2 Samuel 13

My Bible reading today included 2 Samuel chapter 13.  This is one of the toughest chapters to read.  Amnon who "loved" his half-sister, Tamar.  The council of his cousin, Jonadab.  Absalom's revenge.  I studied Tamar in 2015.  It's a lengthy post that you can read here.  It still hurts to read the account.

The chapter takes another dark turn as Absalom waits for David to deal with Amnon.  Absalom waited two years for his father to do something.  I've also written about that and you can read about it here.

What hit me today was the actions of Jonadab and how it is happening again today.  He was the son of Shimeah, David's brother.  He was the grandson of Jesse.  He wasn't an outsider to the children of Israel.  He was the one that put the plan in place for Amnon, telling him to pretend to be sick, then have David send Tamar to him. Jonadab was an influencer.  His words never hurt him but they started a chain of events that led to rape and murder.

We are seeing the influence of the media, politicians, and school teachers become stronger and stronger.  Children and young people are being encouraged to choose their gender, take hormones or hormone blockers or have abortions, all without parental knowledge or consent.  Many of these people act like Jonadab, as "a friend."   We're looking at the first couple of verses of this story, but I believe it's going to bring devastating results just like it did in the lives of Tamar, Amnon and Absalom.

This paragraph is in my post about Tamar:

A simple Google search on "rape" brought up over 266 million results and  "rape statistics" brought up over 66 million results.  One quote really caught my attention, "one pedophile interviewed by Oprah Winfrey confessed, a pedophile steals more than a child's innocence. He steals her future. He described his crime as a form of murder because, as he said, 'I killed who she could have been one day.'" This certainly describes what happened to Tamar. 

 

Those who are influencing children and young people today are also stealing and killing their futures.  We are living in perilous times and we need to fight to protect our families.

What We Tell Our Daughters

Headlines for months now have been filled with stories of men in power abusing women (and in some cases abusing men.)  The hashtag #MeToo has gained much attention.  Time Magazine's "Person of the Year" is the "Silence Breakers" who spoke out about the widespread abuse.  It seems once the doors opened a crack they were thrown off their hinges.

Sadly, abuse is nothing new.  We find it in the book of Genesis with the story of Dinah, the only daughter of Jacob.  There is also the story of King David's daughter, Tamar.  Matthew Henry's commentary of the story of Tamar is outstanding.  He introduced the story with this, "We have here a particular account of the abominable wickedness of Amnon in ravishing his sister, a subject not fit to be enlarged upon nor indeed to be mentioned without blushing, that ever any man should be so vile, especially that a son of David should be so.  Can he entertain the thought of betraying that virtue and honor of which, as a brother, he ought to have been the protector?" (You can read my full post about Tamar here.)

I have never personally experienced sexual harassment of any type.  I have had several male bosses but not once was I subjected to any abuse or harassment.  I do have a story about abuse that I believed formed me...

My Mom's dad passed away when I was about 18 months old.  I don't really have any memories of him.  He smoked a pipe and oddly whenever I smell pipe smoke I think of him.  All I know of him were things Mom told me about him.  He was a hard man - he worked hard, but he was also hard towards his family.  Mom told many stories of how he mistreated Grandma Luella.  His abuse included emotional and physical (including broken bones.)

Every time, without fail, that Mom would talk about Grandpa's abuse she followed it up with this:  "I told your Dad he might hit me once but I wouldn't be around for the second time."  I can't tell you how many times I heard that from her.  It was a strong statement that I believe she would have followed through on.  My Dad was never abusive so this was never actually an issue in our home.  Mom did not let the cycle of abuse continue in her life.

What we tell our daughters (and sons) makes a difference.  No one should be afraid to go to work or school or church.  But more importantly they should not be afraid to tell someone if abuse happens.  We must tell them, "don't be around for the second time."  I understand that it is not simple, but with the support of loved ones, escape is possible.