Yet still they speak

Content warning: sexual violence

But she said to him, “No, my brother; for this wrong in sending me away is greater than the other that you did to me.” But he would not listen to her. He called the young man who served him and said, “Put this woman out of my presence, and bolt the door after her.”

(Now she was wearing a long robe with sleeves; for this is how the virgin daughters of the king were clothed in earlier times.) So his servant put her out, and bolted the door after her. But Tamar put ashes on her head, and tore the long robe that she was wearing; she put her hand on her head, and went away, crying aloud as she went.

Her brother Absalom said to her, “Has Amnon your brother been with you? Be quiet for now, my sister; he is your brother; do not take this to heart.” So Tamar remained, a desolate woman, in her brother Absalom’s house. When King David heard of all these things, he became very angry, but he would not punish his son Amnon, because he loved him, for he was his firstborn. But Absalom spoke to Amnon neither good nor bad; for Absalom hated Amnon, because he had raped his sister Tamar.

2 Samuel 13:16-22 (NRSV)

I recently watched the two-part BBC documentary Rape on Trial, in which Stacey Dooley follows several women who are waiting for their cases to be heard in court. It was a difficult watch – heartbreaking, demoralising and infuriating all at once. Yet I was struck by the parallels between the stories of these courageous women and that of Tamar in 2 Samuel. For many years now, I have been drawn to Tamar’s story. Something about the unresolved nature of the narrative keeps me coming back, time and again, in search of a sign of hope. Not all biblical narratives have to be hopeful, of course, but as a victim/survivor of rape – now on day 676 of my own police investigation – I feel as though of all the texts I have had to wrestle with, I really need there to be hope in this one. Nevertheless, every time I arrive at that final description of Tamar, forced to spend her life as a ‘desolate’ woman in her brother’s house, I am filled once again with a profound sense of disappointment, abandonment and hopelessness. Tamar has such strength, but ultimately it appears to serve no purpose. Why is David, though angry, content to remain silent and passive? Where is the justice Tamar deserves?

Reflecting on the experiences of the women in the documentary together with Tamar’s story, what immediately emerges as a point of similarity between them is the persistent silencing of victims/survivors of sexual violence and failure of societal systems to secure just outcomes for them. There is a ‘conspiracy of silence’ from the men around Tamar, as biblical scholars have noted.[i] Tamar speaks, but is not afforded the dignity of being heard. Tamar speaks, but her words do not make a difference; they do nothing to stop the violence she knows is coming from encompassing and devastating her. Although not quite the same, something similar could be said of the women featured in the documentary. They speak, knowing that they will have to witness to their experiences within a deeply flawed criminal justice system that is so skewed towards protecting alleged perpetrators from false convictions that they will be harmed in the process. They speak, knowing that when they finally get into the courtroom, not all of those present will afford them the dignity of listening to them. The result of all this is the effective decriminalisation of rape in contemporary society,[ii] which can be paralleled with the apparent relegation of rape to ‘incident of secondary importance’ within the biblical narrative.

Yet still they speak.

Throughout Tamar’s ordeal, she not only uses her voice, but she does so to name Amnon’s abuse for what it is. Ryan Higgins, who after careful analysis of the speech in the text argues that the eventual disappearance of Tamar’s voice is at the centre of the story, highlights that:

What makes Tamar remarkably different from other biblical rape victims […] is that she already has a voice. In the three verses in which she speaks, Tamar utters as many words as does Amnon in the entire story. Incredibly, all of them are words of resistance.[iii]

Thus, although seemingly powerless and eventually silenced, Tamar is also seen to have agency. On deeper reflection, then, perhaps the more striking similarity between the text and documentary concerns the agency of each woman in resisting societal silencing by giving voice to and naming the injustices they have experienced. Where they have been silenced – their no’s ignored, their testimonies not believed, and their cases shut down – their response is to speak. As Jessie says in response to the verdict from her trial: ‘It has been hell, but I’m so glad that I did it. […] something needs to happen. And we’ve all witnessed that it will not happen through the criminal justice system. We have to talk about it. We have to be open about it, and we have to raise the awareness for these things that are going on. Because it happens every day.’ While this may not appear to have anything to do with justice as it is conventionally understood, reclaiming a sense of agency is in fact an important component of justice as victims/survivors understand it.[iv] In the face of the apparent failure of justice at a societal level, all of these women take agency and speak out for the sake of their own justice.

With this in mind, perhaps justice for Tamar means resisting the conspiracy of silence that surrounded her by allowing her to speak in the present. When women such as Tamar resist societal silencing by speaking out, the only just response is to listen. Amnon ensures that Tamar – ‘this’, as he refers to her – is sent away and the door bolted after her.[v] The irony in his response is that he in fact imprisons himself and sets Tamar – the one person who can speak about what he has done – free.[vi] She is not free, of course, as the narrator makes all too clear; she is shut out and shut away. But while not another word is spoken by Amnon, we are able to see and hear Tamar bearing witness to her experience. She speaks, but who will listen?

But she said to him, “No, my brother; for this wrong in sending me away is greater than the other that you did to me.” But he would not listen to her. He called the young man who served him and said, “Put this woman out of my presence, and bolt the door after her.”

(Now she was wearing a long robe with sleeves; for this is how the virgin daughters of the king were clothed in earlier times.) So his servant put her out, and bolted the door after her. But Tamar put ashes on her head, and tore the long robe that she was wearing; she put her hand on her head, and went away, crying aloud as she went.

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References

[i] Pamela Cooper-White, The Cry of Tamar: Violence against Women and the Church’s Response, 2^nd edition (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2012), 26; Ryan S. Higgins, “He would not hear her voice: From Skilled Speech to Silence in 2 Samuel 13:1-22,” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 36(2) (2020), 37.

[ii] Lucy Mangan, ”Stacey Dooley: Rape on Trial review – it’s impossible not to feel profound admiration for these brave women,” The Guardian (13/03/2025).

[iii] Higgins, “He would not hear,” 26.

[iv] Herman, Judith Lewis, “Justice from the Victim’s Perspective,” Violence Against Women 11, no. 5 (2005): 571-602.

[v] Phyllis Trible, Texts of Terror: Literary-Feminist Readings of Biblical Narratives, 40^th Anniversary Edition (Minneapolis MN: Fortress Press, 2022), 48; Higgins, “He would not hear,” 31.

[vi] Trible, Texts, 49.

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© Nina Kurlberg, 2025.

This work is licensed under Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0).

Cover Image: “Finally Exhausted” by @mich.robinson is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.