The Bible does not speak of Tamar's early life; however, in 2 Samuel 13, she is wearing a "richly ornamental robe [...] for this is how the virgin daughters of the king were clothed in earlier times.

Having devised a ruse, he acts on the advice of his cousin Jonadab and feigns illness, asking David to call Tamar to prepare a meal for him.

A hysterical Tamar tears her robes and leaves crying, and news of the rape begins spreading throughout David's royal household.

Two years after Tamar's rape, Absalom invites all of David's other sons to a grand feast, subsequently ordering his servants to murder Amnon once he is drunk.

A war ensues as Absalom's rebels mobilize at Hebron and begin fighting David's army in an attempt to overthrow him.

The Bible mentions that Tamar was left "a desolate woman in her brother's house"; she was grieved and traumatized by her rape.

The sages utilized the incident of Amnon and Tamar as affording justification for their rule that a man must on no account remain alone in the company of a woman, not even of an unmarried one (Sanh.

[9] The sages of Israel are quick to point out that Tamar was born from David's union with a beautiful captive woman, and that her mother conceived of her during the first act of copulation, in which case, the mother had not yet converted to Judaism and the child born was considered a non-Jew and required a conversion to the Jewish religion.

"[15] Mary J. Evans describes Tamar as a "beautiful, good-hearted, obedient, righteous daughter who is totally destroyed by her family.

[19] Coogan, in his section on women in 2 Samuel, describes Tamar as a "passive figure" whose story is "narrated with considerable pathos."

Coogan also points out the poignancy of the image at the end of the narrative story where Tamar is left as a "desolate woman in her brother Absalom's house" (2 Samuel 13:20).

[14] Adrien Bledstein says the description of Tamar as wearing a "richly ornamented robe" may have been meant to signify that she was a priestess or interpreter of dreams, like Joseph with his coat of many colors.