Was Bathsheba Guilty Or Was She Forced?

Did Bathsheba betray her husband? The Bible does not tell us anything about the character of Bathsheba before her adulterous relationship with David. Scholars are not agreed on whether Bathsheba was a victim or an agent. There is controversy on whether she willingly committed adultery with David or she was raped.

Some have argued that Bathsheba betrayed her husband by committing adultery with David, which made David plot his death. They acknowledge that she mourned her husband’s death, but note that, after her mourning was over, David completed what he had started by sending for her and marrying her. So, Uriah, an innocent man, died for their sin! “When the wife of Uriah heard that Uriah her husband was dead, she mourned for her husband. And when her mourning was over, David sent and brought her to his house, and she became his wife and bore him a son. But the thing that David had done displeased the LORD” (2 Samuel 11:26-27 NKJV).

But other scholars believe there is no evidence of betrayal on Bathsheba’s part, but that she was a victim of sexual abuse by the king of Israel (who had absolute power) just as her husband was also a victim of David. They argue that David summoned her and raped her and there was nothing she could have done in the circumstance.

They point out that the prophet Nathan’s parable, which indicted David, did not show that Bathsheba was guilty, but only David. Just as the rich man in the parable “took the poor man’s lamb and prepared it for the man who had come to him” (2 Samuel 12:4 NKJV), David also “took Bathsheba and she came to him, and he lay with her” (2 Samuel 11:4 NKJV). That sounds like sexual abuse.

- UNKNOWN