Reading: 2 Samuel 9-12, Psalm 89

Hold on to your hats, it’s about to get ugly. Not to say we don’t have some good moments still coming up. The book of Kings isn’t all bad. Just almost all bad. But we aren’t quite there yet. We have to finish the story of David, and sadly it will not be pretty. When we were introduced to Saul, way back in 1 Samuel 9, we were given hints about his deficiencies, which then became his undoing. We have also seen deficiencies in David, and today they will go from hints to full blown disaster.

The first couple of chapters we read today aren’t bad. David is kind to the family of Saul, and particularly the son of Jonathan. David and his general Joab, along with his surviving brother Abishai, continue their string of victories. But then the action turns to a campaign season in which David stays home and the army goes out to fight.

The story of David and Bathsheba is one of the less palatable stories from the Bible that still gets widely told. However, that it is well known does not mean it is well understood, and I am afraid that far too often the point of the story gets missed in our attempts to pull the events into our present context. Far too often this is interpreted in a way that either impinges the character of Bathsheba or indicts the whole concept of authority and kingship. I do not believe it is either. So let’s slow down and take a minute to understand the setting and time we are in before deciding we know what this is about.

So far, David has been a warrior-king, leading campaigns and engaging in battle personally. He fulfills the role of Israel’s king laid out in Deuteronomy 17 by fighting their battles for them. The first oddity about our story in chapter 11 is that David does not go to war. This is very odd behavior for David as we understand him from the story so far, and it is specifically called out here to show that he is acting out of character. He gets up from his afternoon rest, a common cultural practice in that part of the world even today, and starts walking around the roof. Bathsheba appears, engaged in ritual bathing. There have been attempts at various points in Christian history to paint her as a seductress, intentionally catching the king’s eye. But that doesn’t fit with the story we are being told. She is following covenant rules about purification as best she can, and is doing so at a time of day when people were taking an afternoon nap. There is nothing to indicate Bathsheba is trying anything.

David, though, sees her, and asks who she is. The servants inform him she is the wife of one of David’s most loyal and capable servants, one of the “mighty men,” Uriah the Hittite. This is the crisis point for David. We have already seen that accumulating wives is a problem for David. But this is not a case of him taking just another wife. It is a matter of him knowingly taking someone else’s wife. Tragically he fails the test. He has her brought to him and has sex with her.

Recent interpretations of this story have made this into a rape narrative based on power imbalance, and I want to take a minute to address this. The Hebrew Scriptures are not shy about calling out rape. The story of Dinah in Genesis 34, the Levite’s concubine in Judges 19, and particularly the upcoming story of Tamar and Amnon in 2 Samuel 13 are examples. These stories stand in stark contrast to this one. David’s encounter with Bathsheba has none of the violent language of those other passages, none of the indicators that Bathsheba was resistant. This story is not being told in a society with power equality as a value. There was an extreme power imbalance between Bathsheba and every other male in the kingdom of Israel, including her husband. There was a huge power imbalance between Bathsheba, as the wife of a noted solider, and her servants. The entire society was constructed around hierarchies that are wholly foreign to the present western mind. On the other hand, there were social rules that even David was bound to that were far more strict that anything we have today. Bathsheba would have to phrase it carefully, but she could absolutely say No to David, by appealing to obedience to the covenant law of the God of Israel. Given the character of David so far when challenged, especially by a woman (see Abigail in 1 Samuel 25) we would expect him to repent if Bathsheba were to challenge to him. We should be really careful overlaying our understanding of present human interaction on an ancient story, especially when the story does not say something that is so clearly called out in other places. In short, I do not think this is a story about seduction or rape. Note that I am in no way defending David’s actions, or Bathsheba’s, just trying to be clear about what they were, so that we see the story for what it is.

That being said, let’s look at what the story does tell us about David and Bathsheba’s encounter. It’s not much. They have one sexual encounter and David sends her home. The memory of the event will not be the only evidence, however, because Bathsheba gets pregnant. And it is here that David’s failure at the test begins to spiral. He tries to cover up his action by bringing Uriah home, but he proves more righteous than David. He indirectly calls David out for staying home while the army is in the field. He will not go home while the army is sleeping outside. David doubles down, getting him drunk hoping he will stumble home. Nothing works, so he arranges for Joab to ensure Uriah is killed in battle. If this sounds familiar it is because it is Saul’s stated strategy for getting rid of David back in 1 Samuel 18:17-30. It works, and David is rid of Uriah. He then has Bathsheba brought into his house and makes her his umpteenth wife.

But this is not the end of the story. God calls David out for his actions through the prophet Nathan. David and Bathsheba’s infant son gets sick and dies. David goes into a period of radical mourning and repentance. He composes Psalm 51, which is well worth reading in context of this story. But his disobedience has consequences. The rest of the book of Samuel and into Kings will be the playing out of the consequences of David’s disobedience in regards to Deuteronomy 17’s prohibition on accumulating many wives, as his various children conflict on a whole bunch of levels. Here I think we reach the true crux of the story. David’s position means his sin has consequences far beyond himself. The office of the anointed one carries with it enormous responsibilities. David’s actions, good or bad, affect those under his leadership. This lesson will become extremely important to understanding the actions and effects of David’s ultimate descendant.

There are hints of redemption wrapped even in the tragedy of David’s failure. Solomon is born to David and Bathsheba. Israel is still victorious over its enemies, at least for now. We have been reminded that the human problem is still hanging over God’s chosen broken instruments, but also that God is still working through those broken instruments to make all things new. God’s promises to Adam and Eve, to Abraham, to Israel through Moses, in the song of Hannah, and to David are still in force. Though David has failed the test, he has a son.