What Does 2 Samuel 13:16 Mean in the King James?
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.
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
Tamar calls Amnon’s sending her away a worse evil than his assault, and he refuses to hear her.
THE MEANING
Tamar names two harms: the sexual assault and the expulsion that follows, which she calls worse. The verse exposes how violence continues through rejection and silencing, rather than ending with the first act. Her account remains true even when the person who harmed her refuses to hear it.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that ending contact after sexual violence is neutral, or that the harm ends when the assault ends; Tamar names the expulsion as a greater evil.
THE ROOT
לְשַׁלְּחֵנִי
leshalleḥeni
GROWS FROM
שלח
Send, send forth, release; here, send away or expel.
English can make “sending me away” sound like a mere change of place, but Tamar names this sending as a distinct and greater evil. Here release takes the form of expulsion after assault.
ALSO GROWS
shilluach: Sending away, dismissal
שִׁלּוּחַ
This noun makes sending away a distinct act, matching Tamar’s distinction between the assault and the harm that follows.
shaluach: One sent, a messenger
שָׁלוּחַ
The same root can describe someone sent onward; here Tamar is sent out, and the direction gives the word its force of rejection.
לִשְׁמֹעַ לָהּ
lishmoa lah
GROWS FROM
שמע
Hear, listen, heed; in shema, hearing includes response.
“hearken unto her” in this verse is lishmoa lah. The verse says Amnon is unwilling to hear her, making his refusal explicit. The root’s sense of hearing and responding reveals that this is a relational rejection, not a failure of Tamar to speak plainly.
ALSO GROWS
shemaʿ: Hear and respond
שְׁמַע
The same root opens the call “Hear, O Israel,” where hearing carries the sense of response.
shemuʿah: Report, tidings; something heard
שְׁמוּעָה
This branch names a message received by hearing, sharpening the refusal in this verse: Amnon will not receive Tamar’s words.
THE PATTERN
When the vulnerable are cast aside or unheard, their harm deepens, and scripture treats their cry as real and hearable.
And God heard the voice of the lad; and the angel of God called to Hagar out of heaven, and said unto her, What aileth thee, Hagar? fear not; for God hath heard the voice of the lad where he is.Whoso stoppeth his ears at the cry of the poor, he also shall cry himself, but shall not be heard.Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth.THE THREAD
When a man hath taken a wife, and married her, and it come to pass that she find no favour in his eyes, because he hath found some uncleanness in her: then let him write her a bill of divorcement, and give it in her hand, and send her out of his house.The same root, שָׁלַח (shalach, send away), appears in both verses. Tamar uses it for being expelled after assault; here it describes a wife being sent out of her husband’s house, showing how the word can carry the force of removal from a household.
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