For the bark beetle genus, see Amasa (beetle).

Amasa - burden.

• A son of Abigail (2 Sam 17:25), who was sister to King David (1 Chr 2:16,17) and Zeruiah, the mother of Joab. Hence, Amasa was a nephew to David, a cousin to Joab, as well as a cousin to Absalom.

Absalom, David's mutinous son, revolted and won over the tribes of Israel (2 Sam 15). He appointed Amasa over the army, in effect replacing Joab, who had been general for his father David.

After the revolt was crushed, David held out an olive branch to Amasa (in a likely effort to appease and reunite Judah with the other 10 tribes of Israel) by offering to appoint Amasa as his new army commander (2 Sam 19:13). 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: 2 Sam 3:27, and Absalom: 2 Sam 18:14). So it was not difficult for Joab to also decide to murder Amasa (2 Sam 20:10, 1 Kin 2:5,32).

• A son of Hadlai, and one of the leaders of Ephraim (2 Chr 28:12) during the reign of the evil King Ahaz (2 Chr 28:1-4).

This article incorporates text from Easton's Bible Dictionary (1897), a publication now in the public domain.

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