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CHAPTER XIII.

1 Amnon loving Tamar, by Jonadab's counsel feigning himself sick, ravisheth her. 15 He hateth her, and shamefully turneth her away. 19 Absalom entertaineth her, and concealeth his purpose. 23 At a sheepshearing, among all the king's sons, he killeih Amnon. 30 David grieving at the news is comforted by Jonadab. 37 Absalom fleeth to Talmai at Geshur.

AND it came to pass after this, that Absalom the son of David had a fair sister, whose name was Tamar; and Amnon the son of David loved her.

2 And Amnon was so vexed, that he fell sick for his sister Tamar; for she was a virgin; and 'Amnon thought it hard for him to do any thing to her.

3 But Amnon had a friend, whose name was Jonadab, the son of Shimeah David's brother and Jonadab was a very subtil man. 4 And he said unto him, Why art thou, being the king's son, 'lean 'from day to day? wilt thou not tell me? And Amnon said unto him, I love Tamar, my brother Absa

lom's sister.

5 And Jonadab said unto him, Lay thee down on thy bed, and make thyself sick and when thy father cometh to see thee, say unto him, I pray thee, let my sister Tamar come, and give me meat, and dress the meat in my sight, that I may see it, and eat it at her hand.

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6 So Amnon lay down, and made himself sick and when the king was come to see him, Amnon said unto the king, I pray thee, let Tamar my sister come, and make me a couple of cakes in my sight, that I may eat at her hand.

7 Then David sent home to Tamar, saying, Go now to thy brother Amnon's house, and ! dress him meat.

8 So Tamar went to her brother Amnon's house; and he was laid down. And she took 'flour, and kneaded it, and made cakes in his sight, and did bake the cakes.

9 And she took a pan, and poured them out before him; but he refused to eat. And Amnon said, Have out all men from me. And they went out every man from him.

10 And Amnon said unto Tamar, Bring the meat into the chamber, that I may eat of thine hand. And Tamar took the cakes which she had made, and brought them into the chamber to Amnon her brother.

11 And when she had brought them unto

1 Heb. it was marvellous, or, hidden in the eyes of Amnon.
6 Levit. 18. 9.
9 Heb. set not thine heart.

5 Heb, humble me.

him to eat, he took hold of her, and said unto her, Come lie with me, my sister.

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12 And she answered him, Nay, my brother, do not 'force me; for no such thing ought to be done in Israel: do not thou this folly.

13 And I, whither shall I cause my shame to go? and as for thee, thou shalt be as one of the fools in Israel. Now therefore, I pray thee, speak unto the king; for he will not withhold me from thee.

14 Howbeit he would not hearken unto her voice; but, being stronger than she, forced her, and lay with her.

15 Then Amnon hated her "exceedingly; so that the hatred wherewith he hated her was greater than the love wherewith he had loved her. And Amnon said unto her, Arise, be gone.

16 And she said unto him, There is no cause this evil in sending me away is greater than the other that thou didst unto me. But he would not hearken unto her.

17 Then he called his servant that ministered unto him, and said, Put now this woman out from me, and bolt the door after her.

18 And she had a garment of divers colours upon her for with such robes were the king's daughters that were virgins apparelled. Then his servant brought her out, and bolted the door after her.

19 ¶ And Tamar put ashes on her head, and rent her garment of divers colours that was on her, and laid her hand on her head, and went on crying.

20 And Absalom her brother said unto her, Hath Amnon thy brother been with thee? but hold now thy peace, my sister: he is thy brother; 'regard not this thing. So Tamar remained desolate in her brother Absalom's house.

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But when king David heard of all these things, he was very wroth.

22 And Absalom spake unto his brother Amnon neither good nor bad: for Absalom hated Amnon, because he had forced his sister Tamar.

23 ¶ And it came to pass after two full years, that Absalom had sheepshearers in Baal-hazor, which is beside Ephraim: and Absalom invited all the king's sons.

24 And Absalom came to the king, and said, Behold now, thy servant hath sheepshearers; let the king, I beseech thee, and his servants go with thy servant.

2 Heb. thin.

7 Heb. it ought not so to be done.

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25 And the king said to Absalom, Nay, my son, let us not all now go, lest we be chargeable unto thee. And he pressed him: howbeit he would not go, but blessed him.

26 Then said Absalom, If not, I pray thee, let my brother Amnon go with us. And the king said unto him, Why should he go with thee?

27 But Absalom pressed him, that he let Amnon and all the king's sons go with him.

28 Now Absalom had commanded his servants, saying, Mark ye now when Amnon's heart is merry with wine, and when I say unto you, Smite Amnon; then kill him, fear not: 1have not I commanded you? be courageous, and be valiant.

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29 And the servants of Absalom did unto Amnon as Absalom had commanded. Then all the king's sons arose, and every man "gat him up upon his mule, and fled.

30 And it came to pass, while they were in the way, that tidings came to David, saying, Absalom hath slain all the king's sons, and there is not one of them left.

31 Then the king arose, and tare his garments, and lay on the earth; and all his servants stood by with their clothes rent.

32 And Jonadab, the son of Shimeah David's brother, answered and said, Let not my lord suppose that they have slain all the

11 Or, will you not, since I have commanded you ? 10 Heb. according to the word of thy servant.

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12 Heb. sons of valour. 17 Heb. with a great weeping greatly.

Verse 2. She was a virgin, and Amnon thought,' etc.This is not very intelligible as it stands. The sense doubtless is that virgins being in the East so closely watched, Amnon found it impossible to obtain access to her without witnesses: hence his distress, and the wicked device to which he resorted.

6. Amnon lay down and made himself sick!'-' The Asiatics,' writes Mr. Roberts, are certainly the most expert creatures I have seen in feigning themselves sick. Thus those who wish to get off work, or any duty, complain they have a pain here, and another there; they affect to pant for breath, roll their eyes as if in agony; and, should you touch them, they shriek out, as if you were killing them. The sepoys, and those who are servants in the Government offices, give great trouble to their superiors by ever and anon complaining they are sick; and it requires great discernment to find out whether they really are so, or are merely affecting it. Their general object is either to attend a marriage or some religious festival.'

8. Made cakes in his sight.-This she might very well do, according to several of the various processes of baking described in former notes. It might, for instance, be done at the circular fire-pit in the floor, or upon the hearth, or in a pan, or on a metallic plate placed over a brasier, or against the sides of a heated jar or portable oven. Probably Amnon's request seemed reasonable to David, not merely as the fancy of a sick man, but on account of Tamar's having a reputation for peculiar skill in making some kind of cake or pastry. We have already noticed that such matters devolve upon women in the East: and that females of the highest rank are expected to attend to

14 Heb. mouth. 15 Or, settled. 19 Or, Ammihur. 19 Or, was consumed.

them. The consequence of this is, that there is no accomplishment on which even ladies of distinction pride themselves more than on their peculiar skill in such preparations. In the Arabian Nights there is the story of Bedreddin Hassan, much of the interest of which is connected with the skill in the making of tarts possessed by his mother, who was the wife of one grand vizier and the only daughter of another. She had a secret in this art, which enabled her to make the best tarts in the world; and ; this secret she communicated to no one but her son. He in the course of time becomes a ruined man and a fugitive, and finally sets up as a pastry-cook in Damascus. After many years his friends, including his mother, go from city to city in search of him. Bedreddin's own son, whom he never saw, is of the party, and in going through the bazaar gluts himself with the tarts of his unknown father. On his return, he declines one of the tarts of his grandmother, who then exclaims, What! does my child thus despise the work of my hands? Be it known to you, that not one in the world can make such cream tarts, excepting myself and your father Bedreddin, whom I myself taught.' The boy contends he had eaten better tarts in the bazaar; to test which assertion, the old lady sends for one; and she no sooner tastes it than she swoons away, declaring, on her recovery, that the maker must be her long-lost son. This proves to be the fact, to the great joy of all parties concerned.

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17. Bolt the door after her.'-The street-doors of Oriental houses are usually kept bolted, except when the inhabitant is a person of such consequence as to have one or more porters in attendance, and then it is commonly

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are always of wood, fastened to the door, and sliding into a hole in the door-post. The additional bar, if any, used at night, is also of wood. This was no doubt the case also in the Bible times, for we read of bars of brass and iron, mentioned, in the way of contradistinction, as fastenings of extraordinary strength (1 Kings iv. 13; Isa. xlv. 2).

20. Tamar remained desolate in her brother Absalom's house.-The natural tendency of polygamy is to produce a house divided against itself. The several mothers hate each other and each other's children, and spend all their thoughts in plotting for the exclusive benefit of their own. Hence the large family which is sometimes formed in polygamy is not one family, but an assemblage of several families, opposed to each other in interest and in feeling. The ties of brotherhood and sisterhood seldom extend beyond the children of the same mother; and the only sentiment in which they all concur is in respect for the common father and common husband. Under this state of things, however, the daughters, aware that there are others who have equal claim upon their father's affection, do not so much look up to him as their natural protector, and the avenger of their wrongs, as to their uterine brother, whose

affection, and interest in their honour, is more immediate and concentrated. This is well understood in many parts of the East, where the brother has often more admitted authority in all that concerns the daughter of his mother, than the father himself. We find an instance of this here, and one still earlier, in the case of Simeon and Levi, who arranged the terms of their sister Dinah's marriage; and who, to the deep regret of their father, horribly avenged upon the men of Shechem the injury their sister had received.

23. Baal-hazor, which is beside Ephraim'-not in the tribe of Ephraim, in which we read of no town named thus, but near a town called Ephraim; probably the same that is mentioned in 2 Chron. xiii. 19, and John xi. 54. In the former of these texts it is mentioned with Bethel : Baal-hazor would therefore seem to have been in the tribe of Benjamin; and is probably the same with the Hazor of Neh. xi. 33. All the indications of Scripture agree very well with the distance which Eusebius gives, of eight miles from Jerusalem; about which distance, in a direction N.N.E., D'Anville places Ephraim, near which Baal-hazor was situated.

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29. Every man gat him up upon his mule.'-This is the first time that the mule is indisputably mentioned in the Scriptures (see the note on Gen. xxxvi. 24): and, as we might expect, these animals begin to be mentioned at nearly the same time that horses began to be partially known among the Jews. Not at present to notice the state of the question with respect to horses, we observe, that although a few horses were kept for state, mules were now used for riding by persons of distinction, in peace as well as in war; although the ass continued to maintain its respectable position, and never wholly gave place to either the mule or the horse. The taste seems decidedly to be for mules in this period of Hebrew history. We see here that all the king's sons were accustomed to ride on those animals; and even Absalom, although he had chariots and horses, and while he bore the state and title of a king, rode upon a mule in battle (ch. xviii. 9). The king himself also was wont to ride on a mule. He had a choice mule --a mule of state, known to be his; and when he intended Solomon to be anointed, with great solemnity, as king in his own lifetime, he does not direct his officers to take his chariots and horses for the regal procession, but Cause Solomon my son to ride upon mine own mule' (1 Kings i. 33). Mules, as well as horses, were also among the presents which Solomon received from those who, at a subsequent period, came from far to hear his wisdom (1 Kings x. 25). The mule appears with equal dignity among the Greeks. Although used in the laborious services of agriculture, yet choice animals of this class were employed in more dignified offices. Mules, mentioned as

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were yoked to the litter in which that aged monarch conveyed the glorious ransom' of Hector's body to the Grecian camp, and in which the body itself was taken back to Troy. Chariots, drawn by mules, were also allowed to contend for the prize in the chariot-races of the Olympic games, and in the similar games of the Romans. Mules are still much used in the East, as well for riding as for the conveyance of baggage and merchandise; and, from the attention paid to their breed, they are generally much finer animals than in England. The combination, in the mule, of the more useful qualities of both the horse and the ass-its strength, activity, steadiness, and great power of endurance, are characteristics of peculiar value in the East; and therefore the Jews, although interdicted from breeding mules (Lev. xix. 19), did not find it convenient to consider that their use was forbidden. But as they could not legally breed mules, the question arises, how they obtained those which they possessed. It seems probable that they were employed in the armies which David overthrew; and that, there being no precedent for hamstringing mules, he preserved them for use. Or they

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CHAPTER XIV.

1 Joab, suborning a widow of Tekoah by a parable to incline the king's heart to fetch home Absalom, bringeth him to Jerusalem. 25 Absalom's beauty, hair, and children. 28 After two years, Absalom by Joab is brought into the king's presence.

Now Joab the son of Zeruiah perceived that the king's heart was toward Absalom.

2 And Joab sent to Tekoah, and fetched thence a wise woman, and said unto her, I pray thee, feign thyself to be a mourner, and put on now mourning apparel, and anoint not thyself with oil, but be as a woman that had a long time mourned for the dead:

3 And come to the king, and speak on this

1 Heb. Save.

manner unto him. So Joab put the words in her mouth.

4 And when the woman of Tekoah spake to the king, she fell on her face to the ground, and did obeisance, and said, 'Help, O king.

5 And the king said unto her, What aileth thee? And she answered, I am indeed a widow woman, and mine husband is dead.

6 And thy handmaid had two sons, and they two strove together in the field, and there was 'none to part them, but the one smote the other, and slew him.

7 And, behold, the whole family is risen against thine handmaid, and they said, Deliver him that smote his brother, that we may kill him, for the life of his brother whom he slew ;

2 Heb. no deliverer between them.

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and we will destroy the heir also: and so they shall quench my coal which is left, and shall not leave to my husband neither name nor remainder upon the earth.

8 And the king said unto the woman, Go to thine house, and I will give charge concerning

thee.

9 And the woman of Tekoah said unto the king, My lord, O king, the iniquity be on me, and on my father's house: and the king and his throne be guiltless.

10 And the king said, Whosoever saith ought unto thee, bring him to me, and he shall not touch thee any more.

11 Then said she, I pray thee, let the king remember the LORD thy God, "that thou wouldest not suffer the revengers of blood to destroy any more, lest they destroy my son. And he said, As the LORD liveth, there shall not one hair of thy son fall to the earth.

12 Then the woman said, Let thine handmaid, I pray thee, speak one word unto my lord the king. And he said, Say on.

13 And the woman said, Wherefore then hast thou thought such a thing against the people of God? for the king doth speak this thing as one which is faulty, in that the king doth not fetch home again his banished.

14 For we must needs die, and are as water spilt on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again; neither doth God respect any person: yet doth he devise means that his banished be not expelled from him.

15 Now therefore that I am come to speak of this thing unto my lord the king, it is because the people have made me afraid and thy handmaid said, I will now speak unto the king; it may be that the king will perform the request of his handmaid.

16 For the king will hear, to deliver his handmaid out of the hand of the man that would destroy me and my son together out of the inheritance of God.

17 Then thine handmaid said, The word of my lord the king shall now be comfortable: for as an angel of God, so is my lord the king 'to discern good and bad: therefore the LORD thy God will be with thee.

18 Then the king answered and said unto the woman, Hide not from me, I pray thee, the thing that I shall ask thee. And the woman said, Let my lord the king now speak.

19 And the king said, Is not the hand of Joab with thee in all this? And the woman

answered and said, As thy soul liveth, my lord the king, none can turn to the right hand or to the left from ought that my lord the king hath spoken for thy servant Joab, he bade me, and he put all these words in the mouth of thine handmaid:

20 To fetch about this form of speech hath thy servant Joab done this thing: and my lord is wise, according to the wisdom of an angel of God, to know all things that are in the earth.

21 And the king said unto Joab, Behold now, I have done this thing: go therefore, bring the young man Absalom again.

22 And Joab fell to the ground on his face, and bowed himself, and thanked the king: and Joab said, To day thy servant knoweth that I have found grace in thy sight, my lord, O king, in that the king hath fulfilled the request of 'his servant.

23 So Joab arose and went to Geshur, and brought Absalom to Jerusalem.

24 And the king said, Let him turn to his own house, and let him not see my face. So Absalom returned to his own house, and saw not the king's face.

25 ¶ But in all Israel there was none to be so much praised as Absalom for his beauty: from the sole of his foot even to the crown of his head there was no blemish in him.

26 And when he polled his head, (for it was at every year's end that he polled it because the hair was heavy on him, therefore he polled it:) he weighed the hair of his head at two hundred shekels after the king's weight.

27¶And unto Absalom there were born three sons, and one daughter, whose name was Tamar: she was a woman of a fair counte

nance.

28 So Absalom dwelt two full years in Jerusalem, and saw not the king's face.

29 Therefore Absalom sent for Joab, to have sent him to the king; but he would not come to him and when he sent again the second time, he would not come.

30 Therefore he said unto his servants, See, Joab's field is "near mine, and he hath barley there; go and set it on fire. And Absalom's servants set the field on fire.

31 Then Joab arose, and came to Absalom unto his house, and said unto him, Wherefore have thy servants set my field on fire?

32 And Absalom answered Joab, Behold, I sent unto thee, saying, Come hither, that I

ileb. upon the face of the earth. 4 Heb. that the revenger of blood do not multiply to destroy.
away his life, he hath also devised means, &c.
Heb. for rest.
7 Heb. to hear.
Heb. And as Absalom there was not a beautiful man in all Israel to praise greatly.

5 Or, because God hath not taken 8 Heb. blessed, 9 Or, thy. 11 Heb. near my place,

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