What Does 2 Samuel 13:15 Mean in the King James?
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.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The Hebrew sets love and hatred in matching noun-and-verb pairs, and Tamar’s expulsion reveals which one governs.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks plainly: a claim of love can coexist with assault, but it cannot make assault loving. Amnon’s hatred becomes an order that Tamar leave after he has raped her; the violence continues as rejection. The verse keeps that contradiction visible instead of letting the word “love” cover what he does.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It dissolves the lie that intense desire, or the word “love”, can turn coercion into love; Amnon’s treatment of Tamar exposes the name as false.
THE ROOT
הַשִּׂנְאָה
ha-sin’ah
GROWS FROM
שׂנא
s-n-ʾ
To hate or hold hostility toward someone.
The Hebrew repeats this root as both the noun “hatred” and the verb “he hated,” then mirrors that pattern with the word for love. The repetition makes hostility a governing force in the sentence, not a passing feeling.
ALSO GROWS
sone: One who hates; an enemy.
שׂוֹנֵא
This branch describes a person in the posture of hostility that the verse names and repeats.
senu’ah: A hated woman; one who is hated.
שְׂנוּאָה
This feminine form makes the target of the hostility explicit: Tamar is the one being cast into hatred.
אַהֲבָה
ahavah
GROWS FROM
אהב
ʾ-h-b
To love; to hold affection for someone.
The verse pairs ahavah, “love,” with אָהֵב (ahav), “he loved her,” matching the noun-and-verb structure of hatred. That parallel lets the verse examine the claim of love against the assault and rejection that define Amnon’s actions.
ALSO GROWS
ohev: One who loves; loving.
אֹהֵב
This verb form echoes the verse’s claim that Amnon had loved Tamar, placing that claim beside what he does to her.
ahuv: Beloved; one who is loved.
אָהוּב
This branch names a person as beloved, sharpening the gap between the language of love and Tamar’s treatment.
THE PATTERN
Love is revealed through its conduct toward another person; the label alone does not make the conduct loving.
He doth execute the judgment of the fatherless and widow, and loveth the stranger, in giving him food and raiment.Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil;My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth.THE THREAD
Howbeit he would not hearken unto her voice: but, being stronger than she, forced her, and lay with her.The preceding verse says Amnon refuses Tamar’s voice, overpowers her, and rapes her. That makes the next verse’s contrast between “love” and hatred legible: the expulsion follows an act that has already erased Tamar’s will.
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