Why does Scripture say that Amnon "was in love with" Tamar?

Salluz

Aspiring Man of God
I don't think being in love with someone necessarily implies a lack of selfishness/sin like loving someone in the Agape sense. Could it just be referring to the feelings we associate with being in love (Eros)?

In the course of time, Amnon son of David fell in love with Tamar, the beautiful sister of Absalom son of David. 2 Amnon became so obsessed with his sister Tamar that he made himself ill. She was a virgin, and it seemed impossible for him to do anything to her.

It sounds like he even has the stereotypical lovesickness that comes from unrequited love. I think it's just talking about romantic love, which is often warped.

Are you familiar with the concept of the four loves in Greek? I'm not sure if it's present in the OT, but that's the terms I've been thinking on.

I wonder what term the Septuagint uses for love in that passage.
 

Amethyst

Angie ... †
Yes, I am just asking because God would normally put in the Word what the true feelings were of someone rather than the perceived feelings.
We know that even most unbelievers, though may not be capable "agape" love for their girlfriend, so have enough love for her to not rape her or someone else.
Yes, Amnon had lust for her and apparently rage, I was just curious why God wanted it written that he "fell in love with her." Just curious lol.

This event in the bible infuriates me every time I read it because Tamar lived the rest of her life alone because of it and David never did a thing about it .
 

Jan51

Well-Known Member
Strong's Concordance:


Transliteration:
'ahab
speaker3.svg
Pronunciation: ä·hav'
Part of Speech: verb
Root Word (Etymology): A primitive root
TWOT Reference: 29
Outline of Biblical Usage:
  1. to love
    1. (Qal)
      1. human love for another, includes family, and sexual
      2. human appetite for objects such as food, drink, sleep, wisdom
      3. human love for or to God
      4. act of being a friend
        1. lover (participle)
        2. friend (participle)
      5. God's love toward man
        1. to individual men
        2. to people Israel
        3. to righteousness
    2. (Niphal)
      1. lovely (participle)
      2. loveable (participle)
    3. (Piel)
      1. friends
      2. lovers (fig. of adulterers)
  2. to like
 

Salluz

Aspiring Man of God
Yes, I am just asking because God would normally put in the Word what the true feelings were of someone rather than the perceived feelings.
We know that even most unbelievers, though may not be capable "agape" love for their girlfriend, so have enough love for her to not rape her or someone else.
Yes, Amnon had lust for her and apparently rage, I was just curious why God wanted it written that he "fell in love with her." Just curious lol.

This event in the bible infuriates me every time I read it because Tamar lived the rest of her life alone because of it and David never did a thing about it .

I was just trying to say, I don't think being in love with someone necessarily means having their best interests in mind. Isn't being in love just a romantic desire, whereas lust would be ilicit physical desire? I don't think the two would be mutually exclusive. I'd even be willing to wager being in love can cause people to do crazier things than just lusting after someone
 

Amethyst

Angie ... †
I was just trying to say, I don't think being in love with someone necessarily means having their best interests in mind. Isn't being in love just a romantic desire, whereas lust would be ilicit physical desire? I don't think the two would be mutually exclusive. I'd even be willing to wager being in love can cause people to do crazier things than just lusting after someone
I think I am seeing "love" as different meaning. Like actual love, but not necessarily agape. True "love" provokes people to godly jealousy in many cases, but not to do truly immoral things. I would consider that possessiveness or control, I think.
I guess I am too analytical.
 

Salluz

Aspiring Man of God
I think I am seeing "love" as different meaning. Like actual love, but not necessarily agape. True "love" provokes people to godly jealousy in many cases, but not to do truly immoral things. I would consider that possessiveness or control, I think.
I guess I am too analytical.

I'll admit my thoughts have been swayed quite a bit by CS Lewis's book about the four loves. He talks about how each love that isn't agape has something of a dark side that needs to be tempered with Godly love for it to not go wrong
 

Salluz

Aspiring Man of God
I tried editing this into my last post but wasn't quite quick enough on the draw:

I think a parallel of love being twisted can be made to something like sexuality. It was created by God as something good, but humans in our sinfulness can abuse it or indulge it in unintended ways. The other loves are something like that. It's been a couple years since I've read Lewis's book, but I believe some of the examples of loves going wrong are a mother smothering/obsessing over her child, friends excluding others excessively, and a lover putting their beloved on a pedestal and straying into the realm of worship. I'd say too that the intensity of each feeling of love distorted may even be higher than the intensity of the intended feeling. I'd say that's true of Amnon, who was so in love he made himself sick. It seems like decision to rape her was borne more out of obsession and possessiveness than physical desire, but I could be reading into things. I associate those negatives of possessiveness and obsession with the feeling of being in love taken to an ungodly extreme. Lust seems to manifest itself in disinterest in anything other than sex
 

Brother Albert R.

Jesus loved us and said we should Love our enemies
He loved her only in a temporary sense and not in a real lasting sense of Love. We all have had such feelings of "falling in love and falling out of love", and we called them having a crush on someone. But he took his crush to a whole different level by raping his sister and thereby sinning against her and God.
 

Wings Like Eagles

Well-Known Member
Why does the Bible say he was in love with her, or "loved her" when he clearly did not?
Being "in love" with someone is not necessarily a good thing (although I would say that, in our modern framework, "lusting after her" would be more apt). It says in 2 Samuel 13:2 that he was "obsessed with her"--indicating that sin had taken control of his faculties. Obsessions and compulsions of any kind are not of God--but the evil one. We smile benignly and sigh over young lovers--saying, "Isn't that cute--they are so in love." But, we must acknowledge that "stalking" can come out of an obsession like that--especially, if it is not reciprocal. I would heartily agree that he did NOT love her if he could proceed with raping Tamar her in spite of her begging him to not do so.
 

Brother Albert R.

Jesus loved us and said we should Love our enemies
Being "in love" with someone is not necessarily a good thing (although I would say that, in our modern framework, "lusting after her" would be more apt).
1 Kings 11 says...
1But king Solomon loved many strange women, together with the daughter of Pharaoh, women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Zidonians, and Hittites; 2Of the nations concerning which the LORD said unto the children of Israel, Ye shall not go in to them, neither shall they come in unto you: for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods: Solomon clave unto these in love. 3And he had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines: and his wives turned away his heart. 4For it came to pass, when Solomon was old, that his wives turned away his heart after other gods: and his heart was not perfect with the LORD his God, as was the heart of David his father. 5For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Zidonians, and after Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites. 6And Solomon did evil in the sight of the LORD, and went not fully after the LORD, as did David his father. 7Then did Solomon build an high place for Chemosh, the abomination of Moab, in the hill that is before Jerusalem, and for Molech, the abomination of the children of Ammon. 8And likewise did he for all his strange wives, which burnt incense and sacrificed unto their gods.
 

katt

Well-Known Member
Think of a stalker, the stalker "loves" the stalked...the stalker is obsessed, the stalked rejects said stalker, this angers the stalker and he or she turns violent and crazy..after the stalker gets what he or she wants..the excitement of the chase is gone, the stalker is no longer attracted to the object of their former affection, and to keep from feeling guilty, they turn all the blame and guilt onto their victim, and the self loathing the perp is feeling also is transferred onto his victim..

He was obsessed with lust, not love, she offered to be his wife, she told him, ask our father he will gladly give me to you but please don't do this, he, being full of lust didn't want to wait and violated his own sister...

Absalom really wasn't a bad sort until he saw his father would do nothing to Ammon for raping Tamar..

This is what turned Absolam against David and ultimately led to Absolums death..

A very sad story all over the place...
 

Wings Like Eagles

Well-Known Member
Think of a stalker, the stalker "loves" the stalked...the stalker is obsessed, the stalked rejects said stalker, this angers the stalker and he or she turns violent and crazy..after the stalker gets what he or she wants..the excitement of the chase is gone, the stalker is no longer attracted to the object of their former affection, and to keep from feeling guilty, they turn all the blame and guilt onto their victim, and the self loathing the perp is feeling also is transferred onto his victim..

He was obsessed with lust, not love, she offered to be his wife, she told him, ask our father he will gladly give me to you but please don't do this, he, being full of lust didn't want to wait and violated his own sister...

Absalom really wasn't a bad sort until he saw his father would do nothing to Ammon for raping Tamar..

This is what turned Absolam against David and ultimately led to Absolums death..

A very sad story all over the place...
An old pastor that I once knew used to say, "Choose to sin, choose to suffer." David was essentially told that by Nathan the prophet after his horrible sin that began with lusting after Bathsheba. Nathan also prophesied Absalom's rebellion. David should have upheld the Law of Moses and had Amnon executed--but he couldn't very well do that when everyone in the palace probably knew of his sin with Bathsheba and his arranging to have Uriah killed. Then, Absalom decided he would take the law into his own hands. David's sin of lusting after Bathsheba set off a series of sinful events that ended in the disgrace of his daughter (who would never have been likely to marry) and the death of his first born, who was next in line for the throne of Israel, not to mention the tragic and unnecessary death of Absalom.

As a side note, David was betrayed by his very wise counselor, Ahithophel during Absalom's rebellion. Interestingly, a number of scholars believe that Ahithophel was Bathsheba's grandfather because his son was said to be Eliam and Eliam was Bathsheba's father. One wonders if there was not some resentment of David in Bathsheba's family for David's taking her in lust and disgracing her. There was never again peace in the House of David.
 

Rocky R.

Well-Known Member
Amnon loved Tamar as Miss Piggy loves an apple pie with Crisco grease. Just as the Bible says the moon gives her light (instead of reflected light from the sun), it uses this same kind of descriptive language to convey the feelings of infatuation that Amnon had for his half-sister. Does Miss Piggy "love" the apple pie? Of course she does, but it's coming from the stomach and not from the heart. Same with Amnon. He loves Tamar, but it's not coming from his heart but something else.
 

Wings Like Eagles

Well-Known Member
Amnon loved Tamar as Miss Piggy loves an apple pie with Crisco grease. Just as the Bible says the moon gives her light (instead of reflected light from the sun), it uses this same kind of descriptive language to convey the feelings of infatuation that Amnon had for his half-sister. Does Miss Piggy "love" the apple pie? Of course she does, but it's coming from the stomach and not from the heart. Same with Amnon. He loves Tamar, but it's not coming from his heart but something else.
Apple pie love is not real love. Interestingly, the Koine Greek has four different words that are all translated as "love" in English. There is philaeo for "brotherly love" (which we know that Amnon probably didn't have for her, since he could treat her so cruelly); next, there is storge love which would be "family love" which he probably didn't have either since he was contemptuous of her after he had raped her. Eros "sexual love" is the only kind of "love" he had for her, if you can call it that. The fourth kind of love agape is God's self-sacrificing, compassionate love. That kind of love, a love for God and all of God's creatures, just as He loves us, is the greatest of loves. Sadly, those who belong to this world, never know this type of love.
 

Rocky R.

Well-Known Member
What confuses me is 2 Samuel 13:13 where Tamar says, "...Now therefore, please speak to the king; for he will not withhold me from you." Did she mean to say that David (their father, the man after God's own heart), would allow them to marry in violation of the sexual laws God gave to Israel? Or did she just say this as a bluff in order to trick Amnon and escape her predicament? I'm thinking it's the latter because I don't think David would allow such a thing to take place, and if he knew he might just beat up Amnon for thinking such things. Then again, this was after David committed adultery, stole Uriah's wife, and then murdered Uriah with the sword of his enemies. Come to think of it, this was the #2 highlight of David's life, the first being Goliath.
 
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