2 Samuel 13:31,32 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Then the king arose He was thrown by this news, as we may well imagine, into the utmost consternation, and almost driven even to despair. He tore his clothes, and laid himself down upon the earth, like a person frantic with grief, and abandoned to distress; and his servants stood disconsolate around him with their garments torn also. And Jonadab answered, &c. Recollecting himself in his subtlety, and running over the train of his own thoughts, he easily concluded that Amnon only was killed; and immediately took upon him to assure the king it must be so. Amnon only is dead; for by the appointment of Absalom, &c. It is probable Absalom had talked among his familiar friends, that he would take an opportunity to revenge the injury done his sister, although, for the present, he took no notice of it, which Jonadab had some way or other discovered. But “what unparalleled impudence and effrontery,” says Delaney, “was this, to speak with such calmness and unconcern of a horrid villany, which he himself had contrived, and of which he now saw the dreadful consequences! What a miscreant minister was this, and how much fitter to be admitted into the councils of hell than into those of David! This hath been determined from the day that he forced his sister And did Jonadab know all this? or had he any cause to suspect it? Then what a wicked wretch was he, that he did not make David acquainted with it sooner, in order that means might have been used to make up the quarrel, or, at least, that David might not have thrown Amnon into the mouth of danger, by letting him go to Absalom's house. For, if we do not do our utmost to prevent mischief, we make ourselves accessory to it. It is well if Jonadab was not as guilty of Amnon's death as he was of his sin. Such friends do they prove who are hearkened to when they counsel us to do wickedly.