What Does 2 Samuel 13:5 Mean?
And Jonadab said to him, Lie down on your bed, and make yourself sick. And when your father comes to see you, say to him, I pray you, let my sister Tamar come, and give me bread, and cook it in my sight, that I may see it, and eat it from her hand.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And Jonadab said unto him, Lay thee down on thy bed, and make thyself sick: and when thy father cometh to see thee, say unto him, I pray thee, let my sister Tamar come, and give me meat, and dress the meat in my sight, that I may see it, and eat it at her hand.THE KEY
The sickbed is not a sign that Amnon has lost power; it is the stage Jonadab scripts to bring Tamar within reach.
THE MEANING
The sickbed, the father’s concern, and the request for a meal make Tamar’s presence look like ordinary family care. Yet the illness is performed to arrange her arrival, holding a stark gap between the helplessness on display and the intent behind the request.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
An appearance of helplessness does not by itself prove harmlessness; here it is manufactured to gain access to Tamar.
THE ROOT
וְהִתְחָלָה
vehitchalah
GROWS FROM
חלה
To become weak or sick.
“make thyself sick” in this verse is vehitchalah. This reflexive verb tells Amnon to enact sickness in his own body: illness becomes a performance designed to enlist Tamar’s care. The same root names actual sickness and disease, so the word holds both bodily affliction and its deliberate imitation.
ALSO GROWS
ḥolî: Sickness; grief
חֹלִי
In Isaiah 53:3, this word names affliction; its shared root shows the bodily reality that Amnon is pretending to bear.
taḥalu'ayikh: Your diseases
תַּחֲלֻאָיְכִי
Psalm 103:3 uses this root family for actual diseases, making the contrast with Amnon’s staged illness clear.
THE PATTERN
Concealed harm borrows a harmless appearance to gain trust and access.
He who hates makes himself a stranger with his lips, and lays deceit within him.Their tongue is a slaughtering arrow, and it speaks deceit. One speaks wholeness to his neighbor with his mouth, but in his heart he sets his ambush.Watch for false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inside they are snatching wolves.THE THREAD
He is despised and left off by men, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief. And as one hiding the face, we hid our faces from him. He was despised, and we did not reckon him.The verb for Amnon’s feigned illness and the word rendered “grief” here share the Hebrew root חלה (ḥ-l-h, to be sick or weak). The shared root sets staged illness beside affliction actually borne.
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