One of the Most Disturbing Stories in the Bible: 2 Samuel 13:1-22

Show Notes

Episode 530: 
In this episode, Chris and Jeff dive into 2 Samuel chapter 13, where they tackle one of the most disturbing stories in the Bible: the account of Amnon and Tamar. They reflect on the implications of this story, noting how it serves as a cautionary tale about the consequences of unchecked desires and the importance of recognizing the difference between love and lust. They also discuss the broader themes of family dysfunction and the impact of privilege on character development, drawing parallels between Amnon's life and the struggles faced by those born into wealth and power.

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You're listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun in practical ways. Hey, everybody, welcome to the Bible Guys. We are Chris and Jeff. And I'll give you one guess as to who's Chris and who's Jeff. Yeah, don't I'd say, Well, I mean what if they're not if they're not watching, they're only listening. That they just have to determine by the voice, right, So Chris is the smoke one. That's the one that sounds young and handsome. Is Jeff? Oh, I was going to say, the one who sounds gritty and smoky. Yes, that's Chris. Chris, that's right. Yeah. So I always say that when I go into a doctor's office and they say, okay, do you drink? No, do you smoke? And I say no, and they look at me and I'm telling you, almost always they go really yeah, ever, yeah yeah, because of my voice. Yeah, that's what they do. So you've got a great radio. Voice, is it though? Yeah, it's a good, good read a voice. It's memorable. Well, yeah, that that's probably matter. You've got a great radio face. Radio God really gifted you. Yeah. I remember when I first got to college, doctor Gary Gray said, hey, you're looking for a job, and I said yeah. He says, there's a there's a job at a dough factory that I can hook you up with, and everybody's standing there. I thought he was totally serious, and he goes. He goes, you'd be great, because you'd be great for this job, boring anybody else. He goes, do you really want it? And I said, yeah, I need some money. He goes, yeah, he goes, it's a it's an assembly line job, and he said, the big palad dough comes by and he goes, and then what you have to do is you have to slam your face down and make monkey cookies. He said, make monkey cookies. Yeh's really great. Your buddy Jeff Miller has a raspy voice, too. Does he? Yeah, a little bits like this. Yeah. I didn't really clout qualified as that. Yeah voice, Maybe because I'm the king of rasp Yeah. He doesn't have a butter smooth voice like mine. Oh yeah, right, so. He's got a raspy flora. Bettersmith's voice is nothing compared to Wesley's. Yes, well, who's Wesley? Who's Wesley, the guy that filled in for you. I know he killed it. He killed it. Hey. By the way, I came into the office all of you, everybody that you said something nice about Wesley filling in. A couple weeks ago. It was every day multiple people would post about how great Wesley was. So I went in Wesley and told him he's uninvited to help anymore. Right right, you threatened exactly. Now he did a great job. Great job. So really thankful for him and for Kyle. They both did great job. Hey. So this segment's gonna be pretty quick. This is one of our favorite segments, and it's called Who's most likely? Yes, So we have five different things and we're going to vote very quickly. And typically the answer is Chris. Chris is most likely. Yeah. Here we go, all right. Number one, Who's most likely to start a food fight at a fancy dinner? Chris? That's Chris. Yeah, I told you. Now, here's the question. Have you ever started a food fight at a fancy didn't? No? I have not. Have you ever started a food fight? Yes, oh you have, yeah, but not at a fancy dinner? Okay, well it depends on how fancy it is. I guess I would say, I've really I've only started like five food fights. Yeah, only Yeah. I wonder how many food fights our listeners have started, like only five, Like, it's not many. It's four and three quarters more than everybody else. I want to say that, did you smash your cake in your wife's face when you guys got yes? Yeah, Well there you go. That's where it starts. Yeah, there it is. By the way, three of those food fights I started were in high school. Yeah, so I started them in high school too. All right. Number two, who's most likely to try to try to pet a wild animal? That would be definitely you. I have many times, yeah. And you try or accomplish. One time, we were in a vehicle and we pulled up next to a kudu, one of those great big giant Africa, six hundred pounds, and he came over really close, and they have a beard. Yeah, and so I went, I just touched his beard, and he pulled his head back. Wow. And then I started to reach back out to touch his beard again, and he smashed his head on the roof of our car. And then I waited for a second, and then he started leaning back in and I reached out to pettym on the thing, and he pulled up and he hit those antlers, those those big giant horns, you know, there's those big twisty giants. Smash those on top of our car and for years we had dent on the top of our car because one of those drive through things. Yeah, yeah, I do it all the time. I like to try to pet animals. I got a whole bunch of pictures of me with animals in my office. Yeah. We got a picture of me with a cobra, remember, yeah. Yeah, yeah, there's a camel. There's you with a live crocodile. Yeah. Did you ever do a crocodile wrestling thing? Do you ever go get your picture taking wrestling with the crocodile or an alligator? Have I held an alligator at a put putt course? I got one where you had to sit on him, so you had to get in there and hold him pitting down and hold his mouth to get a picture. My mine was like two feet Yeah I was. Anyways, Okay, all right, who's. Most likely to try and impress someone with a magic trick that goes hilariously wrong. We'll try to impress. That's usually both of us. Yeah, magic trick. You're probably better at magic than me. Goes wrong, that's always me. Well, I've never actually believe it or not. This is sounding funny, but I actually have done plenty of pretty big magic tricks. When I say plenty, I mean like four, but which is a lot more. Yes, I've done it in front of three to four hundred people, right, only because I. Had a magical guy. No, I'm not magic. In fact, I did it in front of thousands actually because I did it on a weekend one time. But anyway, I did like escape out of a box because my buddy Josh Eisenhardt was a pretty big magician and he taught me through and led me through, and I've used them to teach cool. Yeah, it's pretty cool. Thing has ever gone wrong? Thank goodness? Yeah, so the gune wrong parts where it triggers it over to my side to the table. So the vote is probably me, have you? Yeah? Yeah? I think so. Okay, you're most likely to do the magic trick. If I tried it, it would go. Hey, is it my imagination or is this? Has this come up like three times? Pet rock thing? Only now it's about naming it something extravagant. Isn't this the third pet rock question? It seems like it. Who's most likely to get a pet rock and you name it something extravagant, Well. Then it's clearly you. It's clearly me because I never had a pet rock. I think, well, I had, I had a pet rock given to me. I didn't get a pet rock. I did, clearly. It was just only last week when we talked about pet rocks. Yeah, and I had, And I told you I had a collection of rocks, remember, Yeah. Okay, So I guess that's me extravagant names and we're just gonna move past that desiree. But let's let's xnay on the at rock pay. Okay, So last one, who's most likely to forget they were supposed to be on a diet while eating a whole cake? I have forgotten many times that I was on a diet. And I don't like cake, So it's going to have to be you. And once I get started, I want to finish a thing. Okay, that's important. I'm not a quitter. It's clearly it's clearly you. Then I don't think I've ever eaten a whole cake eating the whole cakes a lot. I have not forgotten that I was on a diet, I have, but I have forgotten that I was supposed to be fasting. Oh I'm me too. I was like, yes, we're going to fast, and then yes, oh good, it's lunchtime, right right, I just forget. I've done that. Yep. So anyway, good, well, thank you, DESI ight, and I. Think I'm supposed to say something like, well there you go, right right, Okay. Today we are starting in Second Samuel, chapter thirteen, and do you remember the part where Nathan, in Nathan's confrontation with David, the curse from God is, hey, you're gonna have a lot of problems in your family. He says, you're going to live by the sword. Your whole family's gonna live by the sword. That's right. So there are many psalms after that where David confesses sin. He does all these things, and then his family begins to grow up. You know, he has multiple wives, and so even though Bethsheba just now is expecting Solomon, David's youngest son, here at this point, he already has some other children through his other wives. And again we'll go on record as saying God forbade this, but people did it right, and so it's not acceptable. It's not a good thing. Polygamy is not an acceptable thing to God in the Bible, but it happened for many of the people. So David has a son, and his name is Amnon. And here's what it says now. David's son Absolom had a beautiful sister named Tamar, and Amnon, her half brother, fell desperately in love with her. Amnon became so obsessed with Tamar that he became ill. And she was a virgin, and Amnon thin, I thought he could never have her. But Amnon had a very crafty friend, his cousin, Jonahdab. He was the son of David's brother Shimier or Simia. Yeah, one day Johnadab said to Amnon, what's the trouble. Why should the son of a king look so dejected morning after morning? So Amnon told him, I'm in love with Tamar, my brother absolom sister. Well, Johnadab said, I'll tell you what to do. Go back to bed and pretend you're ill, and when your father comes to see you, ask him to let Tamar come and prepare some food for you, and tell him, you'll feel better if she prepares it as you watch and feeds you with her own hands. And so Amnon laid down pretend to be sick. And when the king came to see him, Amnon asked him, please let my sister Tamar come and cook my favorite dishes a watch, and then I can eat it from her own hand. And so David agreed and sent Tamar to Amnon's house to prepare some food for him. When Tamar arrived at Amnon's house, she went to the place where he was laying down so he could watch her mix some dough. Then she baked his favorite dish for him, but when she set the serving tray before him, he refused to eat. Everyone get out of here, Amnon told the servants, and so they all left, and then he said to Tamar, now bring the food into my bedroom and feed it to me. So Tamar took his favorite dish to him, but as she was feeding him, he grabbed her and demanded, come to bed with me, my darling sister. No, my brother, she cried, don't be foolish, don't do this to me. Such wicked things aren't done in Israel. Where could I go in my shame, and you would be called one of the greatest fools in Israel. Please just speak to the king about it and he'll let you marry me. Amnon wouldn't listen to her, and since he was stronger than she was, he raped her. Then suddenly Amnon's love turned to hate, and he hated her even more than he had loved her. Get out of here, he snarled at her. And then she says, no, no, Tamar cried, sending me away now is worse than what you'd already done to me. But Amnon wouldn't listen to her, and he shouted for his servant demanded, throw this woman out and lock the door behind her. So the servant put her out and locked the door behind her. And she was wearing a long, beautiful robe, as was the custom in those days for the king's virgin daughters. But now Tamar tore her robe and put ashes on her head, and then with her face in her hands, she went away crying. Her brother Absalom saw her and asked, is it true that Amnon has been with you? Well, my sister, keep quiet for now, since he's your brother, don't you worry about it? So Tamar lived as a desolate woman in her brother Absolom's house. When King David had heard what had happened, he was very angry, and though Absolom never spoke to Amnon about this, he hated Amnon deeply because of what he had done to his sister. What a horrible story. Horrible you want to talk about destroying a family. And because we're gonna skip it, Uh, Absolomy. We're not gonna We're not gonna skip it. Oh yeah, we're just going to do the Absolom stories. Okay, okay, yeah, yeah, right with it. I mean, Absolom is a massive piece of David's life. We can't skip those, okay for sure. But let's just yeah, let's go back and say, let me let me you know, champion, what you said, which is, uh, probably the worst family story in the Bible by far, one of them. Yeah you think I think it went well. There's a lot in his daughters, I know, there's Judah and his Yeah, there's some pretty horrible ones. Yeah, yeah, yeah, there's this is worse. It's pretty horrible. Yeah. And anyway, the thing that stands out, and I know that you've probably heard this before, but the thing that stands out to me is he says, after the deed was done, it said he began to hate her, and it says the hate that he had for her was greater than the love that he had felt for her, right, which means it's proof that it wasn't love. It was lust. That's what it was. And so so many times we try to convince ourselves that what we want is right because we justify it for ourselves. But yet what we're really doing is we're kitting ourselves. We're fooling ourselves. And that is a fantastic example in the worst way, of what it means to try to convince ourselves of something. So Am absolutely convinced himself that he was in love, so much so that he told his cousin, He's like, I am in love with Tamar. But it wasn't love. It wasn't love at all. Because if it was love, then here's you know, this obviously beautiful woman who says, hey, let me speak reason to you. Everything she said was absolutely reasonable, she said, she said, you would be known as a fool. She said, this would be a great wicked thing. And she said, by the way, we're not like other countries, right, Israel is not like the countries you've heard of. Such wicked things are not done here like in other places. And she says, so she's laying out all the different reasons. That's number one. Number two, you'd be labeled as a fool. Number three, this is a wicked thing for me. And then she says, hey, listen, it's customary for somebody back then to marry their half sister. They were you know, they had the same father. But back then that was a thing. So she says. More more in other nations, but yes, more. In other nations. But she says, hey, go to the king. And I don't know whether she was seriously suggesting that or whether she was just suggesting that to speak reason, trying to buy time to get out of there. So who knows, right, she may have been serious, or she may have just tried to speak to you know, his insanity. But either way, he says no. And then when he tries to throw her out, think about it. She says it again. She says no, no, no, no, no, don't do this because this is worse than what you already did, like, like, don't throw me out now, you know. Maybe she's thinking to herself Hey, now we have no choice but to proceed and go to the king. Right, let's try to salvage what's this wickedness that's been done. So here's a woman who's beautiful, she's cunning, she has high position, Hi, she's incredibly wise, and all of a sudden he hates her with more love than he loved her. With more hate than he loved her with you. Yeah, right, that means it wasn't love because obviously this woman is amazing, even in the midst of distress, and so he never loved her. Yeah. So there's a note here in Life Application and Study Bible, and it says love and lust are very different. After Amnon raped his half sister, his love turned to hate. Although he had claimed to be in love, he was actually overcome by lust. Love is patient, Lust requires immediate satisfaction. Love is kind. Lust is harsh. Love does not demand its own way. Lust does. You can read about the characteristics of real love and First Corinthians thirteen. Lust may feel like love at first, but when physically expressed, it results in self disgust and hatred of the other person. If you just can't wait, what you feel is not truly love. That's amazing. Isn't that a great note? Because love is self sacrificing, that's right, that's right, it's not self gratifying. So in a biblical relationship, in a biblical marriage and all that kind of stuff, desire should be there, right, But desire takes a second position to real love. But in a godless situation, it's just pure lust and desire, and he indulged that. So Amnon was the first born son of King David. Amnon was born between the time David became famous and the time David became king. Right, that's kind of interesting. And then he winds up being this prince. There's another note here that says he grew into a prince with too much time on his hands and too little control over his thoughts. You know, a lot of times David went through struggle. David was a poor kid, living in these valleys and watching his sheep and not much opportunity. He developed great character and tremendous skills and a walk with God, and then when his opportunity came, he seized it. But then David made a very easy life for his family. David struggles made David into a powerful and strong man. He had his own weaknesses. But what we tend to do in in our weakest moments, oftentimes our children, who have much easier lives than us, usually wind up doing an excess. We do it in moderation, it doesn't excess. So here's David one time having an affair a one day, right, and it winds up becoming a pattern in many of his son's lives, right, and becomes a thing that they do over and over and over and over and over again. You know, when somebody is raised as the son or the daughter of somebody powerful, and they live in luxury and they have every everything that their heart desires. Why is it that most of the time, it seems through my personal interaction and observation, like personally and then also in almost every movie you've ever seen in your entire life, or sitcom or whatever, they're a spoiled brat, right, and they don't have the character, and they run amok and they're not you know, worthy to take over the family business or whatever, especially if it's super successful and everything else. They're spoiled, rotten, they don't have character and all these different things, I mean, and you know, and so you look at that and everybody listening nods their head and says, yes, absolutely, that's the case. Probably both personally observation. Oh it's the boss's son, you know, that kind of thing, right or through through through culture and listen, even back then, even back then, the thing you just said was exactly what I just said, you know. So so here it is thousands of years ago, and Amnon raised the same way, different than the way King David was raised, as a poor shepherd, you know, making his way to you know, the journey to be to become the king the hard way. And then here's Amnon, you know, just abusing his power, being selfish, thinking there's no consequence to his actions because you know, he's entitled in every different things. Anyway, it made me think of strange enough bear with me here, Dave Ramsey, you know he's he's very well known. He's a financial advisor, right, okay, Well you know obviously he has a bunch of money. So he was telling the story one time of making his kids suffer and he and he was saying something like, hey, you have to you have to go out and earn your own paycheck for your own car, and and his son is like, Dad, you can buy me any car I want. And he said, he said, son, he said, one day you're going to inherit a bunch of money. He said, when you do inherit that he goes, I want you to have the character that goes with it. And he yelled at them. And I remember when he said that, like the audience cheered when you know you're say in front of audience, And I thought to myself, Wow, you have to really go above and beyond if you have the means to give your children. And all of us want to give to our children. Yeah, we all want our kids' lives to be better than ours. Yes, But the problem is what we tend to mean is we want to remove all the struggle, right, struggles what makes you strong? Yes, yes, And so it takes incredible intentionality to have means and to somehow make sure that your kids aren't raised entitled, spoiled. And by the way, this not only goes for you know, his fame and his wealth and his privilege, but it also speaks into his faith, his faith right, because when you have struggle, what do you do? You depend on God more, don't you? Right? When you have a lot, you depend on God less? It surprises me in here a little bit. You know, in their cultures, oftentimes we think of Turkish Sultan's kind of of a harem where or or like you know, the king and I when you see this harem and all these women are living together, that's not super practical, right, right, So most of the time culturally, these people who who had multiple wives managed multiple households. So one of the reasons why Amnon felt this way was that he knew about Tamar, but he didn't have access to Tamar, right, right, So he was lusting after her from Afar and he's wanting her, and so he has to go get his dad's permission to even have Tamar come to his room. Right. So it's really strange to me that as as endangered of a life that David lived, he didn't recognize danger in his own home. Yeah, why is this kid asked this girl to come from her home into his home? Yeah right, same age, same everything. He probably thought they were close, like yeah. But he knew that they weren't. That's well, Abinedam said that because he's talking I'm in love with Tamar my brother Ebsolm's sister, that they didn't mix homes very much. They would have known about each other, they would have showed up at big family dinners and things like that, but they would have lived separate lives a lot. Culturally, that's the way it would have been. And so in this situation, that's why he has to come and say, hey, would you send specifically that one and would you send her to my room specifically? Right? As a matter of fact, at first, when she brings me food, he's laying on a couch somewhere or something, right, But then he invites her to his bedroom, So that means he invited her to his apartment. You understand they're living separately. Well it did say house, Yeah, right, she's in his house. Right, everybody's living separately, and David doesn't recognize the danger there. And every once in a while, you know, I'll set up rules or guidelines for staff or for for you know, people that are under my responsibility, and sometimes they'll say, don't you trust me? And I'm like, dude, I don't trust me. Right, we shouldn't trust We should always be setting up systems for protection and safety. So a guy who lived perpetually in danger let his guard down in his own home is what I'm saying, so I think David carries a little bit of responsibility with this that he did not have the ability or the wherewithal to see there's danger for my daughter right in this situation, who normally wouldn't be here. Now that's different. If they always live together and they were always around each other, well, that's a different thing. But this is a very abnormal request. It's why he had to fake like he was sick. There's a problem. That's why you need to send her to come and help me. Because if he was just like, hey, I'd really like to start hanging out with Tamar Dad, Dad would have been like, uh no, right. So that's why Jonah Dab had to make up a lie in order to create a problem, in order for David to go, oh, how are we going to solve the problem for my firstborn son, the heir. Oh yeah, yeah, Tamar is a nice girl. She can come in, she makes a good cake. Go ahead, we'll bring here in. That's what happened is it's a fake problem, right, the whole thing. And it's so out of the ordinary. And so you know I've mentioned this before. If you think you see a thing, you're probably seeing a thing, right if you if your spidy senses go up, stop it. Stop the thing, don't allow it go forward. And if you made a mistake, oh well, but I think that there's a lot of value in parents. And I'm not saying with your own children all the time, but just in general, if it's out of the ordinary and there is potential for danger. The other thing is David could have made sure that she came in with other people and hey, don't leave her. And hey, if he kicks everybody out, you need to leave to right, you can teach it. He didn't. So what happens is it all comes down to this. But Amnon had a very crafty friend, right, you know, we got to watch out what our friends do because they'll the kind of friend that will co sign your sin is not really a friend, right, right. And so there's so many messages in this passage. So I'm not trying to blame David. I'm just saying it's just weird to me that missed this one. Yeah, yeah, well, hey, it's gonna get crazy from here, crazy from this point on, which is what Nathan said would happen. That's right, that's right, all right, Well, hopefully We'll see you then on the Bible gush h H h h