[7] Fragments containing parts of this chapter in Hebrew were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls including 4Q51 (4QSama; 100–50 BCE) with extant verses 1–6, 13–34, 36–39.

[8][9][10][11] Extant ancient manuscripts of a translation into Koine Greek known as the Septuagint (originally was made in the last few centuries BCE) include Codex Vaticanus (B;

[15] The victims in both sections unwittingly entered the domains of their attackers, made available to their assailants by King David, with the violence happening around food.

[15] David played a key role in both episodes, in the first by providing Amnon access to Tamar and in the second by allowing Amnon and Absalom to get together, but crucially, David failed to exact justice for Tamar, and this incited Absalom, Tamar's brother, to take a role of "judge" to punish Amnon by killing him and later he openly took that role (2 Samuel 15) to bolster support for his rebellion against David.

[16] These episodes involving Amnon, Tamar, and Absalom have direct bearing on David's succession issue.

[21] This section has a structure that meticulously places the rape at the center:[22] The episode began with a description of the relationships among the characters (A), which is permanently ruptured at the end (A').

[21] An initial report that all the king's sons had been killed had to be corrected by Jonadab, asserting that it was only Amnon who had died and providing David the information of the reason for Absalom's action (verse 32), then the king's sons indeed returned along the 'Horonaim road' (the Septuagint Greek version reads 'the road behind him').

[17] The structure in this section centers to the scene of Jonadab informing David that Absalom murdered Amnon for the rape of Tamar:[15] Tamar tried to prevent Amnon from raping her by warning that the action would lead to him being considered a nabal, a Hebrew word for "scoundrel" (2 Samuel 13:13).

This epithet connects the story of Amnon's murder to the death of Nabal, the first husband of Abigail, (1 Samuel 25) as follows:[26]