Today let's talk about David.
The Bible is full of stories of beginning again. Pt. 1
2 Samuel 11
David and Bathsheba
11 In 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.
2 One 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,
3 and 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.”
David goes into this adulterous relationship fully aware of Bathsheba’s marital status.
David sent messengers to get her. She came to him, and he slept with her. … Then she went back home.
5 The woman conceived and sent word to David, saying, “I am pregnant.”
David has put Bathsheba in a no-win position. He is the king, she would not have been able to refuse his invitation, his command, to come to him. We don’t know if he was just so handsome and seductive, or if he was forceful, but we know they have sex, and she becomes pregnant.
6 So David sent this word to Joab: “Send me Uriah the Hittite.” And Joab sent him to David.
David makes everything worse by sending for Uriah. His intention is that Uriah will go home, sleep with Bathsheba, and be none the wiser that the child she ends up having is King David’s. David doesn’t count on Uriah being a man of integrity. Twice he is told to go to his home. Twice Uriah opts not to.
10 David 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?”
11 Uriah said to David, “The ark and Israel and Judah are staying in tents,[a] 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!”
Uriah’s refusal to do as the king commanded was reason enough to have him punished. However, David called him from the battle so he would sleep with his wife, to hide the affair. He did not want people to think Uriah was killed because Bathsheba carried the king’s son. David plots the death of Uriah. He sends a letter to the commander and has Uriah himself deliver it:
15 In 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.”
16 So while Joab had the city under siege, he put Uriah at a place where he knew the strongest defenders were.
17 When the men of the city came out and fought against Joab, some of the men in David’s army fell; moreover, Uriah the Hittite died.
26 When Uriah’s wife heard that her husband was dead, she mourned for him.
David, chosen by God to be a great king for Isreal:
Gives in to lust;
Commits adultery;
Attempts to cover over his sin; then,
Arranges for the death of an innocent man.
Next week we discuss the fallout of David’s choices.