Bible Commentaries
2 Samuel 13

Verses 1-39

The Crime of Amnon, and Absalom’s Vengeance

This narrative and the history of Absalom’s rebellion is omitted in Chronicles.

2. Tamar was in the women’s apartments, and, therefore, safe. She was his half-sister and Absalom’s sister: see 2 Samuel 3:2, 2 Samuel 3:3.

4. Lean from day to day] i.e. getting thinner and paler every morning.

5. Make thyself sick] RV ’feign thyself sick.’

13. He will not withhold me] Tamar said this as a last, desperate expedient, for such marriages were unlawful (Leviticus 18:9).

16. Amnon was adding insult to injury.

18. Garment of divers colours] RM ’a long garment with sleeves’: cp. Genesis 37:3.

20. He is thy brother] So Tamar could not reproach herself for having gone to see him.

23. Ephraim] an unknown town.

37. Talmai] Absalom escapes to his grandfather (2 Samuel 3:3) to avoid the revenge of Amnon’s relatives.

David mourned] His sin was finding him out, and he was tasting the first bitter fruits of it in the death of one son and the alienation of another.