Week Ten: The Rape of Tamar

This week's post involves a very difficult story from 2 Samuel 13:1-33 (CEB): the rape of David's daughter Tamar by his son Amnon. The non-bolded text is my addition to the story (beginning in the fictive verse 19b), as I attempt to create context around the effect that this attack would likely have had on Tamar. Because of space limitations, but even moreso because I am a man, my narrative addition is a simplistic attempt to name some of the elements that would have come into play around this action. I offer some more reflection at the very bottom.

Some time later, David’s son Amnon fell in love with Tamar the beautiful sister of Absalom, who was also David’s son. 2 Amnon was so upset over his half sister that he made himself sick. She was a virgin, and it seemed impossible in Amnon’s view to do anything to her. 3 But Amnon had a friend named Jonadab, Shimeah’s son, David’s brother, who was a very clever man.

4 “Prince,” Jonadab said to him, “why are you so down, morning after morning? Tell me about it.”

So Amnon told him, “I’m in love with Tamar, the sister of my brother Absalom.”

5 “Lie down on your bed and pretend to be sick,” Jonadab said to him. “When your father comes to see you, tell him, ‘Please let my sister Tamar come and give me some food to eat. Let her prepare the food in my sight so I can watch and eat from her own hand.’”

6 So Amnon lay down and pretended to be sick. The king came to see him, and Amnon told the king, “Please let my sister Tamar come and make a couple of heart-shaped cakes in front of me so I can eat from her hand.”

7 David sent word to Tamar at the palace: “Please go to your brother Amnon’s house and prepare some food for him.”

8 So Tamar went to her brother Amnon’s house where he was lying down. She took dough, kneaded it, made heart-shaped cakes in front of him, and then cooked them. 9 She took the pan and served Amnon, but he refused to eat.

“Everyone leave me,” Amnon said. So everyone left him. 10 Then Amnon said to Tamar, “Bring the food into the bedroom so I can eat from your hand.” So Tamar took the heart-shaped cakes she had made and brought them to her brother Amnon in the bedroom. 11 When she served him the food, he grabbed her and said, “Come have sex with me, my sister.”

12 But she said to him, “No, my brother! Don’t rape me. Such a thing shouldn’t be done in Israel. Don’t do this horrible thing. 13 Think about me—where could I hide my shame? And you—you would become like some fool in Israel! Please, just talk to the king! He won’t keep me from marrying you.”

14 But Amnon refused to listen to her. He was stronger than she was, and so he raped her.

15 But then Amnon felt intense hatred for her. In fact, his hatred for her was greater than the love he had felt for her. So Amnon told her, “Get out of here!”

16 “No, my brother!”[a] she said. “Sending me away would be worse than the wrong you’ve already done.”

But Amnon wouldn’t listen to her. 17 He summoned his young servant and said, “Get this woman out of my presence and lock the door after her.” (18 She was wearing a long-sleeved robe because that was what the virgin princesses wore as garments.)[b] So Amnon’s servant put her out and locked the door after her.

19 Tamar put ashes on her head and tore the long-sleeved robe she was wearing. She put her hand on her head and walked away, crying as she went.

19b. As she walked, people in neighboring homes heard her distress and came to their windows to see what thing could cause such wailing from a person. “Is she drunk with wine in the afternoon?” asked the village women as Tamar stumbled along the dusty path back toward Absalom’s house. As Tamar slowly passed them by, a dark spot was visible on the back of her robe, her shame became clear. That’s when the gossip began.

Approaching Absalom’s home, Tamar stopped crying and began to compose herself. “If I enter my brother’s home now, my shame will be revealed to his family, and he will be consumed by rage. It is better for me that I should just die than to bring this shame upon my family’s name.” After uttering these words to herself, Tamar turned around and began walking toward the edge of town, her heart heavy with a self-imposed responsibility to protect her and her family’s reputation.

Later, as the sun began to set that night, Absalom asked his other sisters if Tamar had returned home. Nobody having heard from her, Absalom sent a servant to Amnon’s home to collect her and bring her back. As the servant approached Amnon’s home, he noticed that the door was shut, and trying to open it, found it locked. So he began to call out for a servant to come and open it.

Amnon’s servants approached their master’s room, gently calling to him, “Prince, come, your brother has sent a servant to collect his sister Tamar. What shall we tell them?” After hearing no answer they rushed into Amnon’s room and found him disconsolately weeping. As Amnon sat up on his bed, his servants saw that his neck was bruised. “Send the servant away, telling him that Tamar returned home earlier this afternoon.” As the servants turned to exit the room, they saw a broken rope tied to a hook in the ceiling.

Returning to Absalom’s house, the servant gave a full report based on what he had seen and what Amnon’s servants had told him. Absalom, feeling his heart sink, immediately suspected the worst. The rumors that he had heard from Jonadab about Amnon’s infatuation with an unspoken woman suddenly clicked. Donning his tunic, Absalom darted out of the house and ran toward the town’s edge.

The next morning, as the village women gathered at the well, they began to share stories of what they had seen. “I saw the Princess drunkenly stumbling along the road. What loose morals!” said one. Another challenged her saying “Why would the princess be tearing at her virginal vestments? I think someone attacked her. I what a blood stain looks like when I see it,” said a third woman. “But she was coming from her own brother’s home,” retorted a fourth. “Would such an act of evil…” Suddenly, interrupted by the appearance of Tamar, still dirty and garments torn, being supported by Absalom as the two approached the well on the way back into town, the woman slowly finished her thought: “be capable of one of King David’s own sons?”

20 Her brother Absalom said to her, “Has your brother Amnon been with you? Keep quiet about it for now, sister; he’s your brother. Don’t let it bother you.” So Tamar, a broken woman, lived in her brother Absalom’s house.

21 When King David heard about all this he got very angry, but he refused to punish his son Amnon because he loved him as his oldest child.[c] 22 Absalom never spoke to Amnon, good word or bad, because he hated him for raping his sister Tamar.

Absalom kills Amnon
23 Two years later, Absalom was shearing sheep at Baal-hazor near Ephraim, and he invited all the king’s sons. 24 Absalom approached the king and said, “Your servant is shearing sheep. Would the king and his advisors please join me?”

25 But the king said to Absalom, “No, my son. We shouldn’t all go, or we would be a burden on you.” Although Absalom urged him, the king wasn’t willing to go, although he gave Absalom a blessing.

26 Then Absalom said, “If you won’t come, then let my brother Amnon go with us.”

“Why should he go with you?” they asked him. 27 But Absalom urged him until he sent Amnon and all the other princes. Then Absalom made a banquet fit for a king.[d]

28 Absalom commanded his servants, “Be on the lookout! When Amnon is happy with wine and I tell you to strike Amnon down, then kill him! Don’t be afraid, because I myself am giving you the order. Be brave and strong men.” 29 So Absalom’s servants did to Amnon just what he had commanded. Then all the princes got up, jumped onto their mules, and fled.

30 While they were on the way, the report came to David: “Absalom has killed all of the princes! Not one remains.” 31 The king got up, tore his garments, and lay on the ground. All his servants stood near him, their garments torn as well. 32 But Jonadab, the son of David’s brother Shimeah, said, “My master shouldn’t think that all the young princes have been killed—only Amnon is dead. This has been Absalom’s plan ever since the day Amnon raped his sister Tamar. 33 So don’t let this bother you, my master; don’t think that all the princes are dead, because only Amnon is dead,

Clearly, Amnon's rape of his sister was a sinful and evil thing to do - not only before God, but in their own context and within their family. Even a woman of some status like Tamar was probably unable to ever shake off the stain that his action placed on her - even after his death and even despite the fact that she was the victim of a heinous crime. What's even more powerfully upsetting, and something I couldn't even begin to unpack, was her plea that Amnon not cast her off because then she would truly have no hope for a future.

Hilary Lipka addresses some of these difficult themes in her article on David and Bathsheba. She writes that, in the accounting of her affair with King David, there is no indication of what "Bathsheba is thinking or feeling" (Lipka). Many have concluded that she must have known that David was watching, and thus she was complicit in their adultery. This is a convenient conclusion, and one that Deborah Rooke might blame on the inequity with how the Hebrew scriptures treat adultery: "Men did not have to be faithful to one woman. They could have more than one wife (Deut 21:15), and even for married men, sleeping with unmarried or unbetrothed women did not count as adultery (Exod 22:16-17, Deut 22:28-29" (Rooke).  Citing several examples of all this, she concludes with an example from the New Testament, when this motif of blaming women for the sexual violence enacted against them was the only adultery example in Jesus' narratives. She writes "Clearly, in the male-focused world of the Bible, all adultery was a crime, but adulterous women were seen as much more dangerous and subversive than adulterous men" (Rooke).

Taken with Rooke and Lipka's assessments of the disparities and inequity with how these stories are told, I felt like it was an important responsibility to demonstrate that sexual violence is the fault of perpetrators. Period. These are very difficult verses, and I can only hope that Amnon recognized the weight of his sin and the life-shattering impact it had on an important woman in his family's life. While I suggest that his own guilt may have driven him to suicidal thoughts, I don't insert that to try to alleviate his actions or explain them away. His sin speaks for itself; my only hope for his humanity is that he, at some point, was able to acknowledge the evil he did.