We’ve been told our entire lives to be careful who you go to for advice. Consider our social media universe, spouting ignorance like a rogue firehose. As I follow politics I watch people gain positions of trust who simply should not be there.

Jonadab was such a person. An advisor in King David’s court and David’s nephew, Jonadab was a very shrewd man. This word shrewd can also be translated crafty.

Jonadab connived a plan where Amnon, his cousin and son of the king, played sick in order to get his half-sister Tamar alone. With everyone out of the house, Amnon raped Tamar. This horrible tragedy led two years later to Amnon’s murder by his brother Absalom. The fallout cascaded for years.

At the time of Amnon’s murder, Jonadab still served as an advisor to the king. Somehow he slipped any responsibility associated with Tamar’s defilement. Crafty people find ways to deflect blame. They tend to stay in their positions long after the exposure of their true colors.

Maybe the family connections helped Jonadab hang around? Certainly his cagey personality served him. But Amnon’s malignancy ate away among the wise and godly people surrounding David.

Beware the slippery advisor—you’re not the person they most care about. In service of self, you’re just a means to an end.

2 Samuel 13 in reading the Bible in 2023

Photo by Kyle Glenn