Biblion Bible Commentary
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Amnon and Tamar
2 Samuel 13:1-22
1 After this, Absalom the son of David had a beautiful sister, whose name was Tamar; and Amnon the son of David loved her. · WEB
The sword enters the house: a prince rapes his half-sister on a friend's advice, discards her, and a father is angry and does nothing.
Amnon was so troubled that he became sick because of his sister Tamar 2 Samuel 13:2.
The chapter opens by calling it love 2 Samuel 13:1 and then dismantles the claim over twenty verses. What Amnon has is obsession with an obstacle — it seemed hard to Amnon to do anything to her — and the sickness is frustration, not affection.
But Amnon had a friend whose name was Jonadab... and Jonadab was a very subtle man 2 Samuel 13:3.
The cousin's advice is the machinery of the crime: fake illness, ask for the one nurse you want, get her alone. Jonadab never touches anyone and makes the whole thing possible — and he reappears at the end of the chapter, entirely composed, explaining the murder to the king 2 Samuel 13:32. Scripture has a category for men who supply the plan and keep their hands clean, and this is its portrait.
Then David sent home to Tamar, saying, "Go now to your brother Amnon's house" 2 Samuel 13:7.
The father sends her. He is deceived, and he is also the reason she cannot refuse; the king's order puts a young woman alone in a bedroom with the man who has been staring at her.
"No, my brother, do not force me! For no such thing ought to be done in Israel... And as for you, you will be as one of the fools in Israel" 2 Samuel 13:12–13.
Tamar argues — four arguments in two verses, and they are all good ones: the law, her ruin, his name, and a legitimate alternative if he will ask the king. She is the only person in the chapter who speaks about right and wrong. However, he would not listen to her voice; but being stronger than she, he forced her 2 Samuel 13:14. The narrative gives the crime one clause and gives her the argument, which is where its sympathies are.
Then Amnon hated her with exceedingly great hatred; for the hatred with which he hated her was greater than the love with which he had loved her 2 Samuel 13:15.
The verse is one of Scripture's sharpest pieces of psychology. Lust that called itself love turns to loathing the moment it is satisfied, because what it wanted was never the person. He has her thrown out and the door bolted, and her protest is that the discarding is worse than the other that you did to me 2 Samuel 13:16 — she knows what an unmarried, ruined princess faces.
Tamar put ashes on her head, and tore her garment of various colors 2 Samuel 13:19.
She mourns publicly in the ruined robe of a virgin daughter of the king, crying aloud in the street, and the two men who should act tell her to be quiet. Absalom says hold your peace, my sister... don't take this thing to heart 2 Samuel 13:20 and begins planning a murder. David was very angry 2 Samuel 13:21 and does nothing at all — no discipline, no justice, not even a recorded word to his daughter. The king who executes justice and righteousness for all his people 2 Samuel 8:15 cannot do it in his own house, and a man who has recently done what he did with another man's wife may have found himself with nothing to say. Tamar is left desolate, and both silences will be paid for.
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