2 Samuel 20 · a question people ask
David had promised Amasa the army. How is Joab over it again at the end?
The chapter tells what happened and doesn't say more. David had promised Amasa that he would be "captain of the army before me continually instead of Joab" (19:13). The king gives Amasa the first charge (20:4), and when Amasa is late (20:5), David gives the pursuit to Abishai (20:6). Yet it is "Joab’s men" who go out (20:7), Joab kills Amasa at Gibeon (20:9-10), and one of Joab's young men calls, "He who favors Joab, and he who is for David, let him follow Joab!" (20:11). The list at the end begins, "Now Joab was over all the army of Israel" (20:23). The chapter doesn't say that David gave the command back to Joab. Later, Solomon says Joab "fell on two men more righteous and better than he… and my father David didn’t know it: Abner the son of Ner, captain of the army of Israel, and Amasa the son of Jether, captain of the army of Judah" (1 Kings 2:32).
The verses
“Say to Amasa, ‘Aren’t you my bone and my flesh? God do so to me, and more also, if you aren’t captain of the army before me continually instead of Joab.’””
“Now Joab was over all the army of Israel, Benaiah the son of Jehoiada was over the Cherethites and over the Pelethites,”
“The LORD will return his blood on his own head, because he fell on two men more righteous and better than he, and killed them with the sword, and my father David didn’t know it: Abner the son of Ner, captain of the army of Israel, and Amasa the son of Jether, captain of the army of Judah.”