that greatest of all kings, who alone has the victory over our greatest enemies, and who establishes a kingdom that will endure when sun and moon have ceased to shine.
Unlike David, Jesus needed no Joab or Amasa to fight His battles. He needed no swords or spears, like the weapon with which Joab killed Amasa. He fought His battle alone, and fought it by surrendering Himself to His enemies and letting them do their worst, until they destroyed themselves in crucifying Him. He brought life out of death and eternal blessedness out of the misery of sin. That is the gospel of David’s failures as king, a message that David himself acknowledged, when he wrote, “The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand” (Ps. 110:1). Rev. Ron Hanko
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