Abstract
Jonadab, friend and very wise (חכם מאד) confidant of Amnon, is often blamed for arranging Amnon’s rape of Tamar. David, Amnon’s doting father, likewise bears responsibility for neither preventing nor punishing Amnon. While David’s guilt is more obvious, the justifications offered in narrative readings for Jonadab’s guilt lack sufficient evidence. This article employs a narrative analysis focused on repetition in order to explain Jonadab’s situation vis-à-vis the rape. A close look at the narrative repetitions in the text reveals the curious alignment of Jonadab and David and distances the two of them from Amnon. In a fourfold repetition of events, the first (Jonadab) and third (David) iterations hold together, whereas the second (Amnon) and fourth (narration of Tamar) act as a pair. This does not indicate that David and Jonadab are innocent, but are guilty rather of the loss of royal authority (David) and its associated wisdom (Jonadab).
Introduction
In 2 Samuel 13, Amnon, eldest son of King David, rapes his half-sister Tamar. The narrator places the primary guilt of the act, as one would expect, squarely on Amnon. There are other characters, however, woven into the plot whose guilt is less clear. Among these characters are Tamar, David, and Jonadab, the friend, cousin, and apparent counselor of Amnon. Is Amnon to offload any of his guilt onto these? It comes as no surprise that scholarship stands united in reading Amnon as the one on whom the narrator lays the ultimate blame. 1 How David and Jonadab are handled in narrative studies is, however, less uniform. 2 It is possible to read this narrative and exonerate David altogether, seeing him as an unknowing pawn in the overall schemes. Some commentators, however, heap blame upon him precisely for his inaction when, as king and head of the household, he ought to have acted to prevent the deed. 3
Jonadab’s role is murkier yet, and recent scholarship and commentators illustrate that no consensus has been reached regarding his guilt or innocence. Auld, for example, makes no comment as to the intentions of Jonadab’s advice to Amnon and leaves the former out of the discussion of guilt (Auld 2011). 4 Morrison, however, leaves no ambiguity: ‘But Jonadab has grasped that Amnon does not intend marriage. He wants sex, and he needs a scheme to gain access to Tamar, the king’s protected virgin daughter and his half sister’ (Morrison 2013: 170). 5 Earlier commentators, such as Charles Conroy, also see Jonadab as responsible for the act. He maintains that, although Jonadab only gave advice to the point of having Tamar come to Amnon’s room, “a shrewd man does not need to spell out obvious conclusions” (Conroy 1978: 25). 6 Others, such as Anderson, merely state that Jonadab’s advice was unethical, thereby suggesting that Jonadab had more in mind than merely food from Tamar’s hand (Anderson 1989: 174). Evans leaves room for doubt as to Jonadab’s motives. Perhaps he thought he was assisting in romance. His guilt derives from the fact that he did not consider Tamar in the matter (Evans 2012: 194). These opinions as to Jonadab’s guilt or innocence are founded, unfortunately, on very little textual or linguistic data and rely rather on what the commentators thought plausible for the story’s plot. 7 This article will employ a narrative analysis, focused primarily on the role of repetition and gapping in the story, in order to assess in what way or to what degree Jonadab is guilty. I will argue that he is not directly guilty of the rape of Tamar. Instead, I suggest that he is guilty of not foreseeing that his advice to Amnon would result in the rape and its further consequences.
Setting the Scene
2 Samuel 13 opens with ‘ויהי אחרי כן’. This opening phrase provides a strong link to the foregoing narrative concerning the David and Bathsheba incident. The link is ominous particularly because of Nathan’s prophecy against David’s house in chapter 12, predicting violence and unrest. Following the introductory linking formula, the narrative proceeds to describe Amnon as being ‘in love’ with Tamar to the point of being sick. Jonadab, who is apparently a regular companion of Amnon, notices Amnon’s behavior and comes to him in order to discern the nature of the problem. It is important here to note the narrative aside, whereby Jonadab is described as חכם מאד, which would most naturally be understood to mean ‘very wise’. 8 It leaves the reader with the expectation that Jonadab is going to provide sage advice to his friend and cousin. 9
When Amnon has expressed his feelings for Tamar to Jonadab, the latter comes up with a plan. He explains his plan to Amnon. Amnon, in turn, puts the plan into action, which entails calling David to his side to ask him to send in Tamar. David, having received the request, commands Tamar to go to Amnon in accordance with Amnon’s request. Finally, the narrator describes Tamar fulfilling the request. This simple description of the plot, however, may mask important information for the interpretation of the passage. Did Amnon put Jonadab’s plan into action as Jonadab had described? Did David actually do what Amnon had asked, and did Tamar act in complete accordance with David’s command?
The Fourfold Repetition
In recent years, Narrative Criticism has shifted away from an attention to the formal characteristics of narrative, being concerned rather with the exchange between readers and texts. 10 This change in focus, however, has not resulted in a rejection of the insights from the earlier narrative criticism. In fact, the emphasis on formal features of a text, such as repetition, can still provide fresh readings and does so for the present text.
In 2 Samuel 13 there is a rare instance of a fourfold repetition of one event. Or, rather, it is a threefold command-fulfillment sequence. 11 In such a sequence, as Alter has argued, one is to look for whether or not the command is fulfilled verbatim, or whether there are differences between command and fulfillment. The differences may constitute an interpretive clue, a hint as to how to fill the narrative gap. 12 Therefore, we shall look for the correspondences and the divergences in the sequence and subsequently draw on other narrative clues that may aid our interpretation of the findings. 13
Jonadab (v.5): שכב על משכבך והתחל ובא אביך לראותך ואמרת אליו תבא נא תמר אחותי
ותברני לחם ועשתה לעיני את הבריה למען אשר אראה ואכלתי מידה
Amnon (v.6) וישכב אמנון ויתחל ויבא המלך לראתו ויאמר אמנון אל המלך תבוא נא תמר אחתי
ותלבב לעיני שתי לבבות ואברה מידה
David (v.7): וישלח דוד אל תמר הביתה לאמר לכי נא בית אמנון אחיך ועשי לו הבריה
Tamar (narrated) (v.8-9a): ותלך תמר בית אמנון אחיה והוא שכב ותקח את הבצק 14 ותלש ותלבב לעיניו ותבשל
את הלבבות ותקח את המשרת ותצק לפניו
Jonadab begins the sequence, outlining the procedure Amnon is to take: lie down on your bed, make yourself (or: pretend to be) sick, and when your father comes to see you, say to him, ‘let my sister Tamar come and prepare (ברה hiphil) me food (לחם), and let her make (עשה) the food (בריה) before me so that I may see and eat (ברה qal) from her hand’. 15
Amnon’s actions correspond exactly to Jonadab’s recommendation until early in the speech, where he truncates things considerably: ‘let my sister Tamar come and prepare (לבב) before me two heart-cakes (לבבות), so that I may eat (ברה) from her hand’. Attending to the text with heightened care would entail a degree of surprise when Amnon, who had been following the plan verbatim, changed it without warning. 16 For what reason did Amnon use language that Jonadab had not given him? 17
David responds to Amnon by sending Tamar simply with the command: ‘go to the house of Amnon your brother and prepare (עשה) him food (בריה)’. Interestingly, David does not use the language that Amnon did, but instead uses something closer to that of Jonadab’s original plan. 18 At this point one can assume that, unless David is deliberately defiant, of which there is no suggestion, the Hebrew lexemes used in turn by Jonadab/David and by Amnon can be used interchangeably. If the lexemes may not be used interchangeably, then at least they can be substituted in a hierarchical manner, in the way that the English verb ‘cook’ can stand in for ‘fry’, but usually not the other way round. However, the fact that the words may be substituted for one another does not satisfy the question as to why Jonadab and David would use similar lexemes, whereas the intervening speech by Amnon uses altogether different lexemes. It appears the narrator had the intention of drawing Amnon apart from David and Jonadab.
The narrator, finally and with the greatest detail, describes Tamar’s response. She ‘went to the house of Amnon her brother, and he was lying down, and she took the dough, and she kneaded it, and she prepared it (לבב) before him, and she cooked the heart-cakes (לבבות). And she took the pan and she poured them out before him’. At this point, there is a return to the lexemes employed by Amnon, though David’s intervening speech gave no indication of these terms whatsoever. We are faced, therefore, with a sequence where the first and third representations (Jonadab and David) and the second and fourth representations (Amnon and narrated Tamar) hang in two pairings. On one level it seems strange that David’s message resembles Jonadab’s plan when Amnon did not represent it exactly, and that Tamar ends up doing what Amnon explicitly asked of her despite the fact that David did not tell her to do just that. What is the narrative strategy behind such an arrangement? 19
The Guilt of David and Jonadab
I suggest here that the narrator is particularly concerned to align David and Jonadab with each other and distance them from Amnon. The fact that Tamar does what Amnon asked, rather than acting according to David’s wording, and then is raped, demonstrates that this was clearly the design of Amnon. Where, though, does that leave David and Jonadab? Are they relieved of guilt in the affair?
David’s role in this passage is highly unusual. The very fact that he, the king, is backgrounded and passive elicits an evaluation by the reader. One would expect the king to play an active, foregrounded role, as in all the previous Davidic material until now. The motivation to position David this way arises most clearly out of the immediately previous passage. 2 Samuel 11-12 narrates the story of David taking Bathsheba, having her husband killed, and having his guilt exposed by the prophet Nathan. The word spoken by Nathan condemns David, saying that trouble will arise within his own house (2 Samuel 12:11). Here, then, in chapter 13 we see this play out: David’s eldest son, and presumably his heir, rapes his half-sister and is murdered by her full-brother Absalom. He is cast in the same light as David, who took and abused a woman to whom he had no right. 20 As far as the sequence of narration is concerned, there is no intervening material between Nathan’s pronouncement and the beginning of its fulfillment. David’s house is beginning to come apart, and yet he is the unwitting pawn in it all. Even when Amnon’s dastardly deed is made known, David is angered, but refuses to punish Amnon. David’s inability to control his own house and his unwillingness to root out the festering sin once it is known only serves to seal his own condemnation – a king bereft of proper royal authority. 21
The role of Jonadab is altogether more difficult and involves multiple moving parts. Jonadab, David’s nephew and therefore cousin of Amnon, is said to be חכם מאד (v.3). What does this mean? The reader does not yet know what Jonadab will do, and so it is only after full analysis that a more nuanced understanding can be achieved. 22 I will argue below that the meaning is best understood as ‘wise’, though perhaps for unexpected reasons. The second difficulty in assessing Jonadab is that he is the character who hatches the plot in the first place and conveys it to Amnon. One could therefore blame him for what ensues. However, Jonadab’s stated plan stops at having Amnon eat from Tamar’s hand (v.5). Jonadab does not tell Amnon to lie with her. 23 Commentators are quick to suggest gapping in the text, namely that it does not take much imagination to think that Jonadab’s plan ends rather with a pregnant ellipsis. While he does not spell out what Amnon is then to do with Tamar, he does not really need to do so. 24 Jonadab, moreover, is חכם and so of course he knows what would follow from his advice.
To assume, however, that Jonadab knew what would follow is precisely the problem in our reading. If Jonadab was wise enough to know what would come of his plan, then surely he would have known that, if he found out, Absalom would not let Amnon go unpunished. If David would not re-establish the honor of his house, then of course it is Absalom’s responsibility to do so and, presumably, to kill Amnon for the shame he inflicted. Anyone could have pointed out this flaw in Jonadab’s plan. As readers, then, we are left with a problem: either Jonadab is not actually חכם, or he is not a true friend of Amnon. The Hebrew merely calls him a רע of Amnon, which may simply mean a companion or instead something more intimate (a close friend) or formal (a counselor). 25 McCarter sees Jonadab as a mere companion and he makes this point linguistically, suggesting that the phrasing ‘ולאמנון רע’ with רע being indefinite renders it unlikely for this phrasing to imply an official counselor to Amnon (McCarter 1984: 321). 26 His point is well made, but it does not preclude the possibility of understanding it as ‘Amnon had a friend (i.e. a counselor)’. The narrative, moreover, draws out the closeness of Jonadab with his cousin, and the king’s heir, Amnon. He has Amnon’s ear and is able to observe his daily behavior (v.4). Jonadab later is also shown to have David’s ear (v.32). Either Jonadab is working the whole affair in alliance with Absalom, of which there is not a shred of evidence, or Jonadab truly is Amnon’s friend/counselor, as we are told, and is, in spite of all his wisdom, a fool. 27
Jonadab’s folly then is either that he knowingly assists in the rape, but fails to see its obvious consequences, or that he assists in achieving Amnon’s physical proximity to Tamar, but fails to see the obvious conclusion to which Amnon would bring it. We know that David was unaware of what Amnon would do because he was angry when he heard about it (v.21). We also recall that the repetition sequence pairs Jonadab and David together, and Amnon with the narration of Tamar’s actions. If Jonadab’s plan is not followed by Amnon in the first place, and if the linguistic evidence suggests a solidarity of Jonadab with the unwitting David, it is highly unlikely for Jonadab to be a knowing conspirator in the rape.
The Royal Loss of Wisdom
Jonadab is indeed guilty, but not of the charge often laid against him. As argued above, he did not foresee the rape. The problem is that he ought to have foreseen the rape. He was, after all, חכם מאד. This brings us to the question regarding what purpose this all serves for the narrative. David’s part is clearer: as a result of his sin with Bathsheba and the murdering of Uriah, he begins to lose control over his own house. 28 Therefore, his character is weak in the present passage. But what is Jonadab’s part? The most obvious answer lies in his overt attribution as חכם and in his proximity to the king and king’s heir. All good ancient Near Eastern kings are to exude wisdom and to exercise prudent authority over their subjects. 29 A paramount example is Hammurabi, as illustrated by the epilogue to his famous law code. The code itself serves as a testament to Hammurabi’s wisdom, but his claim to wisdom is more explicit in his self-aggrandizing summary. 30 He declares that, as a good king, he has cared for the people of his land, done away with enemies, provided justice for the orphan and widow, and sheltered his people with his skillful wisdom. 31 Solomon is of course the biblical paradigm of wisdom, collecting proverbs, making wise judicial decisions (e.g. concerning two prostitutes arguing over parentage), but he is one among many in the broader ANE. Closer to the present narrative is 2 Samuel 14, where Joab uses a wise woman from Tekoa to expose David’s lack of wisdom in banishing Absalom. David’s house, then, is supposed to be characterized by חכמה. 32 Jonadab is, by all accounts, an adviser to the royal family. As discussed above, he has both David’s ear (v.32 where he reports the truth to David of Amnon’s death) and the ear of Amnon, heir to the throne. Jonadab, as royal adviser, should be the embodiment of wisdom. He is, then, a proxy for David’s royal wisdom. The narrator, by highlighting Jonadab’s “wisdom,” at the outset of the passage, is at pains to show how here, immediately after the David-Bathsheba-Uriah episode, the hallmarks of a well-functioning king – authority and wisdom – are upended in its aftermath. If David could not act as Yahweh’s upright king, then his royal house would come apart at the seams, beginning with his own authority and wisdom.
Conclusion
Though it is unambiguously clear that Amnon is portrayed as guilty of rape in 2 Samuel 13, the roles of David and Jonadab are less clear. I have here demonstrated that, in accordance with the majority of scholarship, the narrative condemns David particularly because of his silence and obedience to the will of his son, when he, as king, would be expected to be an active agent in any account. His complicity is further revealed when he discovers that Amnon has raped Tamar, but does nothing to punish his son and heir. The role of Jonadab proved more difficult to discern. The chief problems are that he is considered very ‘wise’ (חכם) and that his instructions to Amnon do not include anything beyond Amnon eating from Tamar’s hand. While many have accused Jonadab of knowing well what would have followed the eating from her hand, especially because Jonadab is supposedly wise, the narrative does not bear this out. The greatest clue that the narrative offers is in the fourfold repetition of the event. Jonadab comes up with the plan, Amnon follows through and asks David to act, which David does in commanding Tamar to go to Amnon, and then the narrator describes Tamar’s subsequent response. The problem with accusing Jonadab of knowing well what Amnon would do is that Amnon does not follow the instructions to the letter. His words and overall request are noticeably different. To the request of Amnon, however, David responds using language much closer to that of the original plan from Jonadab. Tamar’s actions align most closely with Amnon’s request. The narrator, in this sequence of repetition, puts David and Jonadab in one camp, and Amnon with Tamar’s narrated actions in another. All signs, therefore, point not to seeing Jonadab as having planned the rape, but instead to him being as unwitting a pawn as the king. The narrative agenda in all this is to show how the royal house has lost both its authority, represented by David, and its wisdom, represented by Jonadab. These two men are not directly guilty of the rape. They are guilty of folly and impotence in the matter, which results in the rape of the king’s virgin daughter and the death of the king’s heir. At the conclusion of the ensuing episode, when word comes that Absalom has murdered Amnon, Jonadab is standing together with David to receive the news they should have expected all along. They stand, in fact, together in guilt.
Footnotes
1.
With the exception of Pamela Tamarkin Reis, “Cupidity and Stupidity: Woman’s Agency and The ‘Rape’ of Tamar,” Journal of the Ancient Near Eastern Society 25 (
): 43–60. Reis argues throughout that Tamar is implicated in the sexual act and was attempting to entice Amnon with the purpose of marrying him.
2.
As Danna Nolan Fewell suggests, narratives engage their audiences, both ancient and modern, and therefore the reader is expected to make some judgment of the characters’ actions. Danna Nolan Fewell, “The Work of Biblical Narrative,” in The Oxford Handbook of Biblical Narrative, ed. Danna Nolan Fewell (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, ), 7.
3.
For example, Westbrook suggests that ‘Surely a virgin daughter of the king within his own house will be protected by him’. April D. Westbrook, “And He Will Take Your Daughters . . .”: Woman Story and the Ethical Evaluation of Monarchy in the David Narrative, Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies 610 (London: Bloomsbury Academic, ), 148. There is a similar divide between those who blame a passive Jacob for Dinah’s rape (Gen. 34) and those who take his passivity as a sign of innocence.
4.
Discussion of Jonadab’s guilt is likewise absent in Richard G. Smith, The Fate of Justice and Righteousness During David’s Reign: Rereading the Court History and Its Ethics According to 2 Samuel 8:15-20:26, Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies 508 (New York: T & T Clark, 2009); Ken Stone only mentions that Jonadab helps Amnon hatch his plan to obtain Tamar: Ken Stone, Sex, Honor, and Power in the Deuteronomistic History, Journal for the Study of Old Testament Supplement Series 234 (Sheffield, England: Sheffield Academic Press, ), 112.
5.
He also suggests that the events that later unfold, namely Absalom’s plot and revenge upon Amnon, are part of the plan originating with Jonadab.
6.
7.
This is an example of what Meir Sternberg calls ‘gap-filling’. Meir Sternberg, The Poetics of Biblical Narrative: Ideological Literature and the Drama of Reading, The Indiana Literary Biblical Series (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, ), 186–90. Some gap-filling may be performed either at the unreflective whim of the reader, or self-consciously and with good attention to textual clues, as is the intention for what follows in the present article.
8.
The LXX translates חכם with σοφός, and Targum Jonathan uses חכים, both of which are neutral terms that do not suggest a position on the innate morality of Jonadab. Interestingly, the translations, betraying their interpretive bias as to Jonadab’s role, translate this use of חכם variously as very ‘clever’ (JPS, NAB), ‘shrewd’ (NASB, NIV, NJB), or ‘crafty’ (N/RSV, ESV, NKJV). It appears, however, that the neutrality of the term is essential to the aims of the narrative. By not evaluating Jonadab’s moral character when he is introduced, the narrator invites the reader to do so based upon Jonadab’s actions within the story.
9.
Jonadab’s wisdom is foregrounded in the same way that Amnon’s love for Tamar is. In the same way that Jonadab is expected to provide good advice, due to his great wisdom, Amnon is perhaps expected to act toward Tamar in accordance with love. The reversal of Amnon’s love to hatred is mirrored in the upending of Jonadab’s wisdom.
10.
11.
This framing as command-fulfillment is similar to Sternberg’s categories of narrative sequences involving forecast, enactment, and response. See Sternberg, The Poetics of Biblical Narrative, 367ff. See also Charles Conroy, Absalom, Absalom!: Narrative and Language in 2 Sam 13-20, Analecta Biblica 81 (Rome: Biblical Institute Press, 1978), 19. In discussing the present text, Fokkelman calls this a command/request + execution sequence. J. P. Fokkelman, Narrative Art and Poetry in the Books of Samuel: A Full Interpretation Based on Stylistic and Structural Analyses, vol. 1 (Assen: Van Gorcum, ), 113.
12.
On the use of repetition, see the particularly apt statement in David M. Gunn and Danna Nolan Fewell, Narrative in the Hebrew Bible (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), 148: ‘If meaning, as many say, essentially depends on difference, then sorting out similarity and difference is a central operation of close reading. Repetition creates rich possibilities of variation, and variation creates new meaning. Repetition can first lull the reader into false expectations and then, through sudden variance, can introduce an element of startling surprise. Repetition and variation can equate and contrast events or characters or even whole other texts through association, inviting the reader to consider the significance of similarities and dissimilarities’. For Alter, the ideal reader or listener ‘is expected to attend closely to the constantly emerging differences in a medium that seems predicated on constant recurrence’. Robert Alter, The Art of Biblical Narrative, 2nd ed. (New York, NY: Basic Books, ), 122.
13.
This passage does not receive its due attention from commentators with respect to narrative repetition. One notable exception is Tamarkin Reis, “Cupidity and Stupidity: Woman’s Agency and The ‘Rape’ of Tamar.” However, her analysis is brief and does not adequately address the multiple shifts in lexemes used by the characters or the potential significance thereof.
14.
Qere.
15.
This passage contains several rare food/cooking terms as well as an unexpected use of the more common verbal lexeme בשׁל. For a more detailed analysis of these terms and uses, see Kurtis Peters, Hebrew Lexical Semantics and Daily Life in Ancient Israel: What’s Cooking in Biblical Hebrew?, Biblical Interpretation Series 146 (Leiden; Boston, MA: Brill, ), 187–97.
16.
This is an example of Sternberg’s paradigmatic, or lexical substitution within a repetitive sequence. Sternberg, The Poetics of Biblical Narrative, 392. Van Dijk-Hemmes suggests that Amnon lets his tongue slip here with the mention of heart-cakes: Fokkelien van Dijk-Hemmes, “Tamar and the Limits of Patriarchy: Between Rape and Seduction,” in Anti-Covenant: Counter-Reading Women’s Lives in the Hebrew Bible, ed. Mieke Bal, Bible and Literature Series 22 (Sheffield: Almond Press, 1989), 140-141. Van Dijk-Hemmes maintains that “heart-cakes” should be better understood as “libido cakes” and thus Amnon is hinting at what he is up to. David, by this logic, permits the act that follows. This seems unlikely, as it would imply Amnon being obvious about his intentions. It would also be a problematic substitution for בריה, which does not suggest libido in any way, but something strengthening. For a closer analysis of לבב see Peters, Hebrew Lexical Semantics, 120, 194-195. In the latter work the conclusion is that the term refers to ‘enheartening food’, that is, something that would restore one’s health. This should come as no surprise given that the ancient world did not have the same degree of association between heart and love as is the case in the modern world. It is also worth noting that Bader argues that Amnon’s request to David uses perhaps softer language than Jonadab’s initial suggestion, suggesting a heightened degree of craftiness of Amnon. Mary Anna Bader, Sexual Violation in the Hebrew Bible: A Multi-Methodological Study of Genesis 34 and 2 Samuel 13, Studies in Biblical Literature 87 (New York: Peter Lang, ), 136.
17.
Fokkelman stresses what he sees as the ‘vast parallelism between v. 5 (Jonadab’s proposal) and v. 6 (its execution by Amnon). …’ He holds that this highlights the main variant between the two, namely the root for both the verb (לבב) and the noun (לבבות). However, he does not observe the distancing of Jonadab from Amnon by virtue of this difference. Fokkelman, Narrative Art and Poetry, 1:105.
18.
Fokkelman holds that all of Amnon’s commands up to v.10 have been promptly carried out. Perhaps this is broadly true, but it misses the subtler point of the forms that his command and its subsequent execution take. Fokkelman, 1:113.
19.
Conroy offers a summary that ignores these linguistic subtleties. ‘Amnon acts as instructed, the king comes as predicted, and Amnon makes his request as suggested. The next unit is immediately connected: the king accedes to the request, ordering Tamar to come (v. 7), and this command is fulfilled by her coming (v. 8a)’. Conroy, Absalom, Absalom!, 19. He later notes that there is a linguistic difference in each repetition but suggests no significant purpose in the variations except, in his opinion, that it illustrates that Jonadab is the one who maneuvers both Amnon and the king (29, 37-38).
20.
Richard Smith notes aptly that this is not intended as a simple parallel, but a heightened parallel, where Amnon’s actions are even more perverse than his father’s. Smith, The Fate of Justice, 149.
21.
Westbrook notes the clear loss of royal authority. ‘If the virgin daughter of the king can be raped within the king’s own house by the man who is likely to be the next king, surely no one in Israel is safe under the monarchy – a point that is particularly significant because the safety of the people as an essential element of the monarchy’s ability to do justice was a primary motivation for their desire to have a king in the first place (1 Sam. 8:20)’. Westbrook, “And He Will Take Your Daughters . . . .,” 154. This creates further dramatic irony when Absalom, in 2 Samuel 15, sets out to subvert the justice of the king in the gate of Jerusalem.
22.
See also Stoebe, who likewise maintains that the word חכם here is meant to be neutral in its meaning, allowing room for the rest of the tale to fill in the nuances. Hans Joachim Stoebe, Das zweite Buch Samuelis, vol. 2, Kommentar zum Alten Testament 8 (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verl.-Haus, ), 320 n.3d. As noted earlier, the LXX and Targum Jonathan also render the adjective neutrally.
23.
See Stoebe, 2:327.
24.
Conroy, Absalom, Absalom!, 18, 25; Peter Ketter, Die Samuelbücher, vol. 3,1, Herders Bibelkommentar (Freiburg: Herder, 1940), 1:248; C. J. Goslinga, Het tweede boek Samuël (Kampen: Kok, 1962), 235; George Ridout, “The Rape of Tamar: A Rhetorical Analysis of 2 Sam 13:1-22,” in Rhetorical Criticism: Essays in Honor of James Muilenburg, ed. Jared Judd Jackson and Martin Kessler, Pittsburgh Theological Monograph Series 1 (Pittsburgh, PA: Pickwick Press, 1974), 79; André Caquot and Philippe de Robert, Les livres de Samuel, Commentaire de l’Ancien Testament 6 (Genève: Labor et Fides, 1994), 497; Shimeon Bar-Efrat, Das zweite Buch Samuel: ein narratologisch-philologischer Kommentar, Beiträge zur Wissenschaft vom Alten und Neuen Testament 181 (Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, ), 128.
25.
Stoebe, Das zweite Buch Samuelis, 2:320 n.3a. Stoebe compares the use of רע here to the same wording for Hushai’s relationship to David in 15:37.
26.
He also uses this observation to eliminate the interpretation of Jonadab as Amnon’s official court matchmaker. See also A. A. Anderson, 2 Samuel, Word Biblical Commentary 11 (Dallas, TX: Word Books, 1989), 174. Alter holds the opposite view and sees Jonadab as a likely candidate for the official counselor to the king’s heir. Robert Alter, ed., Ancient Israel: The Former Prophets: Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings: A Translation with Commentary (New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company, ), 495.
27.
Anderson, 2 Samuel, 181. leaves open the possibility that Jonadab is a confidant of Absalom, but only if his counsel to David in v.32 is not to be taken as Jonadab’s intuitive assumption that only Amnon had been killed. Given the analysis above, it is more plausible that Jonadab knew that Amnon had been killed because he knew of Absalom’s desire for revenge and restoring his family’s honor.
28.
Later one finds this pattern continued in Absalom’s rebellion, David’s loss of virility next to Abishag, and Adonijah’s attempted seizure of the throne.
29.
For more, see N. Wyatt, There’s Such Divinity Doth Hedge a King: Selected Essays of Nicolas Wyatt on Royal Ideology in Ugaritic and Old Testament Literature, Society for Old Testament Study (Aldershot, Hants, England; Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2005), 42–43; Geo Widengren, “The Ascension of the Apostle and the Heavenly Book,” Uppsala Universitets Årrskrift, no. 7 (). See especially p. 12, 30.
30.
The image at the top of the stele in the Louvre is also instructive. Hammurabi is depicted as standing before the seated Shamash, god of justice, and receives the law from him directly.
31.
Code of Hammurabi xlvii:9-78. Other examples of royal wisdom abound. See Ashurnasirpal II’s self-flattery: ‘I, Ashurnasirpal, sage, expert, intelligent one, open to counsel (and) wisdom which the god Ea, king of the apsû, destined for me’ (Text A.0.101.2 line 23). Translation by A. Kirk Grayson, Assyrian Rulers of the Early First Millennium BC, The Royal Inscriptions of Mesopotamia 2 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1991), 225. One may also point to the role of Thoth in the enthronement of Egyptian kings, whose inscriptions are to guide the new king in wisdom. See Othmar Keel, The Symbolism of the Biblical World: Ancient Near Eastern Iconography and the Book of Psalms (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, ), 259–60. In Ugarit, too, El’s wisdom as king of the gods is to be mirrored by the earthly king.
32.
See the subsequent narrative in 2 Samuel 14 that continues to highlight the role of wisdom and its significance in David’s house.