Today's passage from the
Bible In a Year Reading Plan is
2 Samuel 14:1-15:22, John 18:1-24, Psalm 119:97-112, Proverbs 16:8-9
In yesterday's passage we read the horrific story of Amnon raping his half-sister Tamar. He had developed feelings for the wrong person (something most people do at one time or another). I thought
this article had some interesting thoughts on this.....
when you fall in love with the wrong person, you have to be careful whom you tell. Tell the right person and .... [it] may lead to honest healing. Tell the wrong person and a world of hurt follows. Amnon tells the wrong person.... The ship could have turned around right here if Amnon had told the wise friend (who would have said something along the liens of "Oh, my goodness - I'm so sorry - and look, we're going to get through this together, because you know this can't happen, right? It cannot happen!"). But Amon told Jonadab. And before we jump onto that condemn-the-crown-prince bandwagon again, let's take another pause to consider the script. How many of us have ever gotten bad advice from a friend? And how many of us have ever deliberately gone to the friend who we knew would give us bad advice, because it's what we wanted to hear?...
Jonadab's advice is worse than we feared... calculated to get Amnon what he wants: the girl in his room.....
But let's back up a bit to the very recent story of David and Bathsheba....
David sees, wants, and takes. Why? Because he can. Because he's the king and has the power to do it.
This is what the prophets warned about when Israel started wheedling them for a king. Kings, they cautioned, are dangerous. Even a king as golden and righteous as David is dangerous. Kings succumb to the temptation of their own power, and eventually they overstep. They take what doesn’t belong to them. And sure enough, that’s what David does. There’s a scandal—Bathsheba becomes pregnant—and the cover-up includes killing her husband. Even though the prophet Nathan calls David out on it, the king still gets what he wants in the end: Bathsheba, who never speaks a single word in the entire story....
Who is watching the king during this entire escapade? His offspring. Children are always watching their parents, and as my sons often remind me, “Mom, we notice everything.” They learn from our actions. David’s sons are watching: Amnon, the firstborn, and Absalom, the third son by another mother. His daughter is watching, too: Tamar, Absalom’s sister. They all know what happened: Dad wanted and took, because he could—and he got away with it. And we might as well cue the ominous music, because there’s a predatory precedent on the loose now, and the ones who are the most susceptible and vulnerable to it are David’s family.
Amnon decides he wants Tamar, and he schemes a way to get her. She tries to talk him out of his despicable intentions but he refuses to listen.
He was stronger, and so he forced her—because he could. He wanted and took—because he could. David’s precedent has struck another member of the family.....Tamar’s father, King David, hears of “these things” and is angry but would not punish his beloved firstborn son.....Absalom gets the last stop. He speaks neither good nor bad to his brother Amnon. We aren’t sure whether he’s biding his time to make a play for the throne or truly sickened by his brother’s actions. But we do know there’s nothing between these brothers now but hate....
And that’s where the story ends: a terminus of ruins. We’re left wondering what might have gone differently if the father had punished or the younger son had spoken up; perhaps a measure of integrity could have been restored to the kingdom, with justice for Tamar. It would have required deeply painful speech and action, much harder than David’s atonement for his sins of two chapters ago, because now we’re talking about the atonement of an entire family. But it could have happened. And it didn’t. And a few chapters later, these boys of David’s are dead, and his beautiful daughter has disappeared.
Sin is brutal, and the consequences of sin are also brutal. There are so many "should have's" in this story. There are so many times someone could've done the right thing but didn't because it was easier to stay quiet and to ignore it, it was easier to bury the proverbial head in the sand. But in the end, it wasn't easier. It was brutal. Sin deceives and entices and convinces us that we can sin and not get caught, or not face consequences, and not get hurt.
That is a lie. Sin always hurts. Always.
Tomorrow's
Bible In a Year Passage:
2 Samuel 15:23-16:23, John 18:25-19:22, Psalm 119:113-128, Proverbs 16:10-11
