When Tamar was raped, David took no action. When Dinah was raped, Jacob took no action. Both men reaped terrible consequences for their passivity.
So-called Christian men who turn a blind eye to the epidemic of men abusing women will reap terrible consequences for their passivity.
Jonadab was a sly fox. He crafted a plan for Amnon to rape Tamar. Later, Jonadab sucked up to David and played innocent (2 Samuel 13:35). God will judge all the so-called “Christian” men who are Jonadabs. They will not escape.
After Tamar was raped by her half-brother Amnon, her full-brother Absalom told her to keep quiet and suck it up. She was understandably venting her emotions and Absalom invalidated her emotions. Absalom did not take any action to vindicate Tamar. This is what many men (and some women) in churches do to abuse victims.
Absalom did not admonish the rapist. He did not press for justice by insisting that David punish the rapist. Instead, he nursed hatred for Amnon and eventually engineered Amnon’s murder. Some Christian men boast about how they deplore abuse, but they are Absaloms.
The rest of this post comes from a comment on the Facebook page associated with this blog. The commenter gave permission for me to use her comment here. Over to her —
As highly as David tends to be regarded, the more I delved into his life, the more conflicted and confused and, at times, contemptuous I felt about him.
I’m not trying to start a “David-haters” club. I’m a fellow human being talking about another human being from the past. David, due to his major part in Biblical history, still makes quite an impact in present day. It is fair to be as open and honest about such a person, in fact it is vital that we do so. We don’t want to idolize OR demonize him.
Food for thought to be gleaned from David
Don’t tell present day Christian boys / men to start caring about girls / women being victimized “as if that were your own mom, sister, wife, etc.” AKA, you make it personal by making it personal to you. David is a clear example that that doesn’t work. That was his own daughter assaulted by his own son, her half-brother. He was “displeased” but did absolutely nothing. Girls / women are NOT extensions of their male relatives. They are image bearers of the Lord. When they are attacked, their intrinsic worth is all that matters, not their “personal” worth to you.
Do not blame the victim for supposedly not “thinking” about their safety. Tamar was a royal princess, living in a castle, surrounded by servants. It can and does happen right inside the very place that you’d think is the safest place, where you’d think no harm can come to anyone.
Justice is not always guaranteed for the rich and powerful. Tamar was victimized but never vindicated. She lived her life in desolate isolation for the rest of her life. Of all people, you’d think she’d have the resources to recover. We don’t know much more about her. It is as if she was forgotten about; ceased to exist. Victims can sadly relate to that.
Do not blame the victim for staying silent. It was actually no secret what had happened to her. But nothing was done. Do not assume that a lack of silence is the “cure” for a lack of justice. Speaking out tends to make those around the victim suddenly become very silent.
Justice has to be done right in order to be done at all. Despite her other brother Absalom eventually having her attacker killed, he is no hero. He himself became a rapist by sleeping with his father’s concubines as a hideous display of overtaking his dad’s kingship. He also tried to “comfort” Tamar by advising her to not take what happened to her to heart. Never minimize something that traumatizes.
Do not imply that the victim is to blame for not “following the rules”. As if, if you do what you are told, nothing bad will happen to you. Tamar was told to tend to her supposedly “sick” half-brother, so that is what she did. Amnon told the servants to leave them completely alone. Putting or allowing men in authority just because they are men, does not mean they should be in authority.
Do not imply that the victim did not “try hard enough” and therefore must have “wanted it”, or at least didn’t NOT “want it” enough. Tamar tried to beg and bargain to no avail, and her attacker was simply too strong for her.
Do not assume that David was a naïve parent, and that parents in general cannot “imagine” one of their own doing the unthinkable to another one of their own (or to anyone else, for that matter). David had no reason to NOT understand the entirety of the scenario, considering his own personal history of “taking” a woman that he had access to by virtue of his power, but he chose to abuse that access.
Never think that sin remains in a bubble; that once it is over, it is over. Sin only begets more sin. David’s initial sin led him to commit murder. A LOT of innocent people suffered in the aftermath of Tamar’s victimization. A lot of death occurred. A lot of needless suffering, much of which was preventable.
Patriarchy comes at a very, very high price. David favored his first born son, and gave him permission to ask Tamar to serve him. He had no idea that this was a scheme, but even when the news came out, it is fair to suggest that that favoritism held him back from punishing his own son, his firstborn.
Partiality comes at a very, very high price as well. David was obviously partial to his sons. He grieved more over Absalom’s inevitable death (due to his attempt to take over David’s kingship) than he did over his daughter’s unthinkable trauma (due to no fault of hers).
Being a “good girl” does NOT mean that bad things will not happen to you. Tamar’s virginal innocence and beauty did not actively protect her from someone who purposefully targeted her.
Do not be “more” or “less” outraged at a victimization based on the characteristics of the victim. Tamar’s virginal innocence and beauty are facts that simply tell her story. The point of victimization is to steal, kill and destroy. Each victim’s story is different, but the results are the same: they reap death where they did not sow sin.
Do NOT try to equate raping someone with lusting for someone, in an attempt to educate boys / men. Trying to blame “lust” for rape is a cheap way to feel sorry for the attacker, or “humanize” them somehow, but at the expense of the victim’s humanity, not to mention taking away her right for justice. Amnon may have thought he was “lovesick” for her, but his entire scheme revolved around satisfying his lust for power over her. After he attacked her, he hated her with an intense hatred and told her to get out. Do not pity the attacker for being supposedly “sinfully weak” with lust, or label the longings as misguided “puppy love”.
We do NO favors for the attacker, by attempting to shield them from suffering the rightful consequences of their actions. Amnon may have felt he got off scot-free, but in two years he was murdered. plus it started a chain of events that only got progressively worse. Not punishing the deserving at all, means you are excessively punishing the undeserving.
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I can relate to being hated and abandoned after being raped by someone I loved. I can’t say the details surrounding it because it’s too degrading and humiliating what he did immediately before and after. The hatred he had for me after that was so strong and impossible to understand. Some would say it’s because he felt guilty inside. Not guilty enough to admit it or apologize or stop abusing me without mercy. Then he just erased me like I never existed. Everyone else did too. The aftermath was far worse than the rape.
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Jessica,
You wrote (19th July 2023):
I’m so sorry that happened to you, Jessica. 😢
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I’ll be honest. When I gave more and more thought to this post and all that it represents, I found myself feeling very, very sad.
Family “dynasties”, both in the secular and spiritual arenas, do not tend to paint very pretty pictures. They tend to be saddled with scandals, riddled with dysfunctions. It seems as though healthy family units, in and out of power, are few and far between. It’s like the heartless, horrific examples of Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, keep replicating themselves throughout history.
I once read a passage where the author says humanity can be so frustrating, he often wants to enter a cave, roll a big rock in front of it, and stay in there! But, he said we can’t do that. We need one another. Even and especially for those of us that lacked a loving family, we spend a lot of our lives longing for one. The very ones we should have trusted betrayed us, but that doesn’t mean we stopped wanting and wishing for such safety and stability. Not to mention closeness and compassion. You can be a nourished body, but have a malnourished soul without such love.
Tamar was betrayed by three members of her own family: a stepbrother, a father, and a second stepbrother. Not to mention those that conspired, or remained silent: they ALL, in one way or another, despised His [God’s] righteousness, denied His demand for justice, dismissed His love for the victim.
When I was young, there was a show that featured a young man who became infected with HIV. At one point when he is very sick and suffering badly, he cries out: “It wasn’t supposed to be like this!”
Good acting is hard, but even as a young girl I felt a strong connection to the reality he was attempting to profess. And every now and then, his words, despite being scripted, come back to my mind.
Tamar might as well have been crying out those words as well. For any and all victims of any and all forms of victimizations (WAY too many to count), we’ve likely all felt or even said those same words: “It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”
I’ll go back a little further to the PREVIOUS royal family to articulate another point. Saul wasn’t exactly a model father (or father-in-law) himself. But his son Jonathan and son-in-law David shared an unusually strong bond. Jonathan sadly lost his life on the battlefield, but I have often wished that he had not.
I have also wondered why the Lord allowed him to die. There are times I have speculated that if Jonathan had lived, he likely would have served King David well. Finding people you can trust while in powerful positions can be tough. No doubt Jonathan would have filled that bill nicely. With someone like him by David’s side, just maybe, some of David’s most tragic choices in life could have been avoided. Jonathan just may have been the voice of reason, that could have made David think twice before doing the unthinkable.
No, I don’t mean that Jonathan would have “babysat” David, or literally held him back from committing one grievous sin after the other. I only mean to articulate that it DOES matter who, and what kind of people, you have around you. This matters most if you are in a position of great power. You need to have people around you that will empower you to be your very best, and do their very best to steer you away from being your very worst.
Barb described Jonadab as a “sly fox” who “sucked up to David and played innocent”. Jonathan would never be described like that. He even stood up to his own father, Saul, at great risk to his own life, because he sought true righteousness, not petty revenge.
However, here is the missing link: we never know how someone is going to turn out as time goes on. Jonathan may very well have become a “Jonadab” once he had the opportunity to become one. It is hard to imagine, but it would have also been hard to imagine a sweet, simple shepherd becoming what he became, once he became a king. We just don’t truly know what power can turn us into, until we are given such power.
But now I’ll go even further back, before Saul. Remember, an earthly king for Israel was not in the plan; the Lord Himself wanted to be their king. But His people insisted on having one, to be like the other nations. Samuel was very upset by this, but the Lord told him:
But goodness, how well did that turn out?! But even His words seem to echo ours: “It wasn’t supposed to be like that.”
I’ll tread carefully here. I’m not trying to start a discussion of “what ifs” or “why nots” or “how comes!” Certainly I am not here to blaspheme the Lord’s sovereignty, which is beyond our limited minds. There are innumerable questions I have that have no real, clear answers, and too many things to count that simply do not make sense to me, nor will they ever. This is where His peace that transcends understanding steps in, which is a life-time work in progress!
Someone on this page once wondered what they would have been like had they not been abused. That stayed with me, and it’s a fair question that of course, will never be given a straight answer. But I think it’s okay to cry out at times: “it wasn’t supposed to be like this.” The Lord makes beauty out of ashes, but I do not think that is meant to justify the existence of those ashes. He takes something that never should have happened, and turns it into something that only He can make happen.
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Helovesme,
My apologies for my delay in replying to you. There were some short — but planned — local-to-my-building planned power outages yesterday and today and I didn’t want to risk having to re-write my comment. 😊 Unless something unusual happens, these local-to-my-building planned power outages won’t happen again. 😊
You wrote many good things in your comment of 30th July 2023. I’m tempted to copy-and-paste almost all of your comment and write “That”. Instead, I’ll only copy-and-paste a few parts of your comment. 😊
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….for many — but not all — actors. And many abusers and their victims are good at “acting”.
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That. And some abusers — after they’ve been caught and / or haven’t gotten their way — have also said (verbally or non-verbally) those same words (or something similar): “It wasn’t supposed to be like this.” 😊
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That. And I’m OK with that, really I am. 😊
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Hi Finding Answers! And NO need to apologize for any perceived “lateness!” It’s an honor to be replied to in any way, shape or form.
I think I took “too long” to reply to you so I am the one who is sorry. Between all sorts of struggles or situations that aren’t always predicable, I am a LOT slower to read and / or reply to anyone’s writings of real substance.
You wrote:
Thank you so much! When I wrote that comment, words and ideas “came out” a certain way that I don’t think I had exactly planned them to. As I wrote it and re-read it, I saw a bit more depth that I hadn’t anticipated. It both encouraged me and sounds like it encouraged someone else — they are both incredible blessings!
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This is something I’ve tried to “alert” others to, as well as keep myself on constant “alert” for as well. Think of the awards given out for actual actors and actresses. They did such a good job at a certain role; bringing the character to life in a way that “convinced” those watching that they were not playing “pretend”. They made it seem like they were NOT acting at all; that it was truly authentic. Sometimes the public is so convinced, that they have a hard time separating an actual actor as a person, from the role they played as a character. Even when they intellectually know it was all “for show”, their minds are still “stuck” in believing otherwise.
With victims, there are similarities to this scenario, but they are massive differences of course.
With David in particular, in most of my years as a Christian, he was portrayed as mainly a hero. While his transgressions were not totally ignored, I would say they were not properly incorporated into his full life story. And no doubt, the damage he caused was not fully admitted and analyzed.
Victims are also TOLD to “act”, as Tamar was — when her brother pretty much told her to “act” like nothing had really happened, or to “act” like it wasn’t that bad. “Don’t let it get you down.” That is called “toxic positivity”, and it is often wrongly portrayed as what it means to have faith in the Lord.
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Yes indeed! In the abuser’s mind, they were never supposed to get caught, much less be held accountable!
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That is my goal as well!
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Helovesme,
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