The Story of Tamar

Growing up in a Christian community, one thing you’ll notice is the prevalence of Christian names. In general, the names of Biblical heroes are more popular than the names of Biblical villains. For example, I don’t recall the last time I met someone named Nebuchadnezzar. Ahab and Jezebel are also good examples. Tamar is another name on the list of discouraged names. Thanks in large part to the story we’re about to hash out. It’s a bit of a tragedy because Tamar isn’t deserving of what happened to her. Moreover, it’s a tragedy about the name too. Tamar means date palm tree in the original language.

The story is found in 2 Samuel 13. It takes place in the aftermath of David royally screwing everything up by screwing Bathsheba. True to his word, after the incident, God provides ample consequences for David. This is certainly one of them.

The story starts with David’s son Amnon falling in love with Tamar… his half-sister. For some background, Amnon was the son of David and Ahinoam. Tamar was the daughter of David and Maacah. To our modern sensibilities, this setup alone triggers a pretty big ick. However, for royalty, marrying a half-sibling was hardly even something to bat an eye at. Case in point, just take a gander at Charles II of Spain. So, moving past that detail, at the time of this incident, Amnon was around 22 and Tamar around 15 according to the internet. Other sources say 21 and 17. Overall it doesn’t matter much. It’s safe to assume that Amnon was older than Tamar and that Tamar was probably in her teens.

Circling back, this initial act of falling in love is what sets this whole mess in motion if we discount the hand of God acting in the background to give David some recompense for his adultery episode. Honestly, the hand of God is about the best explanation for this. If I were a prince, I feel like I’d probably fall in love with someone who’s not my sister. My best guess for how this could happen is that it was a classic case of the proximity effect. Tamar was maybe someone that Amnon came into contact with on a daily basis. She was no doubt beautiful, and she was getting princess treatment. Perhaps she was also kind. So maybe she said something thoughtlessly kind to Amnon and he took it like an incel would, to use the common parlance.

Regardless of what the catalyst was, Amnon got it pretty bad. The text says that “Amnon became so obsessed with his sister Tamar that he made himself ill.” It further notes that she was a virgin and that she seemed out of reach for Amnon. Full disclosure, I can’t say that I’ve ever desired a woman so much so that I became ill from it. So poor Amnon had it really bad. He was also apparently a poor actor. His advisor, Shimeah, noticed that he was down and inquired about it.

This is where Amnon starts down the road to perdition. He tells Shimeah what was wrong. After thinking about it, Shimeah suggests that Amnon pretends to be ill. King David would likely come and see him. When talking to the king, Amnon should then request that Tamar be the one to come and give him something to eat to help him recover.

Amnon follows this plan, and it plays out exactly as expected. It also adds a poetic element to the whole story. It’s especially fitting that David is the one to order his own daughter to ruin at the hands of his own son. This is quite the reminder that God is pretty hard-core. He’s not one to trifle with. David issues the order and Tamar follows it.

We’ll let the text speak for itself for this next part. “…Tamar went to the house of her brother Amnon, who was lying down. She took some dough, kneaded it, made the bread in his sight and baked it. Then she took the pan and served him the bread, but he refused to eat. ‘Send everyone out of here,’ Amnon said. So everyone left him. Then Amnon said to Tamar, ‘Bring the food here into my bedroom so that I may eat from your hand.’ And Tamar took the bread she had prepared and brought it to her brother Amnon in his bedroom. But when she took it to him to eat, he grabbed her and said, ‘Come to bed with me, my sister.’ ‘No, my brother!’ she said to him. ‘Don’t force me! Such a thing should not be done in Israel! Don’t do this wicked thing. What about me? Where could I get rid of my disgrace? And what about you? You would be like one of the wicked fools in Israel. Please speak to the king; he will not keep me from being married to you.’ But he refused to listen to her, and since he was stronger than she, he raped her. Then Amnon hated her with intense hatred. In fact, he hated her more than he had loved her. Amnon said to her, ‘Get up and get out!’ ‘No!’ she said to him. ‘Sending me away would be a greater wrong than what you have already done to me.’ But he refused to listen to her. He called his personal servant and said, ‘Get this woman out of my sight and bolt the door after her.’”

There’s a lot to unpack in this part of the story. I want to break it down on a character-by-character basis. We’ll start with David. He has no involvement in this section of the passage, yet I can’t help but point out that he’s heavily involved. For starters, as I mentioned already, his adultery episode is what kicked all of this off. Moving past the divine providence aspect of it, David’s repeated failures as a father are what ultimately allows this all to happen. I get letting your guard down. I’ve made the very mistake myself. But you’d think the guy would be suspicious when his son explicitly requests that his sister come and make him bread. To me, that seems kind of creepy on account of its randomness. “I am sick. Send my sister to make me bread.” It seems off. Moving past that, if David knew his children a bit better, one would think that he’d be aware of Amnon’s feelings for Tamar. Back in high school, I was about as socially perceptive as a cardboard box. Yet despite that, even I was able to pick up on who had crushes on who. Honestly, the only time I seemed to miss when someone was flirting was when I was directly involved myself. So, in conclusion on this front, had David not had his head up his butt, this whole situation could have been tactfully avoided.

Next on the chopping block is Amnon. I’d imagine that most people would be inclined to look down upon him, but I can’t say I feel that way myself. He’s obviously not a platinum specimen of human virtue, but I can understand where he’s coming from. Having experienced falling in love myself, I understand how hard it is when you have feelings for someone and no way to act upon them. It’s certainly enough to drive a person crazy. That said, I don’t understand how he fell for his half-sister or why he decided to walk down the path of evil to get her. I’ve fallen in love thrice. There was this switch effect that occurred. Twice I gave in. The third time, I waited it out and it eventually passed. A lot of people like to pretend that falling in love is this magical powerful event that you have no control over. That’s crap. It’s an excuse to avoid accountability for your actions. Amnon could have chosen not to fall in love with his sister. He could have fought the good fight and done what was right.

He didn’t though. On account of that, we have what is perhaps the only case of post-nut clarity in the scriptural corpus. It very well could be the first documented case in history. Other instances that come close are David and Bathsheba, Samson and Delilah, and Ruben and Bilhah. Yet in all of these cases, we don’t see the reversal that accompanies post-nut clarity. We do see it here with Amnon. Moreover, we see the consequences of the single-minded pursuit of instant gratification. Amnon starts by wanting Tamar more than anything else in the world. He takes deceitful action to get her. Once he has her, he has his way with her. Then, after the deed has been done, he realizes that it wasn’t what he thought it would be. He realizes that he made a massive mistake. He then hates himself and he hates Tamar, the embodiment of his mistake. She takes on the living representation of his sin leaving him no rational choice but to cast her away from him as quickly as possible.

All of his actions were done with blatant disregard for the consequences. Moreover, with blatant disregard for his own sister. Tamar is the only character who’s not trash in this incident but we’ll talk about her shortly. By tossing her out after he’s finished using her body, he essentially ruins her life. Women are valued on beauty, purity, and character in that order. That would actually be a good topic for a podcast episode now that I think about it. But that aside, no one reputable will want a defiled princess. So, by raping her and casting her out, Amnon destroys Tamar. It’s an act she will never be able to recover from in that society. Amnon is the man who got what he wanted only to watch it turn into ashes in his own hands.

Now having gone through David and Amnon, Tamar is up next. For starters, I think she’s one of the most tragic characters in the Bible. I think the only charge you could levy against her is an accusation of naivety. We, the readers of the text, don’t know what sort of terms she and Amnon were on before this incident. If they were virtual strangers, then there is less cover for Tamar than if they were on friendly terms. If she’d never talked to Amnon once before and suddenly the King ordered her to go bake bread for him, what was she to do? Say no? Moreover, she was probably sheltered and given the princess’ treatment her whole life. She had no reason to expect that she would be in peril by going over to Amnon’s quarters. Being raped by her elder brother wouldn’t really be on the radar. She did nothing wrong, yet she got destroyed.

All of that aside, she still proves to be an interesting character. Her first major mistake was entering her brother’s bedroom alone. You would think that would trigger some red flags. You also have to wonder what she was thinking during the whole breadmaking process. A lot of girls I know are profoundly absentminded. It’s possible that she wasn’t thinking at all during this whole episode, but I find that hard to believe. What teenage girl has the wherewithal to say the things she says when she’s trying to talk Amnon out of his vile act? She presents him with a coherent argument. Paraphrasing all of that, “What you’re doing is wrong. Don’t do this wicked thing. What am I supposed to do after this happens? What will you do after it happens? I’m not even opposed to giving myself to you, but please talk to the King and marry me first.” This isn’t the sort of argument you get from a low-achieving teenager. It’s well-reasoned and it has multiple points. This makes me think that Tamar wasn’t a dolt. So she had to be thinking something about the whole breadmaking situation.

I imagine that Amnon was staring at her like a cat staring at a mouse. She had to notice this much. I would bet that she could probably feel his gaze on her. Yet despite that, she walked right into the lion’s den all alone. And with that, we get to my only critique of Tamar. I’ve mentioned it before, and I’ll mention it again here. If women were more noble, all of history would have gone better for them. The text says that Amnon was stronger than Tamar, thus allowing him to have his way with her. Instead of being a sheep arguing with a lion about what’s on the menu, why the hell didn’t Tamar do something? Why didn’t she scream for help? Why didn’t she fight back? Why didn’t she decide to defend her honor with her life?

Now of course, certain groups will call this victim blaming, but we don’t need to listen to those groups because ultimately the truth is all that matters. To that point, the truth is that being a victim is a choice. During the holocaust, the Jews as a whole chose to be victims. But not all of them. I’m not going to get into it here, but the Bielski Partisans were an example of Jews that decided they weren’t going to put up with Nazi BS. The same goes for the German citizens who tolerated the rise of the Nazi party. At any time, they could have decided to get their crap together and stop Hitler from seizing power. Switching theaters, the Russians decided to be victims in the early 1900s during the rise of the Communists. The same thing happened in China under Mao. Everywhere you look in history, you can find countless bodies of victims. That’s the point that I’m getting at here. If every single person alive took the stance that it would be better to die fighting than to live as a victim, almost none of them would have to die because evil and stupidity would be stamped out the moment it reared its ugly head.

Getting back to Tamar, if she had simply put up a fight, things would have gone better for her and much worse for Amnon. To rape someone, typically you need to expose the proper equipment. Had Tamar grabbed Amnon’s machinery, it’s unlikely that he would have proceeded with his activities. So yeah, overall, I wouldn’t say any of this is Tamar’s fault, but she certainly didn’t exhaust all possible options. She went along quite willingly. So that’s my advice to women on this front. If you don’t want to be a damn victim, then be willing to die before you roll over and let life do its thing. If everyone did this, the world would be a much better place.

Now, with all of that politically incorrect stuff out of the way, we can get back to the rest of the story. After the incident, Tamar was put out of the bedroom. She was disgraced as one might expect. Had Amnon kept her, they could have pushed the whole thing under the rug but since he put her out, that was no longer an option. In response to her disgrace, Tamar put ashes on her head, tore her robe, put her hands on her head, and went away weeping.

Now here is where things get really good. Absalom, Tamar’s brother (son of David and Maacah), catches wind of this whole thing. He takes Tamar into his own house to care for her. The text describes her as, “A desolate woman,” which isn’t exactly a description every girl wants to have. When David heard about the whole escapade, he was furious, and rightly so. He didn’t do anything about it though. Absalom wasn’t nearly as forgiving. After the incident, he never said a word to Amnon, either good or bad. He hated him because of how he disgraced his sister Tamar.

Absalom, if nothing else, is a crafty cat. He takes the long game. Two years after the incident, Absalom invites all of his brothers over to his place for a sheepshearing celebration. While they’re all getting drunk and rowdy, Absalom has his men kill Amnon who was ordered to attend by David himself. Everyone flees after the murder.

Back at the palace, David gets word of the murder and thinks that Absalom killed all of the princes. However, this was a false alarm. The rest of the princes eventually return home, crying about the death of Amnon. Everyone is quite worked up about the whole deal. While they’re all grieving, Absalom takes advantage of the opportunity to flee. After laying low for about three years, David eventually comes around on the issue and decides that he misses Absalom.

So, there you have it. That’s pretty much the whole story. I paraphrased quite heavily so it’s worth a read in its full glory if you have time. The key takeaways are that you: shouldn’t commit adultery and tick God off at you in the process, sexually assault your half-sister out of wedlock, or murder your half-brother after he defiles your sister. Taking a step back, sin is the problem here. Each person in this story made choices that contributed to the final result. Tamar is the least guilty and Amnon is the most guilty, but Tamar, Absalom, David, and Amnon all screwed up pretty big time in this story. So as Paul says in Galatians 6:7 “Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows.” I don’t know about the rest of you, but this makes me especially thankful for Jesus. Lord knows that I’ve done my fair share of errant sowing. Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift.