{"id":60685,"date":"2019-08-06T13:33:43","date_gmt":"2019-08-06T10:33:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=60685"},"modified":"2023-03-01T07:20:02","modified_gmt":"2023-03-01T05:20:02","slug":"its-beyond-time-to-do-right-by-davids-concubines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/its-beyond-time-to-do-right-by-davids-concubines\/","title":{"rendered":"It\u2019s Beyond Time to Do Right By David’s Concubines"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[914,483,457],"acf":{"old_id":"60685","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":41525,"related_cahpter":"279","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"With rape still pervasive in our society, the time has come for a reckoning\u00a0","content":"

\u201c[T]hey pitched a tent for Absalom on the roof, and he came to bed with his father\u2019s concubines before all of Israel.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Absalom, making a play to usurp David\u2019s throne, takes his father\u2019s concubines on the palace rooftop for all to see.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As <\/span>I wrote previously<\/span><\/a>, during the monarchy, \u201cpower lay in the hands of whomever lay with the concubines.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

By sleeping with David\u2019s concubines \u201cbefore all of Israel,\u201d Absalom is publicly usurping the throne. And he does so on the same rooftop from which David spotted Bathsheba\u2014this story has come full circle; David\u2019s curse has come to fruition.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

There are two wrongs Absalom is \u201cmaking right\u201d by raping David\u2019s concubines before all of Jerusalem.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

One is the greater narrative wrong\u2014David\u2019s assault on Bathsheba and murder of her husband. The other is a personal wrong\u2014when Absalom\u2019s sister Tamar was raped, David stood silent.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The rape of two women\u2014Bathsheba and Tamar\u2014is \u201cmade right\u201d by the rape of ten.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This is not the only time such \u201cjustice\u201d is carried out in the Tanakh.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

When Dinah is raped in Genesis 34, her brothers avenge her by killing all the men in the town of Shechem. Then Dina\u2019s brothers take for themselves the men\u2019s wives, which \u201cthey capture [and make] their prey\u201d (verse 29 – Revised Standard Version translation).<\/span><\/p>\n

In Judges 19, the Levite\u2019s concubine is gang-raped, resulting in a civil war among the Tribes of Israel. When the war ends, six hundred women are raped to ensure that the surviving tribe will not die out.<\/span><\/p>\n

The way these women fare and the \u201cjustice\u201d system they are victim to says a great deal about the way women were seen\u2014or not\u2014in biblical patriarchal society.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In some ways it feels as if the barometer has barely moved for thousands of years. When a judge lets a rapist off easy because \u201che comes from a good family\u201d or \u201chas a great future ahead of him,\u201d not only does our society fail to see the victim, it ensures that more rapes will occur\u2014the rape of one woman results in the rape of many more.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Until women are seen as individuals with equal rights and worthy lives of their own, until women are seen at all, we remain victim to a biblical-era draconian sense of justice.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

When David triumphs over Absalom, he puts his ten concubines away under guard, \u201c[does] not come to bed with them,\u201d and shuts them up \u201ctill their dying day in living widowhood.\u201d David\u2019s concubines are the victims of powerful men, used and then discarded.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

May we learn from their story that women must be seen, that victims must be heard, and that the time has come\u2014even if thousands of years too late\u2014for a reckoning.<\/span><\/p>\n

Image: Image: Lovis Corinth (1858 \u2013 1925), “Absalom Goes Unto His Father’s Concubines,” 1923, Harvard Art Museums<\/span><\/p>\n","image":{"ID":60687,"id":60687,"title":"2sam16-absalom with concubines","filename":"2sam16-absalom-with-concubines.png","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/2sam16-absalom-with-concubines.png","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/its-beyond-time-to-do-right-by-davids-concubines\/2sam16-absalom-with-concubines\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"2sam16-absalom-with-concubines","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":60685,"date":"2019-08-06 10:33:30","modified":"2019-08-06 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