2 Samuel 13:23

_AND IT CAME TO PASS AFTER TWO FULL YEARS, THAT ABSALOM HAD SHEEPSHEARERS IN BAALHAZOR, WHICH IS BESIDE EPHRAIM: AND ABSALOM INVITED ALL THE KING'S SONS._ Absalom had sheep-shearers in Baal-hazor, which is beside Ephraim. A sheep-shearing feast is a grand occasion in the East. Absalom, proposing to give such an entertainment at his estate in Baal-hazor, about eight miles northeast of Jerusalem, near a town called Ephraim (Joshua 11:10), he first invited the king and his court, but the king declining, on account of the heavy expense to which the reception of royalty would subject his son, Absalom then limited the invitation to the king's sons, which David the more readily agreed to, in the hope that it might tend to the promotion of brotherly harmony and union....

21-29 Observe the aggravations of Absalom's sin: he would have Ammon slain, when least fit to go out of the world. He engaged his servants in the guilt. Those servants are ill-taught who obey wicked masters, against God's commands. Indulged children always prove crosses to godly parents, whose foolish love leads them to neglect their duty to God....

Verse 2 Samuel 13:23. _ABSALOM HAD SHEEP-SHEARERS_] These were times in which feasts were made, to which the neighbours and relatives of the family were invited....

Sheepshearing was always a time of feasting (marginal references). Baal-hazor is not known....

EXPOSITION 2 SAMUEL 13:1 AFTER THIS. This phrase, as we have seen on 2 Samuel 10:1, has little chronological force, but the date of the sad event which formed the second stage in David's punishment can be settled with considerable certainty. Tamar was the daughter of Maacah, a princess of Geshur, and David's marriage with her, while still at Hebron, is mentioned as a proof of his growing power, and consequently some time must have elapsed after his appointment as king before this alliance took place. As Absalom was apparently older than Tamar, if she were now fifteen or sixteen years of age. David would have been king of all Israel at least thirteen or fourteen years, and would have reached the summit of his glory. His wars would be over, Rabbah capt

AND IT CAME TO PASS AFTER TWO FULL YEARS,.... Two complete years after the rape was committed; so long Absalom kept it in his mind, and was contriving how to avenge it; he let it alone so long, that it might be thought by the king and Amnon, and all the family, that it was quite worn out of his mind, and entirely forgotten by him, and therefore might the more safely confide in him: THAT ABSALOM HAD SHEEPSHEARERS IN BAALHAZOR, WHICH [IS] BESIDE EPHRAIM; though a prince, the son of a king, he had his flocks, and attended to the care of them, and had shearers to shear them at the proper time of the year, which it now was. The Chinese shear their sheep three times a year, the spring, summer, and autumn; but the first time of shearing yields the best wool g. The place of shearing them was, no doubt, near where they were kept in Baalhazor, in the plain of Hazor, as the Targum, and so some ver...

3. FURTHER CHASTISEMENT: AMNON, TAMAR, AND ABSALOM CHAPTER 13 _ 1. Amnon's wicked desire (2 Samuel 13:1)_ 2. The incest (2 Samuel 13:6) 3. His hatred (2 Samuel 13:15) 4. Amnon murdered (2 Samuel 13:19) 5. Absalom's flight (2 Samuel 13:37) “Behold I will raise up evil against thee out of thine own house.” This was Jehovah's sentence and it is now carried out. The evil which he had nourished in his heart, the passion which he had fed now breaks out in his own family. His oldest

2 SAMUEL 13. AMNON, TAMAR, AND ABSALOM (J). 2 SAMUEL 13:1. Amnon, David's eldest son, forces his half-sister, Tamar, the full sister of Absalom. He might have married her (2 Samuel 3:5 *) but did not choose to do so. She rent her royal tunic, probably a garment reaching to the hands and feet (_cf._ Genesis 37:3 *); Joseph's coat of many colours represents the same Heb. word. David was angry, but he did not vex him by punishing him, for he loved him because he was his first-born (so LXX). 2 SAMUEL 13:23. Two years later, Absalom induced Amnon to be his guest at the sheepshearing (p. 101) at Baalhazor

Absalom's vengeance 23. _Absalom had sheepshearers_ Sheepshearing was and still is an occasion of festivity. Cp. 1 Samuel 25:7 ff. _Baal-hazor, which is beside Ephraim_ Possibly _Tell Asur_, five miles north-east of Bethel, and two miles north-west of _et-Taiyibeh_, which is supposed to represent Ephraim. The preposition _beside_or _near_implies that _Ephraim_is here the name of a town not of the tribe territory. Cp. John 11:54....

_Absalom Kills Amnon._ 2 Samuel 13:15-29 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 colors upon her: for with such robes were the king's daughters _that were_ virgins appareled. 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 _colors_ that _was_ on her, and laid her hand on h