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On our second week of the new Bible character series, we will talk about the tragic story of Tamar, the daughter of King David. We discuss the other supporting characters in the story that contributed to the rape of Tamar by her half-brother, Amnon. Does Tamar get any justice? Why is sexual sin so evil? Are there any takeaways or lessons that we can learn from this account? Yes. Please join me in studying God’s Word to learn about this beautiful and godly woman.
Full transcript below!
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Tamar Transcript
[00:00:00] Welcome to the Wounds of the Faithful Podcast. Brought to you by DSW Ministries. Your host is singer songwriter, speaker and domestic violence advocate, Diana Winkler. She is passionate about helping survivors in the church heal from domestic violence and abuse and trauma. This podcast is not a substitute for professional counseling or qualified medical help. [00:00:27] Now here is Diana. [00:00:34] Hello everybody. Welcome back, glad that you’re with us. It is an honor to have you. And I hope that your week is going smoothly. I am recording this the day of the Super Bowl. So I am in here recording a podcast instead of watching the game. that is my preference. [00:00:57] they had the, PGA tour, [00:01:00] going on this week as well, and then the week before was Barrett Jackson Auto Show, so it wreaks havoc on our traffic here, but hopefully by tomorrow everybody will be going back home and will be a little bit easier of a commute to work. [00:01:17] So if you enjoy the Super Bowl I hope that you enjoyed that and the commercials. [00:01:23] Now, today we’re continuing our series on prominent people of the Bible, particularly ones that have suffered some abuse or trauma. The Bible has a lot to say about abuse. Most people don’t know that. And so we’re going to explore these people’s lives, and I am going to be totally honest with you. [00:01:45] Some stories in the Bible do not have a happy ending. The Bible records the stories as they are without any kind of editing. Some are very graphic and some [00:02:00] are not as graphic, but we’re gonna try and learn some lessons or principles from these stories, even if there isn’t what we would think of as a happy ending. [00:02:14] Today we’re going to talk about Tamar, the daughter of King David. Now there are three Tamars in the Bible, so don’t get them confused. There is the story of Tamar and Judah. Tamar was the, daughter-in-law of Judah, and she tricked him into giving her an heir. And so we may talk about that story down the road because there are some very interesting lessons there. [00:02:43] But Now Absalom, we’re going to hear about here, also, he had a daughter named Tamar. So those are the three. Must have been a very popular name in the day. Now, who are the other cast members in [00:03:00] this story, so to speak? [00:03:02] Let’s see. So we are going to be in Second Samuel chapter 13, and it’s the hold chapter here. We might touch a little bit on chapter 14 if we have time. I am reading out of the ESV. You can choose whatever version of the Bible you want and you can follow along or just listen. But one of the characters in this story is Amnon. [00:03:30] Now Amnon is the son of David. [00:03:34] We have a family tree to talk about here so we don’t get confused cuz there’s a lot going on in this story. Okay, so we have Tamar, she was the only daughter of King David. Now she had two brothers. One was Absalom, he was the son of David. Now his mother was [00:03:56] Maacka, I hope I’m pronouncing that [00:04:00] right. And the true brother of Tamar. Absalom, was the third son of King David, whose mother was the daughter of the King of Gesher. You can find that in Second Samuel 3:3. The other was the half Brother Amnon. Also the son of David whose mother was [00:04:26] Ahinoam of Jezreel. Amn on was the first born of David, while in Hebron, and that’s found in Second Samuel 3:2. [00:04:36] So a little bit more history in here. Absalom and Tamar were always higher ranked than Amnon because their mother was a Syrian Princess. Amnon’s mother had been a woman of the Southern wilderness whom King David married, along with Abigail while he was still [00:05:00] fleeing King Saul. This means that David was an outlaw at the time of Amnon’s birth. [00:05:08] So we have other characters in this story. [00:05:13] So we have Jonadab in this story. It is Amnon’s cousin and. , he seems to be the instigator of this whole thing, or at least a equal partner in this whole story. [00:05:27] I’m not gonna read a whole lot from his story or biography. He’s not in here for very long. So of course we have King David in the story, [00:05:37] okay? [00:05:38] And this is one of those stories. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have a very happy ending. It’s not a feel good kind of a story. but we’re gonna try and have some sort of a application or some sort of a lesson here. [00:05:52] Why would God include this story? Why is this story being told? [00:05:58] And my [00:06:00] thinking is that sin hurts everybody. [00:06:04] Sin hurts everybody. That’s why God is so adamant about us obeying as laws because sin doesn’t just hurt you. and specifically sexual sin doesn’t hurt just you. It hurts everyone around you that’s involved and then some innocent people. So I’m gonna start reading here and we’ll just comment as we go along so I don’t forget anything. [00:06:32] Second Samuel chapter 13, one. Now Absalom, David’s son had a beautiful sister whose name was Tamar, and after a time Amnon. David’s son loved her and Amnon was so tormented that he made himself ill because of his sister Tamar, where she is a virgin. And it seemed, impossible to Amnon to do [00:07:00] anything to her. [00:07:01] But Amnon had a friend whose name was Jonadab, the son of Shimeah, David’s brother. And Jonadab was a very crafty man. So let me stop here and let’s comment so far. [00:07:16] So Tamar and Absalom, they are full siblings, they have the same mother and father. Amnon,, and I keep trying to figure out if it’s Aymnon or Ahmnon. So , I might need bouncing back and forth between the two. Sorry. Uh, Amnon, David’s son. Now they, Amnon and Tamar had different mothers. [00:07:40] So Amnon is a half brother. That’s important to note here further down. [00:07:49] Now, it says he loved her. Well, we’re gonna find out that it wasn’t true love. It wasn’t agape love, it wasn’t [00:08:00] holy love. It was more like lust or obsession. He didn’t really love her the way that you and I would describe love. [00:08:10] And of course it says here he was tormented. I. [00:08:13] Love doesn’t really involve torment, does it? He’s obviously obsessed with her and, there’s something brewing here that’s very evil. [00:08:22] So Amnon’s friend, and according to his genealogy described here, that is his cousin. Also, as we mentioned, [00:08:33] Jonadad was a very crafty man [00:08:35] and he said to him, oh, son of the king, why are you so haggard morning after morning? So , apparently this has been going on for a time. He is. Apparently losing sleep or vexed with his half sister. Will you not tell me, and I’m on verse four if, if you’re lost [00:09:00] here, [00:09:00] Amnon said to him, I love Tamar, my brother, Absalom’s sister, verse five, Jonadab said to him, lie down on your bed and pretend to be ill. And when your father comes to see you, say to him, let my sister Tamar come and give me bread to eat and prepare the food in my sight that I may see it and eat from her hand. [00:09:26] So Amnon, lay down and pretended to be ill. And when the king came to see him, Amnon said to the king, please let my sister Tamar come and make a couple of cakes in my sight that I may eat from her hand. And this sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it? Because he’s in the king’s palace. He is literally a son of the king, so he has a whole team of servants at his beck and call. [00:09:57] So why would he ask [00:10:00] his half sister to come and serve him cakes? That sounds very weird, and I’m wondering why King David didn’t flag him for that either. But if you know anything about King David, he has a sorrid past as well, which we will talk a little bit about. [00:10:22] But this all sounds very fishy. [00:10:24] Then David, I’m in verse seven. Then David sent home to Tamar saying, go to your brother Amnon’s house and prepare food for him. So Tamar went to her brother Amnon’s house where he was lying down and she took dough and kneeded it and made cakes in his sight and baked the cakes, and she took the pan and emptied it out before him, but he refused to eat, [00:10:53] so that’s a little weird, right? He asked her to come and baked some cakes for him, and now [00:11:00] he’s not going to eat. [00:11:01] So I’m at the end of verse nine, [00:11:04] and Amon said, send out everyone from me. So everyone went out from him. [00:11:11] Verse 10. Then Amnon said to Tamar, bring the food into the chamber that I may eat from your hand. And Tamar took the cake she had made and brought them to the chamber to Amnon her brother. So the chamber is obviously where he sleeps. That’s where the bed is no longer in the sitting quarters. And, they’re in his. [00:11:37] It says house. I’m sure it’s somewhere on the palace grounds. I don’t have any kind of a map to tell me where that is, but here’s something else that stands out, is send out everyone from me. Why would he do that? Why would he send the guards away? His servants away? Now, we read back in verse [00:12:00] one that Tamar was beautiful and she’s a virgin and a daughter of the king, and so she had guards. [00:12:11] She had a place to stay in the palace. She was protected. [00:12:16] Virgins were protected. King’s daughter was protect. and now all of that is taken away from her. Now, it doesn’t really say in the text whether she suspected what was about to happen, but of course we’re looking at it hindsight, we’re like, no, don’t go in there! It’s a trap! It’s going to hurt you. She was innocent and pure and trying to help out, make him feel better, even though he is faking it. [00:12:48] This is such a terrible situation. [00:12:52] So we got to verse 11. Here’s where it goes down. It starts going downhill very fast, but when [00:13:00] she brought them near to him to eat, he took hold of her and said to. Come lie with me, my sister, she answered him, no, my brother, do not violate me! For such a thing is not done in Israel. Do not do this outrageous thing. [00:13:19] Verse 13, as for me, where could I carry my shame? And as for you, you would be as one of the outrageous fools in Israel. [00:13:30] Now, therefore, please speak to the king for he will not withhold me from you. So let me explain some of this. Incest was against the law of Moses. You weren’t allowed to lie with your sister, your mother, your brother. Incest was, forbidden. Now, there are some Hebrew scholars, I was reading some parts in the mishna. [00:13:59] Now the [00:14:00] mishna is the rabbidic oral traditions, an interpretation of the law of Moses. So you have the law of Moses from Genesis to Deuteronomy. That’s also called the Pentateuch, first five books of the Bible. so if you hear that word, that’s what that means. But in those writings, it talks about. [00:14:22] Well, If you don’t have the same mother or you don’t have the same father and your step siblings, you may be allowed to get married. So that’s what she’s referring to here. A woman during biblical times did not have any personal rights. You lived with your mother and father until you were married, and being by yourself wasn’t an option. [00:14:51] Being single and living alone, that was very dangerous for a woman in that day because you were taken advantage of. And [00:15:00] so what she’s referring to is ask the king to marry me. He will not say, no. That is better than just raping me. Out of wedlock. I’m a virgin. You’re going to shame me. Somebody that has sex outside of marriage, um, you are an outcast. [00:15:20] Any kind of sexual sin, it was an outcast. So she was trying to stop this from happening. [00:15:26] She is saying, this is wrong. Let’s not do it this way. You can’t do this to me. I’m going to be ruined. My reputation will be ruined. And I’ve heard a lot of preachers, and this is totally wrong, I heard a lot of preachers say, well, she shouldn’t have had a conversation with Amnon. [00:15:46] She should have cried out for help. she couldn’t cry out for help. There was nobody around Amnon made sure of that. Took away her protection. There wasn’t anybody to cry out to, [00:16:00] but she was begging and pleading for, for him not to do this. [00:16:04] So let’s continue. [00:16:07] And by the way, somebody that commits incest, they are they are cast out as well. [00:16:13] So let’s continue here. [00:16:16] 14, but he would not listen to her and being stronger than she, he violated her and lay with her. So it is very clear that she did not consent to this. [00:16:31] She was trying to plead with him not to do this, and he overpowered her with his strength, which that’s extremely common. She didn’t have a chance. [00:16:42] So then this is surprising to most people that read this for the first time. So he claims that he loves her, but look what happens next. [00:16:52] verse 15. Then Amnon hated her with a very great hatred so that the hatred with [00:17:00] which he hated her was greater than the love with which he had loved her. And Amon said to her, get up go. But she said to him, no, my brother for this is wrong in sending me away! It’s greater than the other that you did to me. [00:17:19] But he would not listen to her. So now all of a sudden, he hates her. He never loved her in the first place. It was his lust. And now he feels guilty because he had to force her to do this. She wasn’t gonna go along with his plan. probably felt a lot of guilt and anger and felt very foolish that he had to, well, he didn’t have to do anything, but he went and forced his half sister to have sex with him, and so now the story gets worse is that he is going to throw her out of the palace, out of his house. [00:17:59] [00:18:00] Verse 17, he called the young man who served him and said, put this woman out of my presence and bolt the door after her. Yikes. Now, she was wearing a long robe with sleeves for, thus we’re the Virgin Daughters of the King’s dress. Were thus were the Virgin Daughters of the King dressed. So I have down here in my commentary that she could have been somebody that had a gift of interpreting dreams, kind of like Daniel did, or Joseph did. [00:18:36] But she definitely had special robes as a daughter of the king. [00:18:41] So it continues. So his servant put her out and bolted the door after her. And Tamar put ashes on her head and tore the long robe that she wore, and she laid her hand on her head and went away crying aloud as she went. [00:19:00] So this is what people in biblical times did to mourn something or someone. [00:19:08] So of course she is mourning that she was raped and mourning even worse, that he did not do the right thing and marry her. And she’s mourning that she was thrown out of the palace. [00:19:24] So everybody that watched her put ashes on her head, tear her robe, they knew what happened. They knew it was going on. It’s either somebody died or something really terrible happened to you. [00:19:40] So let’s see what happens. Here comes the other brother into the story, verse 20, and her brother Absalom said to her, has Amnon your brother been with you? He knew right away, didn’t he? When it happened. Now hold your peace. My sister, he is your [00:20:00] brother. Do not take this to heart. I don’t know what that means. [00:20:05] Don’t take this to heart. He violated her. [00:20:07] So Tamar lived a desolate woman in her brother, Absalom’s house. And that’s all she had left is thankfully her brother took her in, gave her a place to live, because otherwise she’d be out on the streets. [00:20:23] It wasn’t anywhere for a woman who was now Unmarriageable. Unfortunately, virginity was very prized in the biblical times because family was everything. Family lineage is how you pass down wealth and privilege and livestock and land. You did it through family. You weren’t married and had a family, you really didn’t have much, so nobody would marry somebody that was not a virgin. [00:20:55] It just didn’t happen unfortunately. [00:20:58] And so[00:21:00] here comes dad. What does dad have to say? Verse 21. When King David heard all of these things, he was very angry. So I have this note down here in my Bible. It says, from the Dead sea Scrolls. The Septuagint. Now the Septuagint is the Greek translation of the Old Testament. Real fancy word. [00:21:24] Just remember, that’s the Greek translation. The Dead Seas Scrolls apparently had this in there. But he would not punish his son Amnon because he loved him since he was his first born. Uh, favoritism much? So, yeah, he was angry, but he didn’t do anything because he was the first born. And that’s so wrong in so many ways, [00:21:49] and I’m speculating here, but I’m wondering if there’s another reason why King David didn’t do anything about his daughter being raped. [00:22:00] You remember the story of Bathsheba? That’s actually earlier in the same book. Let’s see. [00:22:10] You don’t have it memorized where it’s at. [00:22:12] So that Second Samuel chapter 11 talks about David and Bathsheba, and contrary to some preachers or people that said that David and Bathsheba had an affair. No, it was not an affair. [00:22:30] The king takes whatever he wants. Even somebody else’s wife, like father, like son. David saw her taking a bath, he summoned her to where he was, and it says he took her. When the king calls you, you don’t have a choice. You have to come and you didn’t refuse the king in anything or you get executed. [00:22:53] That’s horrible. It is, it’s horrible. So I’m thinking that he didn’t do [00:23:00] anything to Amnon because he takes whoever he wants as well. You read a lot of the stories of King David and he’s got many wives. He, um, took a lot of his women and made them his wives. So [00:23:17] we’ll hear more about that going down here. [00:23:21] Let’s keep reading here, verse 22. But Absalom spoke to Amnon, neither good nor bad for Absolam. He hated Amnon because he had violated his sister, Tamar. He didn’t do anything about it immediately. Didn’t say anything good or bad. Uh, but I guess the, [00:23:42] the only good thing that happened here, depending on how you define good, is that he does eventually get revenge. Verse 23, after two full years, Absalom hadSheep Shearers at Be [00:24:00] Hasor, which is near Ephriam. And Absalom invited all the king’s sons and Absalom came to the king and said, behold, your servant has Sheep Shearers. [00:24:11] Please let the king and his servants go with your servant. So they’re having the Sheep Shearers banquet, which is supposed to be a big social deal. Back in those days, it was a, a big, feast, a big celebration when you got to sheer your sheep and sell the wool in the markets. So , what a cultural difference, huh? [00:24:35] Oh, wow. I have nothing to wear to the sheep shears ball. [00:24:39] verse 25. But the king said to Absalom, no, my son, let us not all go unless we be burdensome to you. He pressed him, but he would not go, but gave him blessing. Then Absalom said, if not, please let my brother Amnon go with us. [00:25:00] And the king said to him, why should he go with you? Little suspicious. Verse 27. [00:25:07] When Absalom pressed him until he let Amnon in, all the king’s sons go with him. Then Absalom commanded his servants. Mark, when Amnons heart is merry with wine, and when I say to you, strike Amnon, then kill him. Do not fear, have I not commanded you? [00:25:30] Be courageous and be valiant. So the servants of Absalom did to Amnon as Absalom had commanded. Then all the kings sons rose and each mounted his mule and fled. While they were on the way, news came to David, Absalom has struck down all the kings sons, and not one of them is left. Then the king rose and tore his [00:26:00] garments and lay on the earth and all of the servants who were standing tore their garments. [00:26:06] So they’re in mourning, just like Tamar was. They tear their garments. They put ash on their head. [00:26:12] But Jonadab the son of Shamaya, David’s brother, said, let not my Lord suppose that they have killed all the young men, the king’s sons, who aimed on alone is dead, whereby the command of Absalom, this has been determined from the day he violated his sister Tamar. Now therefore, let not my Lord the king so take it to heart as to suppose that all the king’s sons are dead, or Amnon alone is dead. [00:26:45] There we go again with that. Don’t take it to heart. I don’t know what that means or if that’s good or bad, but [00:26:55] anyway. The [00:27:00] servants were probably really nervous about killing Amnon because they didn’t wanna go down for it, but Absalom was going to take the responsibility and he gave the order. So the servants are not at fault. [00:27:19] So I’m wondering if King David, while he’s sitting there mourning, if he’s thinking about the things that he has done and well, maybe I should have punished Amnon. [00:27:35] And sent him away, instead of ignoring the whole situation. It doesn’t say in the text here, but that’s what goes through my head is, you know, is this payback in an off offhanded sort of way? I don’t know. [00:27:58] So [00:28:00] of course the story continues a little bit in verse 34, but Absalom fled and the young man who kept watch lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, many people were coming from the road behind him by the side of the mountain. And Jonahdab said to the king, behold, the king’s sons have come, as your servant said. [00:28:29] So it has come about. And as soon as he had finished speaking, behold the king’s sons came and lifted up their voice and wept, and the king also, and all of his servants wept very bitterly. [00:28:46] So they see that the sons didn’t die, just Amnon. Guess they were crying in relief, I suppose. Absalom fled and went to Talmai, the [00:29:00] son of Ammihud king of Geshur, and David mourned for his son day after day. So Absalom fled and went to Geshur and was there three years and the spirit of the king longed to go out to Absalom because he was comforted about Amnon since he was dead. [00:29:18] So maybe he did some thinking, king David that okay. [00:29:26] There were supposed to be some justice for Tamar in what he put her through. And now Justice, I guess, had been served that they took his life, [00:29:37] because pretty much the law of Moses stated that the penalty for incest, especially rape, was death. So he didn’t have to worry about it anymore. He didn’t have to deal with it. [00:29:50] But you notice that, um, the cousin, I’m gonna turn back to my page here. [00:29:57] The cousin and friend, [00:30:00] Jonahdab, he still has his job. He’s still fighting alongside of David, and he’s the one that started this whole thing. He was in cahoots with Amnon. And so I find it ridiculous that he doesn’t get any penalty for helping Amnon. Maybe it was a big secret. Nobody knows that he was in the room when they planned all this. [00:30:22] I just find that disturbing. [00:30:25] So I’m not gonna go into the next section because it’s really, really involved, but Absalom is not a saint. You can read that for yourself further on. I mean, he, he sleeps with his father’s concubines, just for spite. they’re in war with each other, but Tamar lives with his brother until Absalom is killed as, part of war. [00:30:54] And you can read that for yourself. Not a fun story, but [00:30:59] [00:31:00] no, there isn’t really a happy ending besides the fact that Tamar’s brother at least stood up for her and gave her a place to live and honored her by punishing Amnon. [00:31:13] so I’m kind of wondering what, what lessons can we take from this, any redeeming value we can bring from this. [00:31:26] As I said, the Bible just reports events as they are good, bad, and the ugly. [00:31:32] It doesn’t make God evil. [00:31:36] We’re going to eventually talk about Dinah, and a few other people in the Bible that suffered greatly. Some of them have good endings and others don’t. Uh, so let me get my list here. [00:31:54] I don’t know what good takeaways would be from this. Um, definitely digging [00:32:00] deep here because [00:32:01] You know, it’s hard. It’s hard, but sometimes justice doesn’t come right away. It does come, but you have to sometimes wait for that justice. We don’t always wanna wait for, the court systems in whatever nation you’re in to serve justice. A lot of rape victims today don’t get any justice or they have to wait a long time. [00:32:32] Or they don’t have enough courage to tell anybody about what happened to them or Tamar. It was very obvious what happened to her because of the way she reacted with her mourning and her tearing her clothes. You know? Um, a death is a very public event, especially in Israel, so everybody knew nobody died.[00:33:00] [00:33:00] So something really terrible must have happened. And to where a woman to tear her garments, that’s probably what their first thought is. And she was violated by somebody. [00:33:15] You know, we read here that she was a beautiful woman and she was a godly woman. She was an obedient daughter. She did exactly what her father, king David said to do, Hey, go in there and cook, for your half brother, he’s feeling ill, he needs you. [00:33:34] And it’s unclear in the text whether King David had any suspicion as to what was gonna go down or not. [00:33:43] But Tamar obeyed anyway. Tamar did all of the right things, and although she couldn’t cry out because there was no one there. Did try to stop it. [00:33:57] I encourage you, if [00:34:00] you’re in that situation, maybe it’s not a relative, maybe it is. I still encourage you to cry out, yell, scream, claw, bite, fight to get out. [00:34:13] It takes a lot of bravery. [00:34:16] You have every right to fight back. [00:34:19] You have every right to say, this is wrong. I’m not going to do this. It’s okay to try and talk down whoever’s attacking you. Uh, in my martial arts class, the tell us that all the time. They, they say to try and talk, talk them down, whatever it is, it’s a robbery. Somebody’s pointing a gun at you, somebody’s trying to take you to another location. [00:34:47] Try and talk your way out of it. Stall [00:34:50] to get your bearings, to stay calm and you’re able to escape sometimes certain situations. Look around, see if [00:35:00] there’s anybody that can help you. But yes, I encourage people to fight back if they’re in a situation, an attempted rape. Um, [00:35:13] and it’s not your fault if they succeed. It is not your fault. I want you, if you don’t hear anything, if you don’t listen to anything I said this whole time, listen to what I’m saying now. whether you choose to fight back or not, it is not your fault. If you’ve been raped, if you’ve been forced to have sex of any kind against your will, it is not your fault. [00:35:42] Now, yes, I’ve been trained to do close quarter combat, but I hear this all the time, and some of our guests that we’ve found on the show, we’ve talked about this. Sometimes when the situation actually comes up, you forget all of that training [00:36:00] or sometimes you are in such shock that you are paralyzed. The deer in the headlights thing is real. [00:36:08] In that particular situation, I don’t know what’s going to happen. I like to say I would fight back with everything I had, but I don’t know. Maybe I’ll be shocked that whoever’s trying to violate me is somebody I trust, somebody, um, that I care about. [00:36:26] But those of you who have been listening to the podcast a long time, there was an attempt at a sexual assault on me when I was in grade school by my, um, school counselor and I went into his room after a school field trip, which involved swimming and we were. in our swim clothes with t-shirts down to our knees. [00:36:51] And this counselor, who I had been seeing for the last year, and he groomed me for that year, gained my trust. And, [00:37:00] um, he, [00:37:02] Put his hand on my crotch and pulled over my swimsuit and wanted to keep going. And I pushed him away, pushed his hand away, and he tried it twice. Okay. Tried that twice and I was shocked. This is not happening, is it? I know this is wrong. Now, I was 13 years old, so old enough to know this is wrong, and I was really shocked and I was scared, and I pushed him away. [00:37:29] and I stood up from the chair cuz he was kneeling on the floor in front of me. I stood up and I said, I have to go. And I left and thankful that he didn’t stop me. But a short story is my parents believed me, the school believed me. The detective that my father hired, believed me, but it was my word against his in a room with a closed door. [00:37:54] No witnesses and none of the other girls in the school would testify. So he got [00:38:00] away with it. I thankfully, went to high school the next year. Uh, so I didn’t have to see his face anymore. But, I’d like to say that, I would react the same way if that or something worse were to come down the pike, but, [00:38:14] No real good thing comes from rape. I mean, you can recover from it. You can heal from it. It does take some time, and it does take some counseling by licensed trauma counselor. [00:38:29] But you know, rape is a sin against God and offense against humanity. So just like Tamar, rape, dehumanizes the victims and destroys communities. So we as a society need to condemn this sort of thing, this whole rape culture thing. [00:38:50] And an interesting thing about, any kind of sexual account in the Bible, nothing is ever brought up about the women’s attire. [00:39:00] I mean, they all wore the same thing. They wore these long robes down to their ankles and they were hooded, or they covered their face a lot of times. [00:39:09] Nothing is ever said about, well, she was wearing this, cuz it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter. The man forces himself on her. It doesn’t matter. [00:39:21] But maybe the other takeaway is to [00:39:25] stand up for somebody. You know, something’s going down or something doesn’t smell right. Stand up for somebody else. There was all this stuff that led up to Tamar’s rape. The servant should have said something to the king. The guard should have said something to the king. You wonder if the man kind of knew what was going on, but why didn’t they go and say, oh, king, they told us to leave and leave them alone. [00:39:57] I kind of sounds strange.[00:40:00] [00:40:00] I don’t know. Maybe it was a good old boy’s club and nobody wanted to say anything. Nobody wanted to get Amnon mad. nobody wanted to get involved. So I think if maybe somebody said something, [00:40:13] she would not have been violated. Somebody would’ve stood near the door and listened to what was going on. Maybe it wouldn’t have happened or somebody could have stopped it. That is one takeaway that I can definitely say today is if you see somebody, if you see something going on that doesn’t, doesn’t seem right, that doesn’t add up, report it. [00:40:41] Tell somebody, you see this situation a lot with children. [00:40:46] Children act a certain way when they are violated or they’re being abused. Say something, ask good questions. It’s somebody else involved that maybe has more skill or [00:41:00] more influence or authority than you. Whatever the situation is, do the right thing and get involved and help out. Yeah, it’s a risk. It is a risk for somebody to jump into a situation. [00:41:14] You’re not really sure what’s going on. [00:41:17] But of course we’re looking back on the story and [00:41:23] you know, there were kind of a lot of red flags about Tamar being summoned by Amnon. It was all very weird. It’s okay to question yourself. If somebody’s asking you to go somewhere or to do something that doesn’t seem right, you don’t have to do it. [00:41:40] You can ask why. You can tell them no. [00:41:45] Where Tamar was very trusting and obedient. [00:41:50] I don’t know. We could all say, [00:41:53] could she have run away? [00:41:56] I think she trusted him up to the point where [00:42:00] she was in his chamber at his bedside eating him cakes and, it was too late probably to do any running, um, because he already had hold of her. But if you have the opportunity to run, or like I said before, fight back, um, don’t feel embarrassed by that. Don’t hesitate in that. [00:42:19] Have, have the respect self worth in yourself to defend yourself. That’s okay to do. You have permission to do that if you’re able to find something around you to fight back with. It could be a lamp, it could be a letter opener, it could be a, I don’t know, a rock. Gotta think outside the box sometimes. [00:42:48] Use the objects in the room around you. Sometimes there aren’t any. [00:42:54] Sometimes there aren’t any, but, [00:42:57] so I don’t want to this to be [00:43:00] discouraging in reading the Bible. [00:43:02] God put the story here to show that men are evil. Even David, a man after God’s own heart can do some horrible things, can do some really sinful things. But guess who’s in King David’s lineage? Jesus. [00:43:22] there’s a lot of people in the lineage of Jesus that have done some horrible things and have been forgiven of those things because we know that they are spoken of in other passages of scripture like Hebrews. We call that, uh, the Hall of Faith, where they started talking about, Abraham and all those, fathers back in the Old Testament, that they were great men of faith, Sampson, all the crazy stuff he did. [00:43:52] He’s in the Hall of Faith in Hebrews. Uh, but these are the things that God points out [00:44:00] when we really, really mess up. We do some really terrible things out of character. We lose our minds and don’t make the right choices. We don’t stand up for people when we should have. There is restoration for us. There is forgiveness. [00:44:18] We have to ask for it, and we have to turn from our sin. But I think that God includes these passages, these stories of, men and women, um, to show that salvation is of faith and it’s in trusting in Jesus the Messiah as the savior of the world, not our own works, not our, um, merits, not the good things that we do. [00:44:47] Of course we want to do good things because we want to make the world a better place. We want to be more like Jesus. [00:44:55] But all of these people in the Bible that made huge mistakes, they are, [00:45:00] they’re saved by faith just like we are. That’s a comforting thought. That’s one of the takeaways that I can give you today. [00:45:09] So don’t, don’t be afraid to read the scriptures. You are going to come across some of these kind of stories. We’re gonna talk about some of those stories on the podcast in the coming weeks, maybe months. And we’ll do the same thing. Let the Bible, say, What it’s saying without commentary and then we’ll, we’ll talk about it. [00:45:32] What are some principles and thoughts, takeaways we can learn from this story? The not so wonderful ending of a story. So, [00:45:44] so if you can’t handle reading Old Testament stories or you need some help, you don’t understand what you’re reading and you can’t grasp or accept what’s happening in a story, reach out to somebody that [00:46:00] knows the Bible really well, that can help you with it. Check out some commentaries during our Bible study series that we had. [00:46:10] We mentioned a lot of resources. Go back and go back and find those resources in the show notes and the transcript of things that can help you to study the Bible. Those passages we don’t understand, they don’t seem fair. They seem really terrible. Uh, [00:46:30] you’re always welcome to email me. You need help with a passage. Well, what’s your qualifications? Diana? ? Uh, I do have a bachelor’s degree in the Bible, so did my four years of Bible college. I don’t know everything, but I know how to find it. That much I could tell you , and I’m always learning. I’m always trying to learn more [00:46:55] of God’s word and about our savior, who loves us and cares for us. [00:47:00] So be encouraged this week. God does love you. He wants to be a part of your life. And he will speak to you through his word, through prayer. He will speak to you. [00:47:13] So be encouraged in that. So we will close here and I will see you next week. So God bless you. Have a wonderful week. Bye-bye. [00:47:25] Thank you for listening to the Wounds of the Faithful Podcast. If this episode has been helpful to you, please hit the subscribe button and tell a friend. You could connect with us at DSWMinistries.Org where you’ll find our blog, along with our Facebook, Twitter, and our YouTube channel links .Hope to see you next week. [00:47:53]