‘Shut up till the day of their death’: Sacred Text as Secondary Victimisation in 2 Samuel 20:3.

2 Samuel 20:3 is a devastating denouement to a biblical story of sexual and gender-based violence. It states the fate of the ten concubines David left to ‘look after the house’ in Jerusalem when David and the rest of his household fled to escape his son Absalom (2 Sam. 15.16). Absalom then captured Jerusalem and publicly raped the ten women to demonstrate his power (2 Sam. 16.21-22). When David returned to Jerusalem, he ordered that the women be ‘shut up until the day of their death, living as if in widowhood’ (2 Sam. 20:3). This presentation (1) critically examines the troubling assumptions behind David’s response; (2) describes a contextual bible study that explores 2 Sam. 20:3 as secondary victimisation, and (3) discusses some of the responses and insights on the bible study from the Kuibuka (Arise) workshop for religious sisters in Ghana in 2024.