Bathsheba and Uriah: 2 Samuel 11 v 1-17; 12 v 1-13: ‘You are the man!’
It has been said that if you place someone in a position of high authority you see both the very best and the very worst of them. Having yesterday considered a remarkable act of royal kindness, we come back down to earth with a very big bump today as we consider David’s use and abuse of Uriah the Hittite and his wife Bathsheba.
This story takes place at the start of the fighting season after David’s army has left to go into battle while he himself has stayed in Jerusalem. From the roof of his palace, up the hill from the residential areas below, David sees a woman bathing. The series of events that flow from his lustful gaze involve adultery, skulduggery and murder and the storyteller accepts no excuses for David’s behaviour.
Uriah the Hittite was one of David’s most trusted soldiers, part of an elite force listed at the end of 2 Samuel (23 v 39). The designation ‘Hittite’ meant that he was descended from one of the Canaanite tribes that occupied the land before the people of Israel arrived from Egypt but given that ‘Uriah’ is a Hebrew name he was obviously very much an assimilated Israelite. His wife Bathsheba was the daughter of Eliam (11 v 3) who also appears to have been a member of David’s S.A.S. equivalent (2 Sam 23 v 24) meaning that they were members of a military family. So here the royal predator is having his way with a woman whose husband and father are away fighting his wars. The story does not say whether Bathsheba went to the palace willingly or unwillingly; the bottom line is that she would have had no choice in the matter anyway.
The story paints a picture of Uriah as decent and loyal and in no way deserving of the appalling treatment he receives. When news of Bathsheba’s pregnancy reaches David his first thought is to get Uriah back from the war to sleep with his wife (for which David’s instruction to ‘wash your feet’ - 11 v 8 - is a euphemism) so that the child can be passed off as his. However Uriah, a professional soldier adhering to a code of conduct which he expresses in words tantamount to, ‘I can’t be sleeping with my wife while my mates are putting their lives on the line in battle’ (v 11) is a man of honour and even when David plies him with drink (v 13) he refuses to play ball. His integrity costs him his life; he is sent back to war and instruction is given to Joab, the commander of David’s forces (via a letter carried to him by Uriah himself who is unaware that it contains his death sentence!), to make 100% sure he is killed in battle.
This is very much a story of a king doing whatever he wants, whenever he wants to whoever he wants with no thought or regard for the fierce loyalty of those he is harming. It’s hard to see it any other way than a disgrace from start to finish. The only mitigating factor is that when Nathan the prophet, using a parable with pin point accuracy, tells David to his face what God thinks of his behaviour, he crumples in a heap, mortified by the sudden realisation of exactly what he has done (12 v 13). His penitence is movingly expressed in Psalm 51 although even there, as he says to God, ‘against you, you only, have I sinned’ (v 4), we might want to add that Uriah, Bathsheba and the child that subsequently dies (2 Sam 12 v 18) were also sinned against as victims of David’s shocking behaviour.
It’s very significant that this episode is included in the ‘warts and all’ Old Testament story and it acts as a reminder that whilst human beings are capable of great generosity, love and selflessness, they are also deeply flawed. In the New Testament we see this highlighted by the thoroughly self-centred power play made by James and John (Mark 10 v 37), the betrayal of Judas (Mark 14 v 43-47) and the complete moral failure of Peter (Mark 14 v 66-72). It is only in the entirely generous, loving and selfless life of Jesus that we see what a perfect human life looks like.
There are a couple of particular lessons for us to take from this story. Firstly it is a prime example of the universal tendency for one sin to lead to another. Bathsheba becomes pregnant so David, to get himself off the hook, decides to try and fool Uriah into to thinking it’s his child. When that didn’t work he took the nuclear option and had innocent, loyal Uriah done away with. Sometimes it is in covering our tracks after mistake number one that the really bad stuff happens as we try to move the pieces around the board to make it seem as if nothing happened. It’s partly because we don’t want to admit our weaknesses to ourselves or to others – we’re often afraid to be seen for who we really are, warts and all. We’re also afraid of the cost that we may need to pay in terms of our personal relationships, our reputation at work, in the communities to which we belong (both in the real world and online) or at church. However some words of Henri Nouwen seem very pertinent,
‘Mostly we are so afraid of our weaknesses that we hide them at all cost and thus make them unavailable to others and also often to ourselves…..I became aware of the fact that in the sharing of my weaknesses with others, the real depths of my human brokenness and weakness and sinfulness started to reveal themselves to me, not as a source of despair but as a source of hope’.’
It is in acknowledging the gap between who we seem to be and who we really are that true repentance and new life flows. It is the experience of our failures (common to us all) and the recognition of them (which others around us can often see so much more clearly than we can) that healing and authentic humanity can germinate and flower both in our own lives and in the wider world of which we are all an integral part.
Secondly we live in a society where the frantic need to have everything we want is driving us to a dead end. Bathsheba and Uriah were victims of somebody who had far more than they did but still hadn’t gratified his desires. The parable of Nathan concerning the rich man with huge numbers of sheep and cattle who steals the poor man’s one single ewe (12 v 1-4) is pertinent both to David’s appalling behaviour all those years ago and the vast inequalities that disfigure the world in which we live. Consumerism is self-perpetuating; those who have much will always want more and never be satisfied. Given the fact that the world’s resources are finite that will inevitably mean that this will be at the expense of the many who have little or nothing. None of us live in isolation; our choices will have consequences not just for ourselves but for others. They may be people we have never met or know nothing of, but we still have a responsibility to order our lives in such a way that our choices do not cost them the earth.
Questions: Can you think back to any major mistakes you have made in life? Have you been able to experience God’s forgiveness? Have you and those affected been able to move on?
Prayer: Lord, forgive us for our mistakes, especially those we repeat again and again. Help us to acknowledge them, learn from them and be more properly formed in your image. Amen.