remark: “She (Tamar) wore a long dress with sleeves (see Gen 37:3); for in this manner did the virgin daughters of the king dress themselves with mantles.” מעילים is an accusative belonging to תּלבּשׁנה, and the meaning is that the king's daughters, who were virgins, wore long dresses with sleeves as cloaks. The cetoneth passim was not an ordinary under-garment, but was worn over the plain cetoneth or tunic, and took the place of the ordinary meïl without sleeves. Notwithstanding this dress, by which a king's daughter could at once be recognised, Amnon's servant treated Tamar like a common woman, and turned her out of the house.
Verse 19
And Tamar took ashes upon her head, rent her sleeve-dress (as a sign of grief and pain at the disgrace inflicted upon her), laid her hand upon her head (as a sign that a grievous trouble had come upon her, that the hand of God was resting as it were upon her: vid., Jer 2:37), and “went going and cried,” i.e., crying aloud as she went along.
Verse 20
Then Absalom said to her, namely when she came home mourning in this manner, “Has Amnon thy brother been with thee?” This was a euphemism for what had taken place (cf. Gen 39:10), as Absalom immediately conjectures. “And now, my sister, be silent; it is thy brother, do not take this thing to heart.” Absalom quieted the sister, because he was determined to take revenge, but wished to conceal his plan of vengeance for the time. So Tamar remained in her brother's house,“and indeed desolate,” i.e., as one laid waste, with the joy of her life hopelessly destroyed. It cannot be proved that שׁמם ever means single or solitary.
Verses 21-22
When David heard “all these things,” he became very wrathful; but Absalom did not speak to Amnon “from good to evil” (i.e., either good or evil, not a single word: Gen 24:50), because he hated him for having humbled his sister. The lxx add to the words “he (David) was very wroth,” the following clause: “He did not trouble the spirit of Amnon his son, because he loved him, for he was his first-born.” This probably gives the true reason why David let such a crime as Amnon's go unpunished, when the law enjoined that incest should be punished with death (Lev 20:17); at the same time it is nothing but a subjective conjecture of the translators, and does not warrant us in altering the text. The fact that David was contented to be simply angry is probably to be accounted for partly from his own consciousness of
