2nd Samuel Chapter 20 verse 4 Holy Bible
Then said the king to Amasa, Call me the men of Judah together within three days, and be thou here present.
read chapter 20 in ASV
Then the king said to Amasa, Get all the men of Judah together, and in three days be here yourself.
read chapter 20 in BBE
And the king said to Amasa, Call me the men of Judah together within three days, and do thou attend here.
read chapter 20 in DARBY
Then said the king to Amasa, Assemble me the men of Judah within three days, and be thou here present.
read chapter 20 in KJV
Then said the king to Amasa, Assemble to me the men of Judah within three days, and be thou here present.
read chapter 20 in WBT
Then said the king to Amasa, Call me the men of Judah together within three days, and be here present.
read chapter 20 in WEB
And the king saith unto Amasa, `Call for me the men of Judah `in' three days, and thou, stand here,'
read chapter 20 in YLT
Pulpit Commentary
Pulpit CommentaryVerse 4. - Then said the king to Amasa. David thus takes the first step towards depriving Joab of the command (see 2 Samuel 19:13). This was a most unwise step, however guilty Joab may have been in slaying Absalom. With all his faults, Joab had always been faithful to David, and it was chiefly his skill in war and statesmanlike qualities which had raised the kingdom to a position of great power. Just now, too, he had crushed with smaller forces a rebellion in which Amasa had taken the lead. To cast him off and put Amasa in his place might please conspirators, and reconcile them to their defeat, but it would certainly offend all those who had been faithful to David in his troubles. Throughout David acts as one whose affections were stronger than his sense of duty, and his conduct goes far to justify Joab's complaint, "This day I perceive, that if Absalom had lived, and all we had died this day, then it had pleased thee well" (2 Samuel 19:6). If David, in the administration of his kingdom, acted with as little forethought as in the slight he cast-upon the ten tribes in negotiating with Judah to be the first to restore him, as it had been the first tribe to rebel, instead of waiting for the rest, and doing his best to make the day of his return one of general concord and good will; or with as little justice as in the matter of Ziba and Mephibosheth; or with as little tact and good sense as in substituting at the end of a revolt the rebel general for the brave soldier who had "saved his life, and the lives of his sons and of his daughters, and the lives of his wives and of his concubines" (2 Samuel 19:5); we cannot wonder that he had failed to secure the allegiance of a race so self-willed and stubborn as the Israelites. One cannot help half suspecting that Joab had used the power he had gained over the king by the part he had taken in the murder of Uriah tyrannically, and for cruel purposes, and that David groaned under the burden. But if so, it was his own sin that was finding him out.
Ellicott's Commentary
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(4) To Amasa.--Thus David begins the fulfilment of his promise of 2Samuel 19:13. It proved an act of very doubtful expediency at this crisis.
