Songs for Tamar

Conclusion

Chapter 19

Conclusion

There within their marriage booth, Tamar stood before her lovely Jesse. She invited him to lift her veil. With gentle hands he raised it with care. At long last, the moment came for Tamar. She reflected on the day she had looked down on his body so soaked with sweat from training.

She smiled and removed his clothing and then her own.

Tamar then repeated lyrics from a song of love that Jesse had often shared at their place by the gate overlooking the Kidron Valley.

"I am my beloved's, and his desire is for me. Come, my beloved, let us go forth into the fields. Let us go into the vineyards and see whether the vines have budded. Whether the grape blossoms have opened. There I will give you my love. Over our doors are all choice fruits, new as well as old, which I have laid up for you, oh, my beloved."

Jesse smiled and took up his part of the same song. "You are lovely, my sister, my bride. Your hair is like a flock of goats moving down the slopes of Gilead. Your neck is as ivory, and your breasts are like twin fauns that feed among the lilies. Until the night ends and the day breathes, I will hie me to the Mountain of Myrrh and the Hill of Frankincense. You are my beauty, whom I have long desired. Now, at last I shall drink water from your lovely cistern."

Tamar then reached out, saying, "Oh, my beautiful Jesse." Taking him into her arms, she lay with him.

After some days, Tamar and Jesse looked out of their marriage booth onto nearby Tekoa. She reflected on the pleasure they had taken in one another.

She leaned on Jesse. "How did I ever manage to keep myself from you by night all those years, knowing the incredible love we now share here? Although I am twenty-seven, old for a bride who stands before a young husband, I think no longer about those years that brought me such horrific shame."

She reached for Jesse again, "How beautiful it is every time I uncover you and take you to my bosom. How incredible your vessel, and how lovely is our pleasure when we come together."

Jesse said, "How often I burned for you day after day and cursed the day I took my oath."

Tamar kissed him, "Oh, the many times I stopped short of taking advantage of you in the night. You never knew that I could have lain with you in the night. So sound do you sleep that in the morning it would have been as a dream to you."

Jesse returned her embrace. "How beautiful are you as you lie before me. How sensuous are you with me in the night."

"Fill me with your love and your seed, my beautiful husband. Let our abundant love bring me seven sons and three daughters."

Jesse said, "At last God has brought our bodies together as he has did our spirits so many years ago."

Tamar then said, "Oh, my husband, how shall we ever make up for ten years of love stolen from us?"

"Oh, my Tamar, we will ever share incredible beauty in our loving hearts and know intense, incomparable pleasure in our loins."

Tamar stood up to pull the curtain closed. Smiling, she lay back down in Jesse's loving arms. "Then let every day we share love be as fulfilling as a lifetime, my beautiful Jesse."

The years had passed with King David still holding sway over Israel. He had assigned Jesse to manage Absalom's wealth for Tamar's sake and for her children. Now the king was growing older and would soon breathe his last.

Joab and the other advisers could not keep David warm with blankets and a strong fire in his palace. They even brought in Abishag, a beautiful woman from Shunem, to lie with him as his concubine. But she was unable rouse his affections.