Bible Strands
2 Samuel 20:10
Amasa was not on guard against the dagger in Joab’s hand, and Joab stabbed him in the stomach and spilled out his intestines on the ground. And Joab did not need to strike him again, for Amasa was dead. Then Joab and his brother Abishai pursued Sheba son of Bichri.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — Joab acts against Amasa immediately after a deceptive greeting, stabbing him while Amasa fails to guard himself, before Joab and Abishai resume their pursuit of Sheba son of Bichri.
The words — The Hebrew נִשְׁמַר (nish.Mar) literally means "he took heed," describing Amasa’s lack of vigilance, while בַּחֶרֶב (ba./Che.rev) specifies the weapon as "the sword" rather than a dagger.
The thread — This killing mirrors earlier regicidal ambushes in the Davidic narrative, where Joab kills Abner at the city gate (2 Samuel 3:27) and Abner kills Asahel with a spear thrust to the stomach (2 Samuel 2:23), while also echoing Ehud’s left-handed sword thrust into Eglon’s belly (Judges 3:21).
Why it lands — The text records a calculated assassination that severs the army's leadership and forces the troops to choose sides, demanding recognition of how political violence rapidly reorders military loyalty.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
But Amasa took no heed to the sword that was in Joab’s hand: so he smote him therewith in the fifth rib, and shed out his bowels to the ground, and struck him not again; and he died. So Joab and Abishai his brother pursued after Sheba the son of Bichri.
Cross-references
- 2 Samuel 2:23 But Asahel refused to turn away. So Abner thrust the butt of his spear into his stomach, and it came out his back, and he fell dead on the spot. And every man paused when he came to the place where Asahel had fallen and died.
- 2 Samuel 3:27 When Abner returned to Hebron, Joab pulled him aside into the gateway, as if to speak to him privately, and there Joab stabbed him in the stomach. So Abner died on account of the blood of Joab’s brother Asahel.
- Judges 3:21 And Ehud reached with his left hand, pulled the sword from his right thigh, and plunged it into Eglon’s belly.
- 1 Samuel 26:8 Abishai said to David, “Today God has delivered your enemy into your hand. Now, therefore, please let me thrust the spear through him into the ground with one stroke. I will not need to strike him twice!”
- 2 Samuel 20:9 “Are you well, my brother?” Joab asked Amasa. And with his right hand Joab grabbed Amasa by the beard to kiss him.
- 1 Kings 2:5 Moreover, you know what Joab son of Zeruiah did to me—what he did to Abner son of Ner and Amasa son of Jether, the two commanders of the armies of Israel. He killed them in peacetime to avenge the blood of war. He stained with the blood of war the belt around his waist and the sandals on his feet.
- 1 Kings 2:31 And the king replied, “Do just as he says. Strike him down and bury him, and so remove from me and from the house of my father the innocent blood that Joab shed.
- 1 Chronicles 12:2 they were archers using both the right and left hands to sling stones and shoot arrows; and they were Saul’s kinsmen from Benjamin):
- Acts 1:18 (Now with the reward for his wickedness Judas bought a field; there he fell headlong and burst open in the middle, and all his intestines spilled out.
- Genesis 4:8 Then Cain said to his brother Abel, “Let us go out to the field.” And while they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him.