Faith · Trust · Human nature
Ten stories of broken trust—and what they reveal about envy, self-interest, loyalty, truth, and the complicated nature of love.
Betrayal is the cruelest of vices: it stabs the back only after inviting the embrace. Its victims often never see it coming, and that is why its pain cuts so deeply and lasts so long.
The serpent won Eve’s trust with innocent curiosity (“Did God really say?”) and confidential advice (“You will be like God, knowing good and evil”). Bypassing the husband, the deceiver took her aside and offered her secret knowledge and unending reward. They realized they’d been betrayed when “godlikeness” turned out to feel a lot like shame, blame, fear, and alienation.
Before unmasking itself, betrayal will puff you up on what you want to hear.
Brothers can and ought to be the best of friends, which makes this story one of the saddest in the Bible. When the brothers gave offerings to God, but only Abel’s was favored, Cain grew jealous and sullen. God warned Cain of the evil crouching at his door, yet Cain’s mind kept pulsating with the need to get even.
Pretending as if things were fine once again, Cain gave his brother a friendly invitation: “Let’s go out into the field.” When there, Cain killed him. Something as repugnant as betrayal sprouts best in the shadows of envy.
Abraham’s grandson Jacob had twelve sons, one of whom was clearly his favorite. Joseph, cluelessly shared his dreams with his brothers, even when those dreams depicted his brothers bowing before him. As shepherds, the brothers were grazing their flocks when their father sent Joseph to check on them.
When they saw him coming, they voiced how much they hated him and wanted to see him dead. Wishing turned into plotting. They grabbed him, stripped him of the multi-colored tunic that set him apart as their father’s favorite, and threw him into a waterless cistern.
Envy is the narrowest set of blinders you can wear, as it reduces your sense of justice to a single, obsessive bullseye. When your sense of justice is dialed in by envy, the bullseye will feel like justice for you, though the bullet will hit the other person as betrayal.
A lesson on betrayal“When your sense of justice is dialed in by envy, the bullseye will feel like justice for you, though the bullet will hit the other person as betrayal.”
Although lovers, Samson and Delilah didn’t trust each other. Samson, the strongman whose secret was yet unknown, kept telling the persistent Delilah the secret to his strength. Suddenly, she would do what was supposedly meant to drain him of his strength and then call the Philistines to arrest him—only for him to laugh it off and fight the soldiers off as normal.
Both kept up this flirtation until Samson finally revealed the true secret. “After putting him to sleep on her lap, she called for someone to shave off the seven braids of his hair, and so began to subdue him. And his strength left him” (Judges 16:19).
Don’t be surprised if a relationship built on self-interest consummates in betrayal.
King Saul was at one time a father figure to the young warrior David. David married his daughter and was as loyal and competent a soldier as Saul could have asked for. Yet, at David’s successes on the battlefield, Saul became jealous and sensed a threat to his reign.
Saul tried to spear David to the wall, sent soldiers after him, and eventually took an army to pursue and kill him. David had opportunities to kill Saul but spared his life, proving his loyalty. Saul expressed regret and said he had misjudged David, yet later pursued him again.
Words of sincere regret aren’t proof that we’re out of the woods. As long as envy persists, so does the potential for betrayal.
A lesson on betrayal“As long as envy persists, so does the potential for betrayal.”
One of King David’s loyal soldiers (called David’s “mighty men”) was Uriah the Hittite. When Uriah was off at battle, David slept with Uriah’s wife, Bathsheba. When she became pregnant, David had Uriah called back from the battle to go home and be with his wife to make the pregnancy look like his.
Uriah refused to return home out of loyalty to his fellow soldiers. So David sent him back to the battlefield and secretly told the commander to withdraw troops from Uriah at the heat of the battle so that he would be killed. Betrayal may be morally comatose and yet tactically meticulous.
When the kings of Israel and Judah united to go to war against Aram, they consulted Israel’s prophets. King Ahab’s prophets were universal in their praise of Ahab and any plan he had. Judah’s King Jehoshaphat asked if there was a true prophet of Yahweh left in the country. Ahab grudgingly admitted there was one, Micaiah, whom he couldn’t stand because he prophesied negativity.
Although inviting—and even forcing—Micaiah to tell the truth, Ahab’s response was vindictive. Micaiah was to be thrown in jail until Ahab returned—a return which wasn’t going to happen. Sometimes betrayal takes the form of responding with fury to truth spoken in good faith.
A lesson on betrayal“Sometimes betrayal takes the form of responding with fury to truth spoken in good faith.”
When Athaliah usurped the throne, a baby grandson named Joash was hidden and protected by a priest named Jehoiada. When Joash was eight years old, Jehoiada brought him out of hiding, proclaimed him king, and helped lead the uprising that ended Athaliah’s rule.
Joash led the nation in following God until Jehoiada died. Then the king surrounded himself with new advisers and began bringing idols into the palace. Jehoiada’s son Zechariah denounced the idolatry, and Joash ordered him stoned to death.
Often, one of the conditions that needs to be in place for betrayal to take root is the ingratitude that comes from forgetfulness.
Judas Iscariot’s name became so synonymous with betrayal that he is hardly mentioned in the Gospels without a phrase such as “who betrayed him” or “who became a traitor.” We aren’t sure exactly what motivated him to betray Jesus, though we do know he struggled with greed, and agreed to betray Jesus to the authorities for thirty pieces of silver.
He arranged to lead them to Jesus and give them a signal: a kiss. Thus, “Judas’s kiss” has become the quintessential metaphor for betrayal. Jesus’ question in reply says it all: “Judas, are you betraying the Son of Man with a kiss?” (Luke 22:48).
Luke 22:48“Judas, are you betraying the Son of Man with a kiss?”
“You adulterous wife! You prefer strangers to your own husband!” says God to his people when they were chasing after idols (Ezekiel 16:32). That idolatry is depicted as adultery throughout the Bible tells us just how betrayed God feels when people break covenant with him.
It makes no sense to us that God should stoop to create beings who can cause him pain through unfaithfulness, but such is the logic of love. It’s even more incomprehensible how consistently he responds to our betrayal by working to woo us back.
These stories show betrayal in many forms: envy, self-interest, ingratitude, greed, and unfaithfulness. They also invite reflection on the cost of broken trust—and the enduring call of love.