Who Will Share My Story? Biblical Commentary on 2 Samuel 13
Photo by Volkan Olmez on Unsplash
Content warning: this post references the sexual assault visited upon Tamar, daughter of King David, by her step-brother, as recorded in 2 Samuel 13.
Absalom, who has taken me in, has taken it upon himself to kill – him.
I cannot say his name nor can I bring myself to consider my relation to him as it makes me feel ill and unclean.
My dear Absalom, so enraged, so filled with hatred – he cannot even bear to look at me.
Nor does he speak to me.
It is just like our father, the King. The one given power by the Lord – another layer of permission in my violation.
It was never about me. I was never considered, never truly loved.
Our father said he is the heir, so he must not be punished. He will one day also be ordained by the Lord.
If the Lord was mine, unlike that of Absalom, my father, and him, my Lord would be a woman. She would know of the vile things men do.
She would stop him in his tracks and bring divine punishment from the skies to the Earth.
But my Lord, the “she,” does not exist in this history book. The one of Absalom, my father, and him will be the one written in her stead.
What they do not recognize is that all of them are responsible.
Absalom, my brother, the one who stood by while he knew the way he looked at me. My brother who made my pain into his own and thought murder would fix all that was done wrong against me.
He does not bring up what happened, nor does he listen to my anguish.
Even when he says he is allied with me, as a desolate, defiled woman, I know this isn’t actually for me.
This is but an excuse.
His moment in the limelight.
His chance to become the heir to the King.
Men skip over my story.
Women feel pain through mine.
My father, King David, was the one who summoned me to his bed chamber without consideration for if this might happen, and when it did, he denied me. The King ordained by the Lord, he who is loved by all of Israel, cannot find it in himself to love me.
Through me, he sees his own weakness and flaws.
When all had happened, I tore my garments and marked my head with ashes – a sign of my pain. My father didn’t tear his garments when I was attacked and cast out to the margins of the kingdom, but he did when Absalom murdered him. He cried when Absalom ran away. The King who felt he was a victim of his own sons, acted as if he was attacked the same as I. Yet, he was just as responsible for them and their actions.
This is the King.
The one ordained to reign.
The one who silenced and cast me out.
The church skips over my story.
Only those who feel my pain, want to share mine.
My Lord, tell me how to exist in this despair. Tell me you didn’t ordain this. I prayed to you when they bolted the door behind me. I prayed that you didn’t set this future before me. I prayed that you gave me a father who loved me and a brother who would be there for me in my despair. I prayed that you would smite him.
I wanted it to be you - the one I could come to when all else was taken from me. But you are just like them. Another man, giving power to those who hurt women – that’s how they wrote you into the storybooks.
My body elaborately on display.
My “no” clear as day.
The Author who broke my faith over a few pages.
This Lord brought pain and subjugation to women, but man and woman committed the same crime.
A bite of an apple and suddenly, he thinks I wanted this.
Thinking pain and suffering should be part of my dues for my transgressions.
Not acknowledging the crime committed by those who judge me.
I refuse to say my rapist’s name, because there was not just one. They were all complicit. Not just in my story, but in many others. All bound up in themselves, all committing acts in the name of righteousness and power. All making their daughters, wives, widows vessels to use them to raise up the man one generation after another. We created this world, men destroyed it – and yet they receive the covenant.
I spoke with a prophet and he shared with me a prophecy that he himself could not believe.
He said,
“Before the church is to become persecuted, women will first.
Before the church is to share the good message, women will first.
And before the church is anything, women will be everything for it.”
Ignored by Absalom
Denied by King David
Violated by him
Nothing, not even worth much note by the Authors
Abandoned by the Lord of the Bible.
Beloved by the Goddess
Included by women who read me
Impassioned by Survivors
My legacy, my story moves forward.
