turned, and it now ran back with as much violence, as it had preffed forward, before. Then Amnon hated her exceedingly, faith the text, so that the hatred wherewith he hated her, was greater than the love wherewith he had loved her. COMMENTATORS are at a lofs to account for this fudden and exceffive hatred; and indeed there feems to be fomething extraordinary in it. Tamar's rape had an effect, upon her ravisher, directly contrary to that of Dinah's upon hers; but their circumstances were different: hope feconded and fupported Shechem's paffion, not in itself criminal; but despair drove Amnon's into its oppofite extreme. This is often obferved to be the cafe with paffions too tumultuous and unruly: Amnon's mind was first agitated by luft, and then by remorse, which drove to different extremes, like the vibrations of a pendulum. The horror of his guilt ftruck him with a fudden deteftation of her; whom he deemed the cause of it: he hated his fifter, when he should have hated himself. GOD abandoned him thus to the tumult of his own intemperate mind, to make this other punishment of David's adultery, more flagrant; F 3 grant; and the prophet's prediction of God's raifing up evil to him out of his own house, more confpicuous. For Amnon's barbarous behaviour now precluded all poffibility of concealing his guilt. The moment his brutuality was indulged, he commanded his fifter out of his fight: Arife, faith he; begone-To which fhe anfwered, That this fecond evil treatment was worse than the firft. The first had paffion to plead, and might be concealed, and repented of the fecond was a defigned, deliberate indignity, that must draw eternal infamy after it. Therefore she had reason to add, that there was no cause for it. She had given him no cause for aggravating his first offence, by loading it with an immediate and public fcandal, and indelible reproach, upon her, himself, and his house; upon the religion, and people of GOD. But he, as deaf now to decency and humanity, as he had been before to all fenfe of shame and conscience, called to his fervant that attended him, and bid him turn out that woman from him, and bolt the door after her The fervant obeyed, brought her out, and bolted the door after her. TAMAR TAMAR thus treated; not parted with as an innocent woman, cruelly injured; but thrust out as a prostitute, that had feduced to fin; is the strongest image of innocence, barbaroufly abused, and infufferably infulted, that history affords us. The greatest injury, loaded with the greateft indignities! contumely added to cruelty! Oppreffed with forrow, and overwhelmed with fhame, he. put afhes upon her head, and rent her garment of divers colours, and laid her hand on her head, and went on crying; at once hiding her shame, and despairing to conceal it. In this condition fhe paffed on to her brother Abfalom's house, who seeing her confufion and distress, easily apprehended the causes of it; and put the question to her, Whether her brother Amnon had been with her? covering the grofs injury he suspected, under the veil of the most decent and diftant phrafe that could hint his fufpicion to her. And as if all that had not been enough, to fave her blushes, and let her fee, that he understood her diftrefs, he stopped her short, from attempting any answer, by begging her, That she would fay nothing of the matter; but endeavour to forget the injury, fince it was a brother who had done it. But hold now thy peace, my fifter; he is thy brother— regard not this thing. But as all he could say could not remedy the evil, neither could it relieve it; which feems fufficiently implied, in what the facred historian adds So Tamar continued difconfolate in her brother Abfalom's houfe. And, in all probability, fhe continued fo her whole life long; unmarried, and undone. And Amnon had the horror of reflecting, that for one moment's base and brutal indulgence, he had made his nearest kinfwoman, an amiable and an innocent fifter, miferable to the last moment of her life. How David refented this rape, we learn from the text; which informs us, that he was very wroth; but how he punished it, we know not. The truth is, it was to no purpofe for him to punish it legally, and hardly poffible to punish it equitably; inasmuch as that could not be done without at once expofing the infamy of his house, and cutting off the next heir of his crown. And how hard was it for a father to do this? especially a father who was partly acceffary to the guilt, by a very unguarded compliance with his fon's irrational request. The legal punishment of a rape, upon a virgin unbetrothed, was a fine of fifty fhekels of filver, to be paid to the father of the damfel, and an obligation upon the ravisher to take her to wife, without a power of divorce, Deut. xxii. 28, 29. The first of these penalties was infignificant in the cafe before us, and the second impracticable; because the marriage must be incestuous. THIS cafe is alfo attended with another difficulty: The rape was committed in a city, and the damfel did not cry out; and in that cafe, I apprehend, the law of Deut. xxii. 23, 24. must be executed upon her. It is true, fhe was not a damfel betrothed, and therefore the letter of that law does not extend to her cafe; but the equity of it does, because the crime committed, and Tamar's offence against that law, was equally great, and Amnon's injury equally irreparable: consequently, had he been sentenced to death*, she must have suffered with him; and therefore David could not punish him, as he ought, without involving her in his fate ; > * As he certainly muft have been by the law of Levit. xx. 17. for uncovering his fifter's nakedness. and |