Listen to the audio of today’s Reflection:
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II Samuel 11:1-15
David and Bathsheba
1In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war, David sent Joab out with the king’s men and the whole Israelite army. They destroyed the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David remained in Jerusalem.
2One evening David got up from his bed and walked around on the roof of the palace. From the roof he saw a woman bathing. The woman was very beautiful, 3and David sent someone to find out about her. The man said, “She is Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah the Hittite.” 4Then David sent messengers to get her. She came to him, and he slept with her. (Now she was purifying herself from her monthly uncleanness.) Then she went back home. 5The woman conceived and sent word to David, saying, “I am pregnant.”
6So David sent this word to Joab: “Send me Uriah the Hittite.” And Joab sent him to David. 7When Uriah came to him, David asked him how Joab was, how the soldiers were and how the war was going. 8Then David said to Uriah, “Go down to your house and wash your feet.” So Uriah left the palace, and a gift from the king was sent after him. 9But Uriah slept at the entrance to the palace with all his master’s servants and did not go down to his house.
10David was told, “Uriah did not go home.” So he asked Uriah, “Haven’t you just come from a military campaign? Why didn’t you go home?”
11Uriah said to David, “The ark and Israel and Judah are staying in tents, and my commander Joab and my lord’s men are camped in the open country. How could I go to my house to eat and drink and make love to my wife? As surely as you live, I will not do such a thing!”
12Then David said to him, “Stay here one more day, and tomorrow I will send you back.” So Uriah remained in Jerusalem that day and the next. 13At David’s invitation, he ate and drank with him, and David made him drunk. But in the evening Uriah went out to sleep on his mat among his master’s servants; he did not go home.
14In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it with Uriah. 15In it he wrote, “Put Uriah out in front where the fighting is fiercest. Then withdraw from him so he will be struck down and die.”
This passage was actually a listed Old Testament reading last week, when I was out of the office for the Global Leadership Summit. But it seems too important to skip over, so we’re going to go back today to consider it. The lectionary actually listed the entire 27 verses of the passage, but we’re going to shorten it a bit, because the first 15 verses really give us the heart of the story. It’s a story in which a person who has been thought of as “a man close to the heart of God,” behaves more like a thug than a true and faithful leader of God’s people.
I suppose this story of David and Bathsheba is the second-best-known story from the life of David — second only to the story of his battle against the giant Goliath. It has sometimes been regarded as a great romance — it’s been the subject of a number of movies featuring some of the most glamorous stars in Hollywood. But from our perspective, it’s a tragic story of how David went wrong, how he came to be forgiven, and the long-term effects of his sins on the lives of those closest to him.
The story begins “in the spring, at the time when kings go off to war.” You might think that’s just a poetic opening, but it seems to me it’s meant to have a specific function in explaining what went wrong. As you might remember, the covenant people had appealed to God to provide them a king for the specific purpose of leading their armies in battle against their enemies. Saul had been their first king, and for all his sins, he had served that purpose effectively. He had been a vigorous military leader, and Saul and his son Jonathan had been killed in battle against the Philistines.
At the beginning of his reign, David had also been a mighty warrior, consolidating his power over the kingdom and pushing back against its enemies. But now he had apparently turned over to others the leadership of the nation’s armies. He himself had stayed behind in the palace. So you could make the case David was not where he was meant to be.
As a result of failing in his military leadership, he was not with the group of men who represented a kind of ‘accountability group’ earlier in his life. During his early career, when he had been chased around the country by the armies of Saul, David had demonstrated a deep commitment to godly leadership among that group of men. On one notable occasion, he had expressed a longing for water from a certain spring, causing his men to risk their lives by travelling through dangerous territory to get him some. When he learned what had happened, David expressed deep remorse for risking their lives on a personal whim.
But now, in the absence of the group of men who inspired him to such principled leadership, David allows himself to engage in casual sin, spying on a woman bathing on the roof of her house. It might seem like minor transgression, but David then goes on from one sin to another. He orders his guards to find out who she was and then to bring her to him. So by allowing himself to commit a sin he probably would have avoided if his trusted companions were with him, David opened the door to a series of sins that become more serious as they go along.
As we said, this story is sometimes portrayed as a great romance. And the fact is that some translations of the Hebrew text of the story add to that mis-characterization. The NIV Bible says, “He slept with her.” But the text is actually more straightforward and even brutal: “He took her.” The truth at the heart of the story is closer to rape than romance.
When word comes that Bathsheba is pregnant, David abuses his kingly authority in an attempt to cover up his sins. He has her husband Uriah called home from the front, hoping that Uriah will sleep with his wife and provide legitimacy for the child within her. But Uriah, although he is a foreigner, faithfully observes the Hebrew custom of remaining celibate in time of war. Cornered by his sins, David commits a final one, murdering Uriah by ordering the army to leave him exposed in battle.
From “little sins” lots of people might wink at, David has lowered himself to the most grave – rape and murder. And all abusing the authority of a throne God has entrusted to him. It’s a tragic moral and spiritual decline.
Of course, David would be forgiven. Confronted by the prophet Nathan, David would confess and repent of his sins. Because of his sincere remorse and repentance, David would retain God’s favor, and God would eventually be born in human form into David’s house.
But even when our sins are forgiven, they may still have tragic consequences, as David’s sins had tragic consequences in the lives of those around him. The child conceived with Bathsheba would die. David’s family would fall into chaos. A son would rape his half-sister. Her full brother would kill the rapist. Two of David’s sons would lead rebellions against him and be killed in battle. As God foretold through the prophet Nathan, “The sword will never leave your house.”
Most of us will never have the charisma or the power and authority that David had. But all of us face temptations throughout our lives – and not just sexual temptations, but also economic temptations, temptations to gain status and influence, temptations to advance our own interests at the expense of others, temptations to exploit privilege and ignore the needs of the poor.
And if we fail to learn from the story of David, if we fail to surround ourselves with people who inspire us to godly living, if we indulge in “little sins” forgetting that they can draw us forward into graver ones, that the consequences can be tragic for those around us, as they were for those around him. And that’s why it’s so important for us to read and think about this story from time to time.
Let’s pray. Lord, write the lessons from the story of David on our minds and on our hearts. Move us to surround ourselves with people who bring out the best in us, and to guard against starting down sinful paths that become slippery slopes. And guard those around us from the consequences of our sins. Amen.
Grace and Peace,
Henry
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