2 Samuel 13:7

AMNON'S BRUTAL RAPE OF TAMAR

"Then David sent home to Tamar, saying, "Go to your brother Amnon's house, and prepare food for him." So Tamar went to her brother Amnon's house, where he was lying down. And she took dough, and kneaded it, and made cakes in his sight, and baked the cakes. And she took the pan and emptied it out before him, but he refused to eat. And Amnon said, "Send out everyone from before me." So everyone went out from him. Then Amnon said to Tamar, "Bring the food into the chamber, that I may eat from your hand." And Tamar took the cakes she had made, and brought them into the chamber to Amnon her brother. But when she brought them near him to eat, he took hold of her, and said to her, "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. As for me, where could I carry my shame? And as for you, you would be one of the wanton fools in Israel. Now, therefore, I pray you, speak to the king; for he will not withhold me from you." But he would not listen to her; and being stronger than she, he forced her, and lay with her."

"Such a thing is not done in Israel; do not do this wanton folly" (2 Samuel 13:12). "This is a verbal quotation from Genesis 34:7; and the natural inference is that Tamar knew this passage in Genesis and wished to profit from the warning it contained."[7] This is only one of literally hundreds of instances which we have cited in our commentaries which collectively afford the most overwhelming proof that every book in the O.T. from Joshua to Malachi is written within the shadow of the Book of Moses, commonly called the Pentateuch. How convincing is the action here of David's daughter Tamar, the beautiful sister of Absalom, at the very moment when it appeared that she would be raped, even as Shechem the son of Hamor had raped Dinah the daughter of Jacob, that she would recall that tragic incident and quote the Scriptural reference to it in the vain hope that she might disarm the savage passion of her godless assailant. The comment of Caird in The Interpreter's Bible is totally in error. He alleged that, "Tamar here appealed to usage as the standard of morality. Where no written code of law exists, the one standard of conduct is whether or not a thing is done."[8] Such a gross error is founded on the critical canard that the Pentateuch did not exist in the times of King David; but Tamar's quotation from Genesis 34:7, just mentioned, is proof enough that it did exist.

"Do not force me" (2 Samuel 13:12). "The Hebrew words here are literally `Do not humble me'; and it is regrettable that the RSV has changed them; because they bear eloquent testimony to the nobleness of Hebrew women, who regarded their chastity as the crown of their honor."[9]

"Speak to the king; he will not withhold me from you" (2 Samuel 13:13). "It cannot be inferred from this that marriage by half brothers and sisters was usual in the times of David."[10] Tamar was merely trying to find a way out of her desperate situation. Sure, she knew that such marriages were forbidden in Leviticus 18:9,11, but she also knew that David frequently disobeyed God's law; and knowing his love for Amnon might reasonably have expected him to violate it for Amnon's sake. Caird's suggestion that there was no law against such marriages during David's times and that, "A later law forbade them"[11] is merely another preposterous error based upon a false date for the Books of Moses which, without any doubt whatever were written in the mid-second millennium B.C., as elaborately proved by Meredith Kline in the Wycliffe Commentary.

Keil also observed that, "Tamar's suggestion here by no means proves that the Laws of Leviticus were not in existence at that time, nor does it even presuppose that Tamar was ignorant of such laws."[12] This desperate young woman was merely trying to avoid surrendering to the brutal, selfish lust of Amnon.

Tamar's arguments against Amnon's actions were so clear and forceful that, If Amnon had not been goaded on by his lustful passion of which he had become the slave, they must surely have prevailed upon him to desist.

"All her arguments availed nothing. Tamar's comfort, her honor, or virginity, everything that she cherished and honored must be sacrificed to the outrageous animal lust of this extremely wicked man. It must be concluded that Amnon had, though young, lived in lewd wickedness a long while; because no man could have suddenly arrived at such a state of wickedness as this."[13]