"Now Amnon had an adviser named Jonadab son of Shimeah, David's brother. Jonadab was a very shrewd man. He asked Amnon, 'Why do you, the king's son, look so haggard morning after morning? Won't you tell me?'" (2 Samuel 13:3-4a) Shimeah is David's third oldest brother according to 1 Samuel 16:9 and 1 Chronicles 2:13. Jonadab is likely quite a few years older than his cousin Amnon since David is the youngest of seven sons. Shimeah may have already been a married man with children when we first met the teenaged David in 1 Samuel 16. We know for certain that Shimeah was serving in King Saul's army in 1 Samuel 17 which means he had to be at least twenty. So there is enough difference in Jonadab's and Amnon's ages for Jonadab to be considered qualified to give advice to the younger man. This doesn't mean Jonadab's advice is good but I think one reason Amnon accepts his bad advice in today's text is because it's coming from a man with more life experience than he has. The main reason he accepts the advice, however, is because it suits him. It will get him what he wants.
The author of 2 Samuel tells us Jonadab is shrewd. He knows something is troubling his master and he wants to be of valuable service to him. He may hope to be richly rewarded for coming up with a solution to the mysterious problem which Amnon has refused to reveal to him for a number of days. Jonadab resorts to flattery to entice the young man into blurting out his secret. He says something like, "Why should you, of all people, be unhappy? You are the firstborn son of the king of Israel, the heir-apparent to the throne! Your future could not be brighter. What do you lack that's causing you to look so downhearted? Tell me what it is and I'll get it for you. The crown prince of Israel should not have to go without anything that would make his happiness full!"
I can't help picturing Amnon mumbling his answer to Jonadab. He may expect the other man to disapprove of him or chastise him when he admits his secret. "Amnon said to him, 'I'm in love with Tamar, my brother Absalom's sister.'" (2 Samuel 13:4a)
Yesterday we looked at the portion of Leviticus that forbids sexual relations between siblings and between half-siblings. If Tamar had not been Amnon's half-sister, a marriage between him and the object of his affections would have already been arranged for him. But Amnon knows it isn't lawful for him to marry his half-sister (not that marriage is really what's on his mind) and he has kept his obsession with her a secret until now, ashamed of it. But Jonadab doesn't react the way he expected. Amnon probably thought he'd say, "Oh, forget her, man! You know this relationship cannot be. What's so special about Tamar, anyway? You're the heir-apparent to the throne and any single girl in the nation would give her eyeteeth to be your wife. In fact, you can have as many wives and concubines as you please; doesn't your father have a number of wives and concubines? Why keep thinking about Tamar? I can help you find ten women more beautiful than her!" But instead of Jonadab encouraging him to put his ideas about Tamar out of his head, he encourages him into sin. "'Go to bed and pretend to be ill,' Jonadab said. 'When your father comes to see you, say to him, 'I would like my sister Tamar to come and give me something to eat. Let her prepare the food in my sight so I may watch her and then eat it from her hand.'" (2 Samuel 13:5)
"So Amnon lay down and pretended to be ill. When the king came to see him, Amnon said to him, 'I would like my sister Tamar to come and make some special bread in my sight, so I may eat from her hand.' David sent word to Tamar at the palace: 'Go to the house of your brother Amnon and prepare some food for him.' So Tamar went to the house of her brother Amnon, who was lying down. She took some dough, kneaded it, made the bread in his sight and baked it. Then she took the pan and served him the bread, but he refused to eat." (2 Samuel 13:6-9a) Amnon lives in his own residence, separate from the palace. He has servants of his own who could have baked him some bread but, like a whiny child, he demands that a particular person come and bake him a particular bread. David indulges him. I think the family is in the habit of indulging him and that's why nothing seems suspicious about him specifically asking for Tamar to come over and bake the bread. Some translations use the word "cake" instead of "bread" and it may be that Tamar is known for having an especially delicious cake recipe. If that's the case then perhaps Amnon behaves as if, in his "illness", the only thing that appeals to him is a few bites of her famous cake.
Amnon won't taste the cake while his servants are in the house. He puts on a show of acting irritable with their presence in the house, as if in his illness they are getting on his nerves. Then he pretends to feel too unwell to sit at the table and retires to his room where he instructs Tamar to bring the food. "'Send everyone out of here,' Amnon said. So everyone left him. Then Amnon said to Tamar, 'Bring the food here into my bedroom so I may eat from your hand.' And Tamar took the bread she had prepared and brought it to her brother Amnon in his bedroom. But when she took it to him to eat, he grabbed her and said, 'Come to bed with me, my sister.'" (2 Samuel 13:9b-11) Tamar would not have allowed herself to be alone in a house with any man who is not her relative. She would not have gone into the private bedchamber of any man who is not her relative. There is nothing immoral about her being in the house alone with her half-brother. There is nothing immoral about her carrying food into the bedroom of her half-brother. She has no idea he harbors anything but brotherly feelings toward her. She certainly harbors nothing but sisterly feelings toward him.
Tamar thinks she's about to hand feed a sick man. She's feeling sorry for him. She's concerned for his wellbeing. Imagine her shock when she realizes his true intentions! When he grabs her and begs her to get in bed with him, she is stunned. Such a thing never entered her mind and she tries to convince him to put it out of his mind. "'No, my brother!' she said to him. 'Don't force me! Such a thing should not be done in Israel! Don't do this wicked thing. What about me? Where could I get rid of my disgrace? And what about you? You would be like one of the wicked fools in Israel.'" (2 Samuel 13:12-13a)
She begs him not to force her because forcing her is the only way this thing is going to happen. She is not willing to sleep with a man outside of marriage and she does not want to violate the Lord's laws regarding forbidden close-family unions. She can tell he does not want to listen to reason so she offers him an alternative to the two of them committing fornication together. "Please speak to the king; he will not keep me from being married to you." (2 Samuel 13:13b) Although the Lord has said that it is forbidden for siblings (including half siblings) to be married to each other, if Amnon will not give up on the idea of the two of them being together, David would bend the rules for his son and heir-apparent. After all, David has bent rules for himself. He is unlikely to refuse to allow Amnon to marry Tamar, for his guilt over his own unlawful sexual dalliance would make him feel like a hypocrite if he refused to let Amnon marry the woman he wants. In fact, I think David's guilt over the ungodly example he set for his children has caused him to be far too lenient with them. This lenience helped to foster an attitude of rebellion not only in Amnon but in some of David's other sons, as we'll see later in the book.
But Amnon isn't thinking about marriage. He's thinking only about sex. He's thinking only about getting his desires satisfied and getting them satisfied immediately. "But he refused to listen to her, and since he was stronger than she, he raped her." (2 Samuel 13:14) What a terrible crime this young man commits! He holds his sister down and forcibly has his way with her. He is, indeed, a "fool" as Tamar warned him he would be. In the Bible the word "fool" is used for a person who is morally and spiritually reprobate. In modern times the word has come to be used for someone lacking in common sense but in the Bible it meant far more than that: it means someone who lacks respect for God and for his fellow man.
What will happen next? Well, the law commands that he must pay her father fifty shekels of silver as a bride price and then he must marry her and never divorce her. (Deuteronomy 22:28-29) This indicates that even if she is unfaithful to him during their marriage, he is obligated to remain married to her and to support her financially for as long as he lives, for he took unfair advantage of her and removed from her the option of being married to someone who would have been a better choice. Because he besmirched her virtue, he made her less marriageable to other suitors who would have feared she might be pregnant with another man's child; they would no longer consider her an eligible bride. So we see that, according to the law, Amnon is obligated to go to David and tell him what he's done. He's supposed to pay a bride price of fifty shekels of silver, not because David needs the money as some other father of the bride might, but because it's what the law commands and because it's what an honorable suitor would do when asking for the hand of a virtuous woman in marriage. David would then be obligated to agree to the marriage to protect his daughter from the shame of perhaps bearing an illegitimate child and the shame of perhaps having to remain unmarried for the rest of her life. Even if Amnon did not go to David and do all the things the law commands, it would have been David's responsibility as a father and as the king to order Amnon to do what the law commands.
But that's not what happens. Join us tomorrow as we learn, to our surprise, that David does nothing at all!
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