The Pulpit Commentary — 2 Samuel — Section 321

of frionds every moming at the yonng prince's of sin was tbe.t larael was a peculiar people, house, and his cousin, attending this levee, sanctified to God's service; and ull unholi- noticed Amnon's melnncholy, and, having ness, therefore, was not merely criminal in forced a confession from hlm, is unscrupulous itself, but a Jl.roof that the guilty person was enough to suggest n plan that would make incape.ble of nghtly estimating bis privile"e~. Tamnr her brother's victim. Tamar urges this ~pon her'' empty" brother, Ver. 5.-When thy father oometh to see and then pathetically dwells upon their thee. While the daughters Jived in Oriental mutual shame, and, finding all in vain, she seclusion in the dwellings of their mothers, eve~ sugg~sts that the king might permit the sons seem to have had separate apart- their marnage. Such marriages between ments assigned them in the palace. And half-brothers and half-sisters were strictly David evidently was o.n affectionate father, forbidden, as tending to loosen the bonds of who even went to the o.bodes of his sons in e. fomily· purity (Lev. xviii. 9; Deut. xxvii. loving and unceremonious way, to see how 22); but possibly the Levitical code was they fo.red. But Jonadab abused the king's occasionally violated, or Tamar may have affection, and made it the very means of re- suggested it in the hope of escapin"0 imme- moving the obstacles in the way of his diate violence. daughter's disgrace. And like the whole Ver. 15.-Amnon hated her exceedingly. tribe of .flatterers and time-servers, he em- Amnon ho.cl not really ever loved Tamar; ployed his cleverness to gratify his patron's his passion had been mere animal desire, momento.ry passion, indifferent to the miser- which, by a well-known psychologieal law, able consequences which must inevitably when gratified turned to hatred. Had he follow. For the least punishment which possessed any dignity of character or self- Amnon would have to bear would be ex- respect, he would have resisted this double clusion from the succession to the crown, wrong to one so near to him, and whom he besides disgrace and bis father's anger. had so terribly disgraced; but he can only Absalom, who was three or four years remember the indignant words she had younger than A mnon, he despised, and spoken-her comparison of bim to "the fools counted for nothing. in Israel," and her obstiuate resistance to Ver. 9.-She took a pan. Many of tbe his wishes. With coarse violence he orders words are difficult because, being the names her away; and when, humbled and heart- of ordinary domestic articles, they do not broken, she begs for milder treatment, he occur in literature. A man may be a good adds insult to the wrong, and bids his man- French scholar, and yet find it difficult in servant push her out, and bolt the door after France to ask for things in common use. her. By such an order the manservant and Here the Syriac is probably right in under- all Amnon's people would be led to beliern standing, not a pan, but the delico.cy Tamar that she was the guilty person, o.nd Amnon •had been cooking. In ver. 8 the word ren- the victim of her enticements. dered "flour" is certainly "dough," and is Ver. 16.-There is no cause. This is so rendered in the Revised Version. The certainly not a possible translation of the cokes were a kind of pancake, fitted to tempt Hebrew, which is probably corrupt; aucl the o.ppetite of e. sickly person. The picture though Tamar's words may have been brokeu is a very interesting one: the palace purcelled aud hysterical, we cannot suppo~e that the out into separate dwelling,:i; the king kindly narrator intended to represent her sobs. The visiting o.11; the girls on friendly terms with text is rendered by Philippsohn, "And she their brothers, yet not allowed to go to their said to him respecting the evil deed, Greater rooms without special permission; and fino.lly is this than the other." Similarly Caheu Tamar's skill in cookery-an accomplishment renders it, "au sujet de ce ma!." Flat as by no means despised in an Oriental menage, this is, no better rendering is possible; but or thought unworthy of a king's daughter. the Vatican copy of the Septuagint has a Ver. 12.-Do not foroe me; literally, do reading which suggests the line of probable not humble me. It is to be regretted that the emendation: "Nay, my brother, this evil i~ word should be changed, as it bears testimony greo.ter than the other." It was greo.ter to the nobleness of the Hebrew women, who because it cast the reproach upon her, re- regarded their chastity as their crown of fused her the solace of his affection, a.ud honour. 'fhe word folly is used in the sense made her feel that she had been humbled, ofunoh11stity in Gen. xxxiv. 7 l\nd elsewhere, not because he loved her, but for mere phan- 1>ud it is noteworthy that the Jews thus cou• tnsy. He has had his will, and, careless or neoted crime with stupidity. Vuin, that is, her sorrow, he seuds her contemptuously empty persons were the criminal part of the away, indifferent to the wrong be has done popnlntion (Judg. ix. 4), and to call a man her, and piqued and mortified at her indig- " a fool" wo.s to o.ttribute to him every pos- nant resistance. However much we m,\y sible kind of wickedness (Matt. v. 22). The disapprove of Absalom's couduct, Arnuou Uiought whioh lay ut the root of this view richly deserved his punishment.  326 THE SECOND BOOK OF SAMUEL. [en. xm. 1-39.