Tamar

The Tamar I am writing about is a daughter of King David. I'm paraphrasing and probably pretty badly. But you can read it yourself in 2 Sam. 13 if you want.

King David's oldest son was Amnon. Amnon became obsessed with his beautiful half-sister, Tamar. He claimed to be in love with Tamar and because he could not have her he made himself sick. His friend noticed something was wrong and finally Amnon told him the truth about his "love" for Tamar.

The friend had an idea. Amnon was to go to bed and pretend to be sick and when his dad, the King, came to see about him then he would ask the King to send Tamar to come to his place and make his favorite meal for him and that would make him feel better. (Well first of all you can see right off that this isn't love but lust. And secondly the whole plan is nutty. And thirdly "favorite meal to make him feel better - OMG!!!" And fourthly these guys sound like escapees from some awful animal house fraternity.)

King David did come to see his sick first born son and Amnon asked for Tamar and the King commanded it to be done. (King or not I think David was a fool and I also think he was a misogynist.)

So Tamar came in and fixed Amnon's favorite meal - apparently dumplings. (Actually my mother wanted me to fix chicken and dumplings for her one time. I had never fixed dumplings so I found some at Black Eyed Peas and brought them home. So maybe it isn't so crazy after all.)

When she was done then Amnon made everyone else leave and asked Tamar to bring the food into his bedroom. She did and he raped her. (So his idea of love was definitely lust. Also I left this out but he made a big deal out of her being a virgin which may have meant that she was young and virginal. Creep.)

It was forcible, too, because it is noted that Amnon was much stronger than Tamar. (It says that in the account that he was much stronger - double Creep.)

King David finds out but does nothing. (Triple Creep!!!)

Absalom, Tamar's full brother, also finds out and he tells Tamar to keep quiet about it. Absalom is not very sympathetic though because he tells Tamar not to take it so hard. (Quadruple Creep!!!!) Regardless, Tamar ends up living with Absalom and the account says she was bitter and desolate. (You can't really blame her much. What a family.)

Later on Absalom throws a sheep shearing party and invites all this brothers including Amnon. When Amnon gets drunk then Absalom orders his servants to kill Amnon and they do.

Absalom hides out for about 3 years.

Not that is one terrible story. There are just any number of things one could write about from this story.

One thing that struck me was that Amnon had been so in love with Tamar that he was sick over it. But then he rapes her and instead of being happy about it his so called love turns immediately to hate.

You know that does happen, too. People claim to be madly in love with each other and then they go to divorce court and say the most awful things about, and do the most awful things to, each other that can be imagined.

Anyway that's the story of Tamar.