Amasa

 

    Amasa is pronounced A-mas-a.  In Hebrew (עֲמָשָׂא) it means burden or bears a burden.  Amasa was King David's Nephew.  His parents were Abigail and Jether.  It was a complicated family dynamic, but he played his part.

     Absalom was David's son fighting with his own army against his father.  He employed Amasa as the leader of his army.  Together they gather their army at the Jordan River and were crossing.  Amasa was replacing Joab who had been under David as the commander.  He was keeping the leadership in the family.  It was a political move more than choosing the best person for the job.  The more people Absalom had in the family meant the more people David was losing.

    David did not want to fight his son or anyone else in his family.  He reached out through his priest to help him unite Judah and Israel as a nation, as a family.  He had defeated his son and wanted the war to end.  He reached out to Amasa specially to make him the commander of his army.  David saw how he did a good job under his son and wanted to make sure he understood that there were not any hard feelings.  

    Amasa realized his uncle was not going to kill him, so he reached out to Judah to find a way to move forward.  They invited David to move back to Jerusalem.  Absalom had made him leave when he declared himself king.  David took the invitation for what it was.  It was the first step of forgivingness and peace.

    A real leader knows how to forgive and move forward.  They don't make everything perfect or ignore what cause the issues, but make efforts to move forward.  In the case of David and Amasa, David was true to his word.  He put his trust in his nephew, but Amasa took more time than what he had been assigned to get a task done.  

    David was forced to use a backup.  When Abishai, Joab, and Sheba met up with Amasa, Joab stabbed Amasa.  It could have been because he did not trust Amasa or maybe he didn't want to loose power again to someone he felt was unworthy or unappreciative.  Either way Joab killed David's nephew.  Joab and Amasa were cousins, but he left Amasa's body just laying there and continued on with his mission and the army followed him.  

2 Samuel 17:24-26 & 19:11-20:13