2 Samuel 13:1-5: a reflection

1After this, Absalom the son of David had a beautiful sister, whose name was Tamar; and Amnon the son of David loved her. 2Amnon was so troubled that he became sick because of his sister Tamar, for she was a virgin, and it seemed hard to Amnon to do anything to her. 3But Amnon had a friend whose name was Jonadab the son of Shimeah, David’s brother; and Jonadab was a very subtle man. 4He said to him, “Why, son of the king, are you so sad from day to day? Won’t you tell me?” Amnon said to him, “I love Tamar, my brother Absalom’s sister.” 5Jonadab said to him, “Lay down on your bed and pretend to be sick. When your father comes to see you, tell him, ‘Please let my sister Tamar come and give me bread to eat, and prepare the food in my sight, that I may see it and eat it from her hand.’”

This passage sets up one of the darkest episodes in David's family. Amnon is consumed with desire for his half-sister Tamar, a desire the text calls love but which will prove to be destructive, self-serving lust. And into his frustration steps a friend, Jonadab, described as a very shrewd man. But Jonadab uses his shrewdness not to restrain Amnon from his evil desire, but to devise a scheme to help him act on it, a crafty plan to get Tamar alone. His cleverness serves Amnon's sin instead of confronting it.

Notice the tragedy of that friendship. Jonadab was clever, and he was a friend, and he used both to help Amnon do a terrible wrong. A true friend, seeing Amnon consumed by a destructive desire, would have restrained him, warned him, refused to help. Jonadab instead put his cleverness at the service of the sin, becoming an enabler of evil rather than a check on it. His shrewd counsel made the wrong possible. A friend who helps you pursue what is wrong is no true friend at all.

There are two warnings here. First, about the counsel we give and receive: cleverness and friendship can be used to enable sin or to restrain it, and a true friend restrains, warns, refuses to help with wrong, rather than devising ways to make it possible. Be that kind of friend, and beware of counsel that helps you do what you should not. And second, about desire itself: what Amnon called love was destructive lust, seeking to consume rather than to bless. Do not let a strong desire, dressed up as love and enabled by clever friends, lead you into what will destroy. True love builds up; it does not consume.

Lord, Jonadab used his cleverness and friendship not to restrain Amnon from evil but to help him act on it, enabling sin instead of confronting it. Make me a true friend, one who restrains, warns, and refuses to help with wrong, rather than one who enables it. And guard me from counsel that helps me do what I should not. Help me discern between love that builds up and lust that consumes, and not let strong desire, dressed as love, lead me into what destroys. Give me friends who restrain me, and make me such a friend.