2 Samuel 19:11

"And King David sent this message to Zadok and Abiathar the priests, "Say to the elders of Judah, `Why should you be the last to bring the king back to his house, when the word of all Israel has come to the king? You are my kinsmen, you are my bone and my flesh; why then should you be the last to bring back the king'?. And say to Amasa, `Are you not my bone and my flesh? God do so to me and more also, if you are not commander of my army henceforth in the place of Joab.'" And he swayed the heart of Judah as one man; so that they sent word to the king, "Return, both you and all your servants." So the king came back to the Jordan; and Judah came to Gilgal to meet him and to bring the king over the Jordan."

"Say to Amasa, Are you not my bone and my flesh" (2 Samuel 19:12). "This was an amazing reason, seeing that it was also shared by Joab."[9] As a matter of fact, Amasa's father was not even an Israelite. Thus Joab was more closely akin to David than was Amasa, but at this point David had not returned completely to normal senses.

Willis pointed out that David's reasons for this maneuver were: (1) to provide an inducement to Judah; (2) to punish Joab for killing Absalom; and (3) to punish him for his stern rebuke.[10] We consider these reasons absolutely inadequate as grounds for appointing a known incompetent traitor as his supreme general. Besides that, Judah needed no inducement whatever.

"It was not only unwise but unjust to give to the traitor general of the rebels a promise with an oath that he should be commander-in-chief instead of Joab. ... However Joab might have offended David by killing Absalom and by the offensive manner in which he reproved the king for his giving way to his grief, David should have suppressed his anger in the circumstances and should not have rendered evil for evil, especially as he was extending pardon to his sworn enemy Amasa for a far greater crime and swearing with an oath to reward him magnificently by making him commander-in-chief."[11]

We might add that this action by David sealed the doom of Amasa, because there was no way that Joab would have let him live to supplant him.

"And he swayed the heart of all the men of Judah as one man" (2 Samuel 19:14). Some scholars have misunderstood this completely. "The subject of this sentence is David, not Amasa."[12] "It was not Amasa, but David, who made all the members of the tribe of Judah unanimous in his recall ... David was fight in this policy; because following the solemn anointing of Absalom as king (2 Samuel 19:10), it was necessary for him to wait until some equally public and national act authorized his resumption of the royal power."[13]