What can we learn from how people in the Bible responded to trauma?

Genesis 34:1-2One day Dinah, the daughter of Jacob and Leah, went to visit some of the young women who lived in the area. But when the local prince, Shechem son of Hamor the Hivite, saw Dinah, he seized her and raped her.

2 Samuel 13:11-14As she [Tamar] was feeding him, he [Amnon] 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.” . . . But Amnon wouldn’t listen to her, and since he was stronger than she was, he raped her.

Rape is terrible trauma. Tamar’s reaction to Amnon raping her was to try to fight. Dinah’s trauma reaction isn’t explicit in the text. Perhaps she fought and cried for help but no one wanted to confront a local prince. Perhaps she froze in fear, unable to even speak as the unthinkable happened to her. Traumatic experiences can elicit deep, instinctive reactions that we don’t fully understand.

Genesis 34:7-26Meanwhile, Jacob’s sons had come in from the field as soon as they heard what had happened. They were shocked and furious that their sister had been raped. . . . Simeon and Levi, who were Dinah’s full brothers, took their swords and entered the town without opposition. Then they slaughtered every male there, including Hamor and his son Shechem.

It is possible to experience secondary trauma from hearing about the trauma someone else went through—especially the trauma of someone we love. Simeon and Levi likely experienced secondary trauma when they heard their sister had been raped. Their “fight” reaction to trauma was very literal and violent.

Genesis 9:20-21After the flood, Noah began to cultivate the ground, and he planted a vineyard. One day he drank some wine he had made, and he became drunk and lay naked inside his tent.

Noah experienced the trauma of years of ridicule and rejection. Then he experienced the trauma of the greatest natural disaster of all time and the trauma of having to face a whole new world after all that destruction. Such compound and complex trauma can often lead to unhealthy coping mechanisms—such as trying to drink away life’s pains.

Genesis 37:23-28When Joseph arrived, his brothers ripped off the beautiful robe he was wearing. Then they grabbed him and threw him into the cistern. Now the cistern was empty; there was no water in it. . . . So when the Ishmaelites, who were Midianite traders, came by, Joseph’s brothers pulled him out of the cistern and sold him to them for twenty pieces of silver. And the traders took him to Egypt.

Joseph was sold into slavery by his own brothers. Trauma can arise from betrayal.

Genesis 39:6-20Joseph was a very handsome and well-built young man, and Potiphar’s wife soon began to look at him lustfully. . . . She came and grabbed him by his cloak, demanding, “Come on, sleep with me!” Joseph tore himself away, but he left his cloak in her hand as he ran from the house. When she saw that she was holding his cloak and he had fled, she called out to her servants. Soon all the men came running. “Look!” she said. “My husband has brought this Hebrew slave here to make fools of us! He came into my room to rape me, but I screamed. When he heard me scream, he ran outside and got away, but he left his cloak behind with me.” . . . Potiphar was furious when he heard his wife’s story about how Joseph had treated her. So he took Joseph and threw him into the prison where the king’s prisoners were held, and there he remained.

Genesis 40:13-23“Within three days Pharaoh will lift you up and restore you to your position as his chief cup-bearer. And please remember me and do me a favor when things go well for you. Mention me to Pharaoh, so he might let me out of this place.” . . . Pharaoh’s chief cup-bearer, however, forgot all about Joseph, never giving him another thought.

Joseph not only dealt with the trauma of his brothers’ betrayal, but also with the trauma of being sold into slavery in a faraway land, the trauma of being falsely accused by his master’s wife, and the trauma of being thrown into prison. Each of the later traumas happened because of that initial trauma of betrayal, thus the later traumas compounded on top of the initial trauma.

Joseph’s life was a constant reminder of the traumas he had experienced, and the complexity of those traumas affected Joseph in a variety of areas. He should have been able to trust his family, but his brothers betrayed him. He should have been able to trust his boss, but his boss threw him into jail on false charges. He should have been able to trust his friend to put in a good word for him, but his friend forgot about him. Such trauma is complex, which can create far-reaching distrust, and cannot be reduced to a single event or context. Serial experiences like Joseph’s can create in us deep distrust of other people, even distrust of those close to us.

Lamentations 1:3Judah has been led away into captivity, oppressed with cruel slavery. She lives among foreign nations and has no place of rest. Her enemies have chased her down, and she has nowhere to turn.

Lamentations 1:10The enemy has plundered her completely, taking every precious thing she owns. She has seen foreigners violate her sacred Temple, the place the Lord had forbidden them to enter.

Lamentations 3:19-20The thought of my suffering and homelessness is bitter beyond words. I will never forget this awful time, as I grieve over my loss.

Jeremiah lived during the time of the Babylonian conquest of Jerusalem. He endured the traumas of seeing his city—and even God’s holy Temple—looted and destroyed. After that, he was forced to flee to an exile in Egypt. The shock and grief from his loss was a difficult trauma to process. Instead of trying to suppress his experiences or avoid them, however, Jeremiah was honest about his emotions. He shared all that was on his heart with God.

Lamentations 3:18I cry out, “My splendor is gone! Everything I had hoped for from the Lord is lost!”

Lamentations 4:20Our king—the Lord’s anointed, the very life of our nation—was caught in their snares. We had thought that his shadow would protect us against any nation on earth!

Very often, people who experience trauma did not (and could not) see the traumatic events coming. Sometimes, even when warnings are there—in Jeremiah’s case, an invading army—it seems too terrible to believe. For Jeremiah, the loss of God’s anointed king was one of these shocking and traumatic experiences.

Ruth 1:3-5Then Elimelech died, and Naomi was left with her two sons. . . . But about ten years later, both Mahlon and Kilion died. This left Naomi alone, without her two sons or her husband.

Grief does not always lead to trauma, but the unexpected loss of a loved one often leads to traumatic grief. We may not know the details of her husband’s death, but doubtless, Naomi never expected her sons to die before she did, much less to die in the same year.

Matthew 26:33-35Peter declared, “Even if everyone else deserts you, I will never desert you.” Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, Peter—this very night, before the rooster crows, you will deny three times that you even know me.” “No!” Peter insisted. “Even if I have to die with you, I will never deny you!”

Luke 22:60-62Peter said, “Man, I don’t know what you are talking about.” And immediately, while he was still speaking, the rooster crowed. At that moment the Lord turned and looked at Peter. Suddenly, the Lord’s words flashed through Peter’s mind: “Before the rooster crows tomorrow morning, you will deny three times that you even know me.” And Peter left the courtyard, weeping bitterly.

Peter not only experienced the trauma of Jesus’ arrest and crucifixion. He experienced the traumatic guilt and shame over breaking his promise and abandoning Jesus in his darkest hour.

Exodus 1:11So the Egyptians made the Israelites their slaves. They appointed brutal slave drivers over them, hoping to wear them down with crushing labor.

Numbers 14:3-4“Why is the Lord taking us to this country only to have us die in battle? Our wives and our little ones will be carried off as plunder! Wouldn’t it be better for us to return to Egypt?” Then they plotted among themselves, “Let’s choose a new leader and go back to Egypt!”

When trauma is repeated and reinforced, it sometimes begins to shape our identity. The Israelites suffered as slaves, but it was a familiar suffering. When new opportunities—with new dangers—arose, their old traumas had so shaped their identities that they decided they would rather cling to their lives of slavery than form a new identity as God’s people and as warriors.

John 4:6-7, 16-17Jacob’s well was there; and Jesus, tired from the long walk, sat wearily beside the well about noontime. Soon a Samaritan woman came to draw water . . . “Go and get your husband,” Jesus told her. “I don’t have a husband,” the woman replied. Jesus said, “You’re right! You don’t have a husband—for you have had five husbands, and you aren’t even married to the man you’re living with now. You certainly spoke the truth!”

Noon is the hottest time of day and the worst time of day to be carrying a heavy jar of water from a well. So why was the woman drawing water at noon? Reading further hints at the answer: Her life was marked by one relational failure after another, and she may have been deeply ashamed to be seen by others. So she went to the well to draw water when no one else would be there. Whether her trauma was rooted in broken marriages, the shaming and mockery of society, her loneliness and isolation, or all of the above, the woman at the well clearly endured a great deal of trauma. This kind of traumatic response is known as a “flight” reaction.

Daniel 3:1-7King Nebuchadnezzar made a gold statue ninety feet tall and nine feet wide and set it up on the plain of Dura in the province of Babylon. . . . Then a herald shouted out, “People of all races and nations and languages, listen to the king’s command! When you hear the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp, pipes, and other musical instruments, bow to the ground to worship King Nebuchadnezzar’s gold statue. Anyone who refuses to obey will immediately be thrown into a blazing furnace.” So at the sound of the musical instruments, all the people, whatever their race or nation or language, bowed to the ground and worshiped the gold statue that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up.

“Fawning” is a trauma reaction centered on people-pleasing. Often, when someone has experienced a traumatic instance of anger, punishment, rejection, or other negative interpersonal experience, their instinctive reaction to conflict becomes trying to appease the person they are in conflict with. The people of Babylon were very familiar with the violent punishments King Nebuchadnezzar had dealt out in the past, and this threat of a fiery furnace was more than enough to trigger a fawning response.

Judges 6:3, 11-17Whenever the Israelites planted their crops, marauders from Midian, Amalek, and the people of the east would attack Israel . . . Gideon son of Joash was threshing wheat at the bottom of a winepress to hide the grain from the Midianites. The angel of the Lord appeared to him and said, “Mighty hero, the Lord is with you!” . . . Gideon replied, “If you are truly going to help me, show me a sign to prove that it is really the Lord speaking to me.”

Judges 6:36-39Then Gideon said to God, “If you are truly going to use me to rescue Israel as you promised, prove it to me . . . Then Gideon said to God, “Please don’t be angry with me, but let me make one more request. Let me use the fleece for one more test.”

Gideon and his people had been so traumatized by the Midianite raiders that even after an angel appeared to Gideon, it took several miraculous signs to persuade Gideon that God would be with him. Each miracle should have erased Gideon’s doubts, but the constant fear, anxiety, and second-guessing of the last several years kept freezing Gideon and hindering him from moving forward. Yet God still chose Gideon, and God was patient with Gideon. In the end, Gideon truly became the mighty warrior God knew he could be.

John 20:19That Sunday evening the disciples were meeting behind locked doors because they were afraid of the Jewish leaders.

After the trauma of Jesus’ arrest and crucifixion, the disciples seem to have shown the “freeze” reaction to trauma. They likely felt paralyzed and unable to do anything except keep their heads down and hope they wouldn’t be noticed.