2 Samuel 13:1-5,7,11-17
And it came to pass after this, that Absalom the son of David had a fair sister, whose name was Tamar; and Amnon the son of David loved her. And Amnon was so vexed, that he fell sick for his sister Tamar; for she was a virgin; and Amnon thought it hard for him to do any thing to her. But Amnon had a friend, whose name was Jonadab, the son of Shimeah David’s brother: and Jonadab was a very subtil man. And he said unto him, Why art thou, being the king’s son, lean from day to day? wilt thou not tell me? And Amnon said unto him, I love Tamar, my brother Absalom’s sister. And Jonadab said unto him, Lay thee down on thy bed, and make thyself sick: and when thy father cometh to see thee, say unto him, I pray thee, let my sister Tamar come, and give me meat, and dress the meat in my sight, that I may see it, and eat it at her hand.
Then David sent home to Tamar, saying, Go now to thy brother Amnon’s house, and dress him meat.
So Tamar went to her brother Amnon’s house; and he was laid down. And she took flour, and kneaded it, and made cakes in his sight, and did bake the cakes. And when she had brought them unto him to eat, he took hold of her, and said unto her, Come lie with me, my sister. And she answered him, Nay, my brother, do not force me; for no such thing ought to be done in Israel: do not thou this folly. And I, whither shall I cause my shame to go? and as for thee, thou shalt be as one of the fools in Israel. Now therefore, I pray thee, speak unto the king; for he will not withhold me from thee. Howbeit he would not hearken unto her voice: but, being stronger than she, forced her, and lay with her. Then Amnon hated her exceedingly; so that the hatred wherewith he hated her was greater than the love wherewith he had loved her. And Amnon said unto her, Arise, be gone. And she said unto him, There is no cause: this evil in sending me away is greater than the other that thou didst unto me. But he would not hearken unto her.
THOMAS COKE (1747-1814): When David had taken Rabbah and the other cities of Ammon, he had not long returned to Jerusalem before his domestic misfortunes began to multiply upon him, to verify the terrible threats which Nathan had denounced from the Lord, “I will raise up evil against thee out of thine own house,” 2 Samuel 12:11.
ADAM CLARKE (1760-1832): Tamar was the daughter of David and Maacah, daughter of the king of Geshur, and the sister of Absalom. Amnon was David’s eldest son by Ahinoam. She was therefore a half-sister to Amnon, but a whole sister to Absalom. “Jonadab was a very subtle man,”—and most diabolic advice did he give to his cousin.
G. CAMPBELL MORGAN (1863-1945): It is said of Jonadab that he was a friend of Amnon. The word “friend” is desecrated by its use in such a connection. Any who out of friendship will aid in the pathway of sin, prove themselves enemies rather than friends. Jonadab might have saved Amnon, even though for the moment he had offended him.
MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): David saw no reason to suspect any mischief intended. God hid his heart from understanding in this matter. He therefore immediately orders Tamar to go and attend her sick brother. He does it very innocently, but afterwards, no doubt, reflected upon it with great regret.
ADAM CLARKE: Amnon violates her. He then hates her, and expels her from his house.
THOMAS COKE: Commentators are at a loss to account for this sudden and excessive hatred; and, indeed, there seems to be something extraordinary in it.
MATTHEW HENRY: Amnon’s lust was unnatural in itself—to lust after his sister, miscalling it “love.”
THE EDITOR: What had attracted Amnon to Tamar’s beauty most was her virginal innocency. Such was the Satanic nature of his lust; the devil hates holiness and purity, and always seeks to destroy it. But once Amnon had defiled Tamar’s innocent purity, that attraction was gone; now Amnon realized the “folly” and consequences of what he had done, Leviticus 18:7; Deuteronomy 22:25-27. But rather than loathing himself, he blamed Tamar for it, and her prior warning against it only made him despise her more. Now he couldn’t bear to be around her. Tamar left weeping, and went to her brother Absalom, 2 Samuel 13:16-20.
JOHN GILL (1697-1771): “When king David heard of all these things, he was very wroth” with Amnon, 2 Samuel 13:21—but we read not of any reproof he gave him, nor of any punishment inflicted on him.
THE EDITOR: Absalom hated Amnon for defiling Tamar, but he said nothing for two years. Then, Absalom asked David to come with all his sons to his sheep-shearing feast. But why did he want David to go? Absalom was ambitious, and next in line to the throne after Amnon, and he harboured a deep resentment against his father for not punishing Amnon, 2 Samuel 15:1-4; if David had attended his feast, Absalom likely would have murdered all of them, including his father, and seized David’s throne. But in the midst of judgment, God remembers mercy. It was God’s preventative grace that moved David not to attend; “The king’s heart is in the hand of the LORD…he turneth it whithersoever he will,” Proverbs 21:1; “The preparations of the heart in man, and the answer of the tongue, is from the LORD,” Proverbs 16:1.
G. CAMPBELL MORGAN: Absalom probably was moved by mixed motives. Absalom wanted vengeance on the man who had wronged his sister. His subsequent actions, however, show that he saw in Amnon a hindrance to carrying out his own secret ambitions.
THE EDITOR: Next, Absalom asked him to send Amnon; David was suspicious, but after Absalom pressed him on it, he agreed to send Amnon with the others, 2 Samuel 14:23-27. “And it came to pass, while they were in the way, that tidings came to David, saying, Absalom hath slain all the king’s sons, and there is not one of them left. And Jonadab, the son of Shimeah, David’s brother, answered and said, Let not my lord suppose that they have slain all the young men the king’s sons; for Amnon only is dead: for by the appointment of Absalom this hath been determined from the day that he forced his sister Tamar,” 2 Samuel 13:30,32.
G. CAMPBELL MORGAN: It is noticeable that Jonadab the “friend” who had aided Amnon, was still on hand, and the same cool, calculating traits were manifest in his character.
MATTHEW HENRY: What a wicked man was he, if he knew all this or had any cause to suspect it, that he did not make David acquainted with it sooner, that means might be used to make up the quarrel, or at least that David might not throw Amnon into the mouth of danger by letting him go to Absalom’s house. If we do not our utmost to prevent mischief, we make ourselves accessory to it. “If we say, Behold, we knew it not; doth not he that pondereth the heart consider” whether we did or no? See Proverbs 24:11,12
THE EDITOR: Some in Israel likely thought that Absalom was justified in killing Amnon, and viewed him as wielding the sword of righteous justice. But Absalom’s principle motive wasn’t justice, nor ambition, but revenge, nursed by his own offended proud vanity, 2 Samuel 14:26; his waiting two years was only to conceal his intentions, because Absalom had decided to kill Amnon the very day he had forced his sister—‘should he deal with my sister as with an harlot!’—the same motive that Simeon and Levi cited for their revenge regarding Dinah’s defilement, and equally as deceitful in its planning, Genesis 34:31. That made it a cold premeditated murder of personal revenge, pure and simple.
MATTHEW HENRY: Sin brings trouble into a family, and one sin is often made the punishment of another.
THE EDITOR: Micah, though he prophesied of Israel’s later wickedness, could have been describing the mess David’s family had now become: “The best of them is as a briar: the most upright is sharper than a throne hedge…trust yet not in a friend, put ye not confidence in a guide…a man’s enemies are the men of his own household,” Micah 7:4-6.
MATTHEW HENRY: Thus God chastened David with the rod of men. Adultery and murder were David’s sins, and those sins among his children were the beginnings of his punishment, and the more grievous because he had reason to fear that his bad example might have helped to bring them to these wickednesses—Amnon ravishing Tamar, assisted in his plot to do it by Jonadab his kinsman, and villainously executing it; and Absalom murdering Amnon for it. Both were great griefs to David, and the more so, because he was unwittingly made accessory to both, by sending Tamar to Amnon, and Amnon to Absalom.
THE EDITOR: David certainly blamed himself for it, and saw it all as God’s judgment, as God had said, “I will raise up evil against thee, out thine own house.” Now David’s most favourite son had to flee.
JOHN GILL: Absalom fled to Geshur, where he remained three years.
G. CAMPBELL MORGAN: In all these things David was reaping the result of the sin that had cursed his life, and the full harvest was not yet.
