READING: 2 Samuel 13-15
TEXTS AND APPLICATION: These chapters deal with David’s son Amnon’s rape of his half-sister Tamar and the beginnings of Absalom’s rebellion against his father. Both tragedies are related to sexual sin.
1. David’s sexual sin with Bathsheba would produce this result, according to 2 Samuel 12:10-11 — “Now therefore, the sword will never leave your house because you despised Me and took the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your own wife.’ This is what the Lord says, ‘I am going to bring disaster on you from your own family . . . .’" Violence would indeed mark David’s house, and David’s own son Absalom would rebel against him. The king’s fleeting pleasure of sexual sin would result in the death of a baby and ongoing turmoil within David’s family.
2. Amnon’s sexual sin with his half-sister would also leave long-term scars. Interestingly, 2 Samuel 13:1-2 says that Amnon was infatuated with his beautiful sister to the point that he made himself sick over her; yet after he slept with her, he hated her "with such intensity that the hatred he hated her with was greater than the love he had loved her with" (2 Sam. 13:15). Hence he did not love her at all. He lusted after her, and once his lusts were addressed, he more openly revealed what she was to him: a sex object to be used and tossed aside. David was "very angry" at Amnon’s sin, but apparently did nothing (13:21 — and no wonder, since David himself had committed sexual sin). Later, Absalom would take revenge for Tamar by having Amnon murdered. And, all of these agonies cannot be separated from a single act of lust.
PRAYER: Pray that all of us would recognize the temporary nature of the pleasure of sin and the lasting effects of the consequences of sin.
TOMORROW’S READING: Psalm 3-4, 12-13, 28, 55