Another Puzzle Like Japheth's Vow?- 2 Samuel 13
2 Samuel 13:27-33
But Absalom urged him, so he sent with him Amnon and the rest of the king’s sons. Absalom ordered his men, “Listen! When Amnon is in high spirits from drinking wine and I say to you, ‘Strike Amnon down,’ then kill him. Don’t be afraid. Haven’t I given you this order? Be strong and brave.” So Absalom’s men did to Amnon what Absalom had ordered. Then all the king’s sons got up, mounted their mules and fled.
While they were on their way, the report came to David: “Absalom has struck down all the king’s sons; not one of them is left.” The king stood up, tore his clothes and lay down on the ground; and all his attendants stood by with their clothes torn. But Jonadab son of Shimeah, David’s brother, said, “My lord should not think that they killed all the princes; only Amnon is dead. This has been Absalom’s express intention ever since the day Amnon raped his sister Tamar. My lord the king should not be concerned about the report that all the king’s sons are dead. Only Amnon is dead.”
This section first struck me because of the phrase "So Absalom’s men did to Amnon what Absalom had ordered." This has a similar indirect sound as Judges 11:39 "After the two months, she returned to her father, and he did to her as he had vowed. And she was a virgin." Now the Absalom order does seem much more direct, personally I cannot see reasonable room for misinterpretation, but the aftermath of the order is certainly interesting as it includes a kind of highlighting of this uncertainty, provided in the form of a false report.
What is more interesting to me than a false report, though, is examining this from a multiverse/all outcomes type perspective. Given "reality by agreement," especially when combined with "God's anointed king," it could be that David only needed some reasonable option besides "all of his sons being dead," to believe and agree with, at which point reality would follow his lead, regardless of what he believed (which is to say that God, too, would agree). If this were the case, and the reports needed to be true, then one would specifically need to examine the definition of "struck down." If this phrase could be interpreted as something besides "killed," ie harmed, injured, knocked to the ground, cowered in terror, etc. then we see that saying "struck down" might be correct and then also "not one of them is left" could be accurate as well, because all the remaining living sons had left on their mules immediately after the one murder that did occur. If there was instead an uncertainty in the crafting of the realm, like a Schrodinger's Cat situation embedded into the logic, with the certainty only being fully established upon David's decision/agreement, then the inclusion of the "false report," as well as the detailed description of the original order, the events, and the rebuttal that was made for the report later, make much more sense- it was designed to illustrate how David navigated this treacherous time, a time, it seems, of God's wrath, seemingly initiated by David's killing of Uriah in order to have his wife. While the nature of what Nathan spoke to David in regards to the event (2 Samuel 12) seems to have shifted if applied here (possibly due to the forgiveness of sin, resulting in a different yet in some ways similar path), it is interesting because of how it feels like the components of Nathan's story and subsequent warning of wrath feel like they happened here in a kind of jumbled up way, and could have happened in a much worse way without this "reality by agreement" shift.
I feel less certain about this as a possibility than I do regarding Judges 11 and Japheth's vow; in my opinion the stakes are higher and the evidence is more direct in Judges. Still, this chapter definitely triggered something in me with its cadence, and the similarities in the permutations of each entry.
(Also, Chapter 14, the conversation with the widow, reminds me a lot of Cain and Abel, and how God seeks ways to reconcile).
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