6 So Amnon lay down and faked being sick. When the king came to see him, Amnon said to the king, "Please let my sister Tamar come, and make me a couple of cakes in my sight, that I may eat from her hand."
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
Make me cakes a pan - The words here used occur nowhere else, and the etymology is doubtful. Some particular kind of cake or pudding is meant 2-Samuel 13:8, called a לביבה lābı̂ybâh; according to some, it was, from its etymology, shaped like a heart.
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 (d) cakes in my sight, that I may eat at her hand.
(d) Meaning, some delicate and dainty meat.
So Amnon lay down, and made himself sick,.... Took the advice of his cousin Jonadab, and acted according to it:
and when the king was come to see him; as he quickly did, after he had heard of his illness:
Amnon said unto the king; who perhaps inquired of his appetite, whether he could eat anything, and what:
I pray thee let my sister Tamar come; he calls her sister, as Jonadab had directed, the more to blind his design; though it is much that so sagacious a man as David was had not seen through it; but the notion he had of his being really ill, and the near relation between him and Tamar, forbad his entertaining the least suspicion of that kind:
and make me a couple of cakes in my sight; heart cakes, as the word may be thought to signify; called so either from the form of them, such as We have with us, or from the effect of them, comforting and refreshing the heart:
that I may eat at her hand; both what is made by her hand, and received from it.
HE DEFILES HER. (2Sa. 13:6-27)
Amnon lay down, and made himself sick--The Orientals are great adepts in feigning sickness, whenever they have any object to accomplish.
let Tamar my sister come and make me a couple of cakes--To the king Amnon spoke of Tamar as "his sister," a term artfully designed to hoodwink his father; and the request appeared so natural, the delicate appetite of a sick man requiring to be humored, that the king promised to send her. The cakes seem to have been a kind of fancy bread, in the preparation of which Oriental ladies take great delight. Tamar, flattered by the invitation, lost no time in rendering the required service in the house of her sick brother.
*More commentary available at chapter level.