Monday, October 11, 2004
2 Samuel 13 - Rape, Incest, Doubt
For the last four months I've been looking at this chapter about the rape by Amon of his beautiful half-sister Tamar and found myself unable to post. It has taken me a long time to figure out why I was so stuck. There is plenty to say, of course.
This act is the begining of the working out of the judgment that Nathan uttered against David in the previous chapter. Amon, of course, could have acted with restraint and honor, but didn't. Just as David, his father, could have acted with restraint and honor in the matter of Bathsheba, but didn't. The fact that this rape and incest was God's judgment on David's house didn't make it inevitable, for, I suppose God would have found some other way to bring violence and exposure to him.
Nevertheless, Amon showed the same character weakness as his father. In this, he was aided and abetted by his cousin,
2 Samuel 13:3-5 Jonadab son of Shimeah, David's brother. Jonadab was a very shrewd man. 4 He asked Amnon, "Why do you, the king's son, look so haggard morning after morning? Won't you tell me?" Amnon said to him, "I'm in love with Tamar, my brother Absalom's sister."
5 "Go to bed and pretend to be ill," Jonadab said. "When your father comes to see you, say to him, 'I would like my sister Tamar to come and give me something to eat. Let her prepare the food in my sight so I may watch her and then eat it from her hand.'"
In his "shrewdness," Jonadab shows the same fruit of luxurious disregard to the virtue of the limitation of power that the courtiers who befriend Solomon's son show when they urge him to deny justice, increase oppression, and push the nation into civil war. This is the voice of power that sees only the possibility of fulfilling every desire and never sees that possibility of fulfillment does not justify any means.
It was not necessary for Jonadab and Amon to act as they did. They failed to exercise their freedom to choose well, and instead lived out the family system started by David's rape of Bathsheba (the power inequality between king and lover makes that seducation rape) and before that by his disregard for the personhood of his first wife and lover, Micah. Amon's revulsion against Tamar after he rapes her is a reflection of his revulsion over himself.
So, there is plenty to say. But what has stopped me so long from posting, is, I think, that I hate that Tamar suffers like this and that the Bible sees it as fulfilling Nathan's prophecy of judgment against David. I hate that God didn't take his vengeance out against David. Why should the children suffer for the sins of the parent?
But then, it occurs to me that very often that is in fact what happens. Our sins affect the whole community, and the innocent do suffer -- not only those who are directly involved but those who feel the indirect ripples of our wrongful actions. So, I cry out to God, "Where is the justice?" It is not in this story -- even if there is an evil logic and vengeance (or, if you will, karma).
This act is the begining of the working out of the judgment that Nathan uttered against David in the previous chapter. Amon, of course, could have acted with restraint and honor, but didn't. Just as David, his father, could have acted with restraint and honor in the matter of Bathsheba, but didn't. The fact that this rape and incest was God's judgment on David's house didn't make it inevitable, for, I suppose God would have found some other way to bring violence and exposure to him.
Nevertheless, Amon showed the same character weakness as his father. In this, he was aided and abetted by his cousin,
2 Samuel 13:3-5 Jonadab son of Shimeah, David's brother. Jonadab was a very shrewd man. 4 He asked Amnon, "Why do you, the king's son, look so haggard morning after morning? Won't you tell me?" Amnon said to him, "I'm in love with Tamar, my brother Absalom's sister."
5 "Go to bed and pretend to be ill," Jonadab said. "When your father comes to see you, say to him, 'I would like my sister Tamar to come and give me something to eat. Let her prepare the food in my sight so I may watch her and then eat it from her hand.'"
In his "shrewdness," Jonadab shows the same fruit of luxurious disregard to the virtue of the limitation of power that the courtiers who befriend Solomon's son show when they urge him to deny justice, increase oppression, and push the nation into civil war. This is the voice of power that sees only the possibility of fulfilling every desire and never sees that possibility of fulfillment does not justify any means.
It was not necessary for Jonadab and Amon to act as they did. They failed to exercise their freedom to choose well, and instead lived out the family system started by David's rape of Bathsheba (the power inequality between king and lover makes that seducation rape) and before that by his disregard for the personhood of his first wife and lover, Micah. Amon's revulsion against Tamar after he rapes her is a reflection of his revulsion over himself.
So, there is plenty to say. But what has stopped me so long from posting, is, I think, that I hate that Tamar suffers like this and that the Bible sees it as fulfilling Nathan's prophecy of judgment against David. I hate that God didn't take his vengeance out against David. Why should the children suffer for the sins of the parent?
But then, it occurs to me that very often that is in fact what happens. Our sins affect the whole community, and the innocent do suffer -- not only those who are directly involved but those who feel the indirect ripples of our wrongful actions. So, I cry out to God, "Where is the justice?" It is not in this story -- even if there is an evil logic and vengeance (or, if you will, karma).
