Family :
Family King David just like any parent before or after him, had difficulty in raising his children to be lovers of God.
Tamar’s story involves two other members of her immediate family.
Amnon, her half-brother, was David’s first born son.
Absalom was another of David’s sons. Both he and Tamar had the same Mother.
Considering the manners and customs of the day, Tamar would have led a very protected life.
Protecting your children from the world in many ways a good thing but everything has its limits. While providing this protection you may also handicap your child because they lack knowledge about the ways of the world, thus was the case with Tamar.
Slide 3:
By all accounts Tamar was very attractive.
As 2 Samuel 13 opens we hear Amnon has fallen in love with her but it really wasn’t love as much as it was lust.
Since Tamar was his virgin sister he could not have her as a wife.
In Deuteronomy 22:25 we hear God speaking about rape and condemning the man to death.
Again in Leviticus 18:6 “You shall not have intercourse with your sister, your father’s daughter or your mother’s daughter, whether she was born in your own household or born elsewhere.”
Amnon would violate these laws.
Slide 4:
Amnon was seeking advice about what he should do from his cousin Jonadab.
Jonadab suggested that Amnon play as if he was ill and ask David to send Tamar to him so that she may comfort him.
When she arrived and cooked for him he asked her to feed him.
She went over to his “sick bed” to feed him and then he grabbed her and said, “Come, lie with me, my sister. She answered him. “No, my brother, do not force me; for such a thing is not done in Israel; do not do this wanton folly.”
She goes on to say, “I beg you, speak to the king; for he will not withhold me from you.”
Slide 5:
Her last comment was but another sign of her innocence.
Had she been educated in the ways of the world and God’s word she would have known that Amnon was breaking God’s law.
Jewish males were educated in the law, as a result, Amnon would have known that what he was about to do was a violation of the laws.
He didn’t care, lust took over and he raped his sister.
After it was over Amnon hated her and told her to leave, when she wouldn’t he had her thrown out. Hatred is a very-common human trait of someone hating the person they have injured or wronged, a warped psychological maneuver in an attempt to soothe a guilty conscience.
At this point Tamar‘s integrity shines through.
She was in a robe with long sleeves, a sign of her virginity.
She could have tried to cover it up and remained eligible to marry but she didn’t, she stood tall.
She put ashes on her head and tore the sleeves off her robe a sign that she was no longer a virgin.
Absalom immediately realized what had happened.
Slide 6:
Absalom tried to comfort her by providing her with the safety of moving into his house.
King David found out but what did he do?
Nothing.
By not doing anything he too violated God’s law and withheld the punishment prescribed by the law.
Two years later Absalom would break another of God’s laws and arrange Amnon’s murder. Through it all it was Tamar who shined in the light of truth.
She didn’t try to cover it up.
She became the victim of her half-brother’s lustful desires and as a result would never be allowed to marry or have her own children.
She also became the victim of a chain of lust reaching back to David and Bathsheba and brought forward to the destruction of her own life.
Slide 7:
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