The Israelites are at war with the Ammonites. David has not been out with the army for some time. Instead, in the spring when the rainy winter season was over, he sent Joab out with the troops and stayed home in Jerusalem where his idleness got him in trouble. We just finished studying the period of his life in which he slept with and impregnated a married woman (Bathsheba), tried to pass off her unborn baby as her husband's, and when that didn't work had her husband killed. Then he quickly took the woman as his own wife and pretended the child was conceived in matrimony. The child passed away soon after birth and, in the course of time, David conceived a second child with Bathsheba. While all this has been going on in Jerusalem, Joab has still been out with the army. "Meanwhile Joab fought against Rabbah of the Ammonites and captured the royal citadel." (2 Samuel 12:26)
It's time for David to rejoin his troops. He has repented of his sins, as we learned over the past few days, and he needs to get on with the business of commanding the army as kings did in those days. It's not good for him to remain in Jerusalem without enough to do, so Joab sends for him in a way that's guaranteed to get him to respond. This nephew of David's isn't always a trustworthy fellow. Sometimes we're going to find him acting more in his own interests than in David's. But sometimes he's a good influence on David. Sometimes he gives very wise advice. In order to break David out of the rut he's been in, and to focus his mind on something other than regrets and grief, Joab says something intended to make him take positive action. "Joab then sent messengers to David, saying, 'I have fought against Rabbah and taken its water supply. Now muster the rest of the troops and besiege the city and capture it. Otherwise I will take the city, and it will be named after me.'" (2 Samuel 12:27-28)
Joab doesn't need David's help. It's clear he can capture the city with the troops he has but he knows David needs to feel needed. David needs a public victory in his life after suffering several personal defeats. I think also the nation needs to see David leading the army again. Some people's confidence in him might have been shaken during his season of sin and during his sad months of mourning. They might have wondered whether he'd permanently lost his groove, so to speak. Joab's words spur David into action; he suits up in his boots and armor and marches out of Jerusalem. "So David mustered the entire army and went to Rabbah, and attacked and captured it. David took the crown from their king's head, and it was placed on his own head. It weighed a talent of gold, and it was set with precious stones. David took a great quantity of plunder from the city and brought out the people who were there, consigning them to labor with saws and with iron picks and axes, and he made them work at brickmaking. David did this to all the Ammonite towns. Then he and his entire army returned to Jerusalem." (2 Samuel 12:29-31)
Things are going really well for David on the battlefront. But they aren't going so well on the homefront. Trouble is brewing as we arrive at Chapter 13. "In the course of time, Amnon son of David fell in love with Tamar, the beautiful sister of Absalom son of David." (2 Samuel 13:1) Amnon has fallen in love (or more accurately, in lust) with his half-sister Tamar. Amnon, David's firstborn son, was born to David's wife Ahinoam of Jezreel. (2 Samuel 3:2) Since Tamar is a full sister to David's son Absalom, we know that her mother is named Maakah and that she was the daughter of the king of Geshur. (2 Samuel 3:3)
In ancient times it was common, particularly in royal families, for half-siblings to marry. It's believed that the royal families of ancient Egypt were heavily inbred, for example. Kings thought it solidified their claim to the throne if both they and their wives had the same father. Even Abraham, as we learned back in Genesis, was married to his half-sister. But by David's day the Israelites were forbidden to enter into this type of relationship, for the portion of the book of Leviticus dealing with unlawful relationships expressly states that siblings are not to marry and that it doesn't matter whether they are only half-siblings. (Leviticus 18:9) If the two had either the same mother or the same father, a sexual union between them was considered incestuous and unlawful.
So we see that Amnon's feelings toward his half-sister are unlawful in nature. A sexual union between the two of them is forbidden, whether that union is inside of marriage or outside of marriage. Since sexual unions outside of marriage are forbidden by the Bible anyway, any lustful feelings Amnon has toward Tamar should have been resisted. It would have behooved him to learn from his father's mistake, for David looked at and thought about and longed for a woman with whom he could not lawfully have relations---and the looking, thinking, and longing led to him acting on his impulses. That's what's going to happen to Amnon as well. He wants what he wants and, perhaps because he is the eldest son and the heir-apparent to the throne, he may feel that the law does not apply to him. He may have the attitude that he has the right to whatever he wants. What he wants is to sleep with Tamar. He doesn't even want to do it honorably by marrying her (although this was not lawful, Tamar will say in tomorrow's text that her father would not have forbidden it). He wants to have his way with her without benefit of marriage: "Amnon became so obsessed with his sister Tamar that he made himself ill. She was a virgin, and it seemed impossible for him to do anything to her." (2 Samuel 13:2) Because she is an unmarried daughter of the king, her virtue is highly protected. She is likely surrounded by a retinue of servants and guards wherever she goes. Amnon is seeking an opportunity not to marry her but to take her to his bed. That's all he has on his mind. He is not interested in "making an honest woman of her" as the saying goes. He only wants to slake his lust and move on; this will become quite clear as we move into the next portion of Chapter 13 tomorrow.
The prophet Nathan warned David that because he tore apart Uriah's home, he would have trouble in his own home from now on. Nathan's words are about to start coming true. David will never again have a peaceful home. Though he has made peace with God and repented of his sins, he is going to reap a harvest that was sown when he set an immoral example for his sons. God has forgiven him but there are natural consequences to not being all he could have been as a father.
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