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For we must needs die - Whatever is done must be done quickly; all must die; God has not exempted any person from this common lot. Though Amnon be dead, yet the death of Absalom cannot bring him to life, nor repair this loss. Besides, for his crime, he justly deserved to die; and thou, in this case didst not administer justice. Horrible as this fratricide is, it is a pardonable case: the crime of Amnon was the most flagitious; and the offense to Absalom, the ruin of his beloved sister, indescribably great. Seeing, then, that the thing is so, and that Amnon can be no more recalled to life than water spilt upon the ground can be gathered up again; and that God, whose vicegerent thou art, and whose example of clemency as well as justice thou art called to imitate, devises means that those who were banished from him by sin and transgression, may not be finally expelled from his mercy and his kingdom; restore thy son to favor, and pardon his crime, as thou hast promised to restore my son, and the Lord thy God will be with thee. This is the sum and sense of the woman's argument.

The argument contained in this 14th verse is very elegant, and powerfully persuasive; but one clause of it has been variously understood, Neither doth God respect any person; the Hebrew is, נפש אלהים ישא ולא velo yissa Elohim nephesh, "And God doth not take away the soul." The Septuagint has it, Και ληψεται ὁ Θεος την ψυχην ; And God will receive the soul. This intimates that, after human life is ended, the soul has a state of separate existence with God. This was certainly the opinion of these translators, and was the opinion of the ancient Jews, at least three hundred years before the incarnation; about which time this translation was made. The Vulgate has, Nec volt Deus perire animam, "Nor does God will the destruction of the soul." God is not the author of death; neither hath he pleasure in the destruction of the living; imitate him; pardon and recall thy son.

His banished - The use of the word as applied to one of the people of God driven into a pagan land, is well illustrated by Deuteronomy 30:4-5; Jeremiah 40:12; Micah 4:6; Zephaniah 3:19.

Neither doth God respect any person - Some prefer the margin: “And God does not take away life, in the case of every sin that deserves death, e. g. David‘s own case 2 Samuel 12:13, but devises devices that the wanderer may not be forever expelled from him, i. e., for the return of penitent sinners.”

We may notice here, how this widow pleads God's mercy, and his clemency toward poor guilty sinners. The state of sinners is a state of banishment from God. God pardons none to the dishonour of his law and justice, nor any who are impenitent; nor to the encouragement of crimes, or the hurt of others.