17 Retha,

As far as the term for rape, the same word is used in Lamentations 5:11 and 2 Sam 13:32.

The problem with rape in the Old Testament times is that the woman who is raped is no longer wanted for marriage as she no longer has her proof of virginity. In the case of Tamar, Tamar was raped by her brother, but after the rape she should have been given to her brother for marriage and his rejection of her for marriage was considered a greater wrong then the original rape.

blockquote>2 Samuel 13:16 (NASB95)
16 But she said to him, “No, because this wrong in sending me away is greater than the other that you have done to me!” Yet he would not listen to her.

When Amnon refused Tamar after violating her, she then lived in a desolate or destroyed, ruined and abandoned state in her other brother’s home.

2 Samuel 13:20 (NASB95)
20 Then Absalom her brother said to her, “Has Amnon your brother been with you? But now keep silent, my sister, he is your brother; do not take this matter to heart.” So Tamar remained and was desolate in her brother Absalom’s house.

So it appears that giving the woman to the man so that she was his responsibility to care for and looked after for her whole life, is a more compassionate thing to do rather than leaving her in the state of a victim ineligible for marriage.

What may seem irrational in our time, did have purpose in a strong patriarchal system of that time.