2 Samuel 13:1–7, King James Version
Italic words were supplied in the English translation for clarity.
2 Samuel 13:1–7
Jonadab Designs Access to Tamar
Amnon's 'love' is obsession that cannot reach Tamar legally
Absalom has a fair sister, Tamar; Amnon, David's son, loves her and is so vexed that he falls sick, because she is a virgin and he thinks it hard to do anything to her. The barrier he feels is access, not her personhood. Tamar is named as sister and as someone he cannot simply take.
Jonadab, son of David's brother Shimeah, a very subtil man, asks why the king's son is lean. Amnon names Tamar, Absalom's sister. The desire is already spoken as a problem for a princely household to solve.
Feigned sickness uses David to isolate her
Jonadab's plan: lie down, make yourself sick, and when your father comes, ask that Tamar come and dress meat in your sight and feed you from her hand. Amnon does it. David comes, hears the request for cakes made in Amnon's sight, and sends home to Tamar: Go now to thy brother Amnon's house, and dress him meat.
The king becomes the instrument of access. He does not test the sickness or protect a daughter's movement into a private male space. Jonadab designs the isolation; David's uncritical command opens the door.
How this should shape us
Do not let a powerful relative's claimed illness, appetite, or loneliness override a vulnerable person's safety. Question the private-access request, and never use parental or royal authority to deliver someone into an isolated room.
Teach it back
Explain 2 Samuel 13:1–7 in your own words. Include its narrative movement, one source-supported detail, one material uncertainty, one person or cost power can obscure, and one use the context rules out.
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Go deeper
The explanation above is meant to stand on its own. Open these notes only if you want language, history, disagreements, or source locations.
Where careful interpreters disagreeThe strongest options and their difficulties
Where do careful interpreters disagree?
Best judgment: Interpreters differ over source layers, chronology, historicity, characterization, textual readings, and whether the court story mainly legitimates, indicts, or holds David in sustained tension. The package states the received movement first and labels reconstructions.
How certain? probableResearch trail and exact locationsThe source record behind this section
Supports: Exact reader-facing KJV wording, paragraph metadata, supplied-word markup, and complete verse coverage.
2 Samuel 13:1-7, pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM corpus
Supports: Masoretic Hebrew wording, morphology, repeated verbs, names, syntax, and the base text behind translation and textual discussion.
Open Scriptures MorphHB v.2.2, commit 6a5db284c715c18b239422e57bb89684e6a19f00, wlc/2Sam.xml, 13:1-7
Supports: Unit-bounded wording, older-English clarification, textual witnesses, syntax, names, numbers, and major historical or literary notes actually printed for these verses.
NET Bible 2 Samuel PDF, printed pp. 560–561, translation and all translator notes attached to 13:1-7
Supports: Current publisher-visible controls for textual plurality, historical and archaeological limits, David's reception, political power, sexual violence, trauma, and the relationship with Kings and Chronicles; abstract-only chapters carry only their exposed claims.
Oxford Handbook of King David (2026), Introduction pp. xxiii–xxvii; chapter 16 abstract and bibliographic record, pp. 230–243; chapter 39 abstract and bibliographic record, pp. 592–602
Supports: Only the survey's exposed conclusion that boundaries, unity, date, intention, and theme of the traditionally delineated narrative lack current consensus.
Knapp, 'The Succession Narrative in Twenty-first-century Research,' Currents in Biblical Research 19.3 (2021), pp. 211–234; official complete abstract, bibliography, and bibliographic record
Supports: The publisher-exposed literary proposal that pervasive irony and satire criticize David and call leadership toward reform; used as a visible alternative, not an uncontested genre label or a source of uninspected detailed claims.
Miller, A King and a Fool? (2019), chapter 4, 'Amnon's Sin and Absalom's Revenge,' pp. 88–110; official JSTOR book description, complete table of contents, chapter bibliographic records, and exposed opening extracts
Supports: Tamar's explicit resistance, Amnon's force, rape, rejection, public grief, desolation, and survivor effects, with the article's contextual claims kept distinct from textual observations.
Eze and Ugwu, Verbum et Ecclesia 45.1 (2024), a3066, complete official HTML, sections 'The structure of the text,' 'Close reading of the text,' 'Tamar suffers the psychological effects of rape,' and conclusion
Sources for This Section
These records identify the source, the claim it supports, and the exact location used. A source remains evidence to evaluate; it does not replace the biblical text.
Biblical text
King James (Authorized) Version — eng-kjv2006
eBible.org and CrossWire Bible Society
USFM archive eng-kjv2006_usfm.zip; source files dated 2026-08-19; downloaded 2026-08-24; archive SHA-256 aec1b3b26c622fd3d963d2bbac963016b9513246ffbfa20da00bb100372ea007; normalized corpus SHA-256 09aef51d90488aa7b9722b3fd9a93f4b25f6bf2064c5fd798fb39673c300ddf2.
Supports: Exact reader-facing KJV wording, paragraph metadata, supplied-word markup, and complete verse coverage.
Exact location: 2 Samuel 13:1-7, pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM corpus
Open source ↗hebrew text and morphology
Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible: 2 Samuel
Open Scriptures
Open Scriptures, release 2.2
Supports: Masoretic Hebrew wording, morphology, repeated verbs, names, syntax, and the base text behind translation and textual discussion.
Exact location: Open Scriptures MorphHB v.2.2, commit 6a5db284c715c18b239422e57bb89684e6a19f00, wlc/2Sam.xml, 13:1-7
Open source ↗translation and translator notes
NET Bible: 2 Samuel with translators' notes
Biblical Studies Press
Biblical Studies Press, 2006
Supports: Unit-bounded wording, older-English clarification, textual witnesses, syntax, names, numbers, and major historical or literary notes actually printed for these verses.
Exact location: NET Bible 2 Samuel PDF, printed pp. 560–561, translation and all translator notes attached to 13:1-7
Open source ↗modern scholarly handbook limited access
The Oxford Handbook of King David
Edited by Mahri Leonard-Fleckman and Christine Mitchell
Oxford University Press, 2026
Supports: Current publisher-visible controls for textual plurality, historical and archaeological limits, David's reception, political power, sexual violence, trauma, and the relationship with Kings and Chronicles; abstract-only chapters carry only their exposed claims.
Exact location: Oxford Handbook of King David (2026), Introduction pp. xxiii–xxvii; chapter 16 abstract and bibliographic record, pp. 230–243; chapter 39 abstract and bibliographic record, pp. 592–602
Open source ↗peer reviewed scholarly survey abstract
The Succession Narrative in Twenty-first-century Research
Andrew Knapp
Currents in Biblical Research 19(3), pp. 211-234, 2021
Supports: Only the survey's exposed conclusion that boundaries, unity, date, intention, and theme of the traditionally delineated narrative lack current consensus.
Exact location: Knapp, 'The Succession Narrative in Twenty-first-century Research,' Currents in Biblical Research 19.3 (2021), pp. 211–234; official complete abstract, bibliography, and bibliographic record
Open source ↗open access scholarly monograph limited inspection
A King and a Fool?: The Succession Narrative as a Satire
Virginia Miller
Brill, 2019
Supports: The publisher-exposed literary proposal that pervasive irony and satire criticize David and call leadership toward reform; used as a visible alternative, not an uncontested genre label or a source of uninspected detailed claims.
Exact location: Miller, A King and a Fool? (2019), chapter 4, 'Amnon's Sin and Absalom's Revenge,' pp. 88–110; official JSTOR book description, complete table of contents, chapter bibliographic records, and exposed opening extracts
Open source ↗peer reviewed open access scholarly article
2 Samuel 13:1-22 and the psychological effects of rape in Enugu State, Nigeria
Virginus U. Eze and Collins I. Ugwu
Verbum et Ecclesia 45(1), a3066, 2024
Supports: Tamar's explicit resistance, Amnon's force, rape, rejection, public grief, desolation, and survivor effects, with the article's contextual claims kept distinct from textual observations.
Exact location: Eze and Ugwu, Verbum et Ecclesia 45.1 (2024), a3066, complete official HTML, sections 'The structure of the text,' 'Close reading of the text,' 'Tamar suffers the psychological effects of rape,' and conclusion
Open source ↗