Innocent Bystanders

Innocent Bystanders

King David’s Concubines

Read: 2 Samuel 15:13-16; 16:20-22

“I was taken away by the attackers; they were all in uniforms. They took dozens of other girls and made us walk for three hours. During the day, we were beaten. . . . At night, we were raped several times.” This quote comes from one of hundreds of similar reports from Sudanese women collected by Amnesty International in 2004. No one can estimate the number of women who have suffered similar atrocities in war-torn countries when mass rape is used as a weapon of war.

The women in today’s passage were also victimized because of war. When David fled from Jerusalem because of the conspiracy against him, he left behind ten concubines as palace housekeepers. One of Absalom’s first acts upon entering Jerusalem was to rape his father’s concubines as a sign that he now claimed the throne and all that belonged to David. The atrocious act took place in a tent on the palace roof so that everyone could see the women’s humiliation. The women had stayed at the palace in obedience to the king, so they suffered unjustly when Absalom used them as a weapon against his father.

In everyday life, women sometimes suffer because of someone else’s sin or because they are in the wrong place at the wrong time. Some people see the evil and injustice in the world as proof that God doesn’t exist rather than as proof of the reality of the sin that infects the world. When God came to earth as a man, he suffered unjustly so that someday we can be free from the effects of sin. But Jesus wasn’t victimized; he chose to put himself at the mercy of his attackers on our behalf. When we’re hurt and treated unfairly, it’s hard to see God’s goodness, but it is greater than all the evil in the world.

He was beaten so we could be whole. He was whipped so we could be healed.

Isaiah 53:5