2 Samuel 11: 1 – 27
Don’t let your thoughts control you
11 It happened in the spring of the year, at the time when kings go out to battle, that David sent Joab and his servants with him, and all Israel; and they destroyed the people of Ammon and besieged Rabbah. But David remained at Jerusalem. 2 Then it happened one evening that David arose from his bed and walked on the roof of the king’s house. And from the roof he saw a woman bathing, and the woman was very beautiful to behold. 3 So David sent and inquired about the woman. And someone said, “Is this not Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?” 4 Then David sent messengers, and took her; and she came to him, and he lay with her, for she was cleansed from her impurity; and she returned to her house. 5 And the woman conceived; so she sent and told David, and said, “I am with child.” 6 Then David sent to Joab, saying, “Send me Uriah the Hittite.” And Joab sent Uriah to David. 7 When Uriah had come to him, David asked how Joab was doing, and how the people were doing, and how the war prospered. 8 And David said to Uriah, “Go down to your house and wash your feet.” So Uriah departed from the king’s house, and a gift of food from the king followed him. 9 But Uriah slept at the door of the king’s house with all the servants of his lord, and did not go down to his house. 10 So when they told David, saying, “Uriah did not go down to his house,” David said to Uriah, “Did you not come from a journey? Why did you not go down to your house?” 11 And Uriah said to David, “The ark and Israel and Judah are dwelling in tents, and my lord Joab and the servants of my lord are encamped in the open fields. Shall I then go to my house to eat and drink, and to lie with my wife? As you live, and as your soul lives, I will not do this thing.” 12 Then David said to Uriah, “Wait here today also, and tomorrow I will let you depart.” So Uriah remained in Jerusalem that day and the next. 13 Now when David called him, he ate and drank before him; and he made him drunk. And at evening he went out to lie on his bed with the servants of his lord, but he did not go down to his house. 14 In the morning it happened that David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it by the hand of Uriah. 15 And he wrote in the letter, saying, “Set Uriah in the forefront of the hottest battle, and retreat from him, that he may be struck down and die.” 16 So it was, while Joab besieged the city, that he assigned Uriah to a place where he knew there were valiant men. 17 Then the men of the city came out and fought with Joab. And some of the people of the servants of David fell; and Uriah the Hittite died also. 18 Then Joab sent and told David all the things concerning the war, 19 and charged the messenger, saying, “When you have finished telling the matters of the war to the king, 20 if it happens that the king’s wrath rises, and he says to you: ‘Why did you approach so near to the city when you fought? Did you not know that they would shoot from the wall? 21 Who struck Abimelech the son of Jerubbesheth? Was it not a woman who cast a piece of a millstone on him from the wall, so that he died in Thebez? Why did you go near the wall?’—then you shall say, ‘Your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead also.’ ” 22 So the messenger went, and came and told David all that Joab had sent by him. 23 And the messenger said to David, “Surely the men prevailed against us and came out to us in the field; then we drove them back as far as the entrance of the gate. 24 The archers shot from the wall at your servants; and some of the king’s servants are dead, and your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead also.” 25 Then David said to the messenger, “Thus you shall say to Joab: ‘Do not let this thing displease you, for the sword devours one as well as another. Strengthen your attack against the city, and overthrow it.’ So, encourage him.” 26 When the wife of Uriah heard that Uriah her husband was dead, she mourned for her husband. 27 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.
Maybe you don't have any trouble with your thoughts, but I do. Thoughts pop into my mind without my permission faster than a mosquito bites my skin on a sweltering summer afternoon. And, equally without my permission.
Descartes, father of modern philosophy, pointed to both the distinguishing characteristic of human beings and to the biggest curse of human beings when he made his famous statement, "I think. Therefore, I am."
The fact that you and I can think, reflect on the past, imagine the future, even to be conscious of our own consciousness is what distinguishes humans from all other animals. The fact that you and I can think, reflect and so often regret the past, imagine and so often fear the future, even to be unconscious of our own capacity to be conscious is the biggest curse humans live with and so try to escape from almost continually.
In other words, ‘Thoughts can be our best friends and our worst enemies.’
Until what is on the inside - that is, your mind - is corrected, the external world, that is, how you perceive and experience the world around you will be a mere reflection of it.
In other words, if the world around you is to you an unfriendly, hateful, scary, and judgment-filled place, why is this so? Have you ever sought to know why? Is this the way the world really is? Or, is this the way you really are? Often, we project onto the world, as well as onto other people, the afflictive, negative thoughts and emotions that we cannot admit. Or refuse to acknowledge.
More and more, I am convinced, you and I create the world in which we live. Change the way you look at things and the things you look at change. While this is true, the problem for most people is how to change their negative thinking and the afflictive emotions that are its inevitable consequence.
Want to change your inner world? Better control your mind, as well as your thoughts?
Here's the only way possible: Meditate daily. In the book of Psalms 119 we read these important facts, “9 How can a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed according to Your word. 10 With my whole heart I have sought You; Oh, let me not wander from Your commandments! 11 Your word I have hidden in my heart, that I might not sin against You.”
The prophet Joshua teaches us in his first chapter this truth, “This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.”
If you're one of those persons who quickly excuses yourself as having tried meditation and discovering it does not work for you, that's the first thought you need to change. Why? Because it isn't so. So much of our thinking is just that - wrong. Deceitful. And, the most deceived person is one-and-the-same deceiver. You can learn to meditate, and you must, if you wish to learn to control your thoughts and your thinking.
You also need to ‘Observe your thoughts’. Don't judge them, observe them. How many times has a thought popped into your mind - let's say judgmental thought about a colleague at work and, instantly, you jump into judgment mode, finding fault with yourself for even thinking something negative about someone else. I call this ‘stinking thinking.’
I would suggest an alternative solution to unwanted thoughts. Instead of quickly dismissing them and then judging yourself harshly for having such thoughts, start from the premise that thoughts are neither right nor wrong. They just are. It's what you do with your thoughts that introduce the "rightness" or "wrongness" of them. In other words, in the purported words of Martin Luther, "You cannot keep a bird from flying over your head; what you can do is prevent it from building a nest in your hair."
How? By observing your thoughts. In the east, this is called acting as the "witnessing presence." Like witnessing an accident and then reporting on it to the authorities. Be the observer of your own thoughts, even the ones that frighten you.
If you can recognize when you begin the stinking thinking, then you can take some action to get change your thoughts. For example, let’s say you and your wife are arguing. In fact, it is beginning to become heated. The phone rings. How do you react? Once you hear the voice of your Pastor you change your whole being and gather your thoughts and voice because woe be it if your Pastor knew you were fighting with your wife. Therefore, you see you can control your thoughts and not allow your thoughts to control you.
Another area which affect us greatly are the thoughts that enter through our eyes. We see something, and it is pleasing to observe. We then mill it around in our thoughts and we ponder what it would be like to have what we see. What is the old saying, ‘it is not the first look that gets you into trouble, it is the second look.’
Today we are going to see this problem in a real situation. The verse starts off with the statement about the time when kings went to battle yet David didn’t. He stayed home. Let’s see how his thoughts lead to David committing some grievous sins.
11 It happened in the spring of the year, at the time when kings go out to battle, that David sent Joab and his servants with him, and all Israel; and they destroyed the people of Ammon and besieged Rabbah. But David remained at Jerusalem.
The return of the year was the period after the rains when men were relatively free from the requirements of the land, and when the roads were most suitable for travel. It was thus the time of the year when kings ‘go out’ (on looting expeditions or to battle). This is deliberately set in contrast with the fact that David did not ‘go out’. He ‘stayed at Jerusalem’ and sent Joab, together with his commanders and officers (his servants) and all Israel instead.
What then brought about this moral failure on David’s part? The answer provided by the Holy Spirit would seem to be that it arose because, having been so successful for so long, he decided to rest on his laurels and leave the battles to others. He took a long break from his responsibilities to enjoy his royal privileges. He began to see himself as important and to forget that he was but a servant of Yahweh. And the result was that he grew slack in his attitude towards Yahweh and discovered that Satan would provide plenty of work for his idle hands to do. We will learn in upcoming chapters that David had taken this sin in judgment as he is out personally fighting and is almost killed. Then his soldiers suggest he put up with the direct fighting and manage the action behind the battle lines.
This is immediately and deliberately brought out by the words ‘in the time when kings go forth to battle’ David ‘stayed in Jerusalem’ and left the battles to others. The truth, of course, was that the king should have been out directing his troops unless he had other equally urgent business on hand. What he should not have been doing was idling in his palace. We are going to see the downward spiral that hits David as he gets fully into sin. The list of David’s other failures which then result from this is quite frightening as the book of James chapter 1 points out, “14 But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. 15 Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death.”
2 Then it happened one evening that David arose from his bed and walked on the roof of the king’s house. And from the roof he saw a woman bathing, and the woman was very beautiful to behold.
Meanwhile David was lounging in his bed, bored and with nothing to do. And when evening came he climbed to the roof of his palace for a stroll in the fading light. It was then that a significant temptation struck. Since his house was on the highest point in the city of Jerusalem he glanced down amongst the other houses. His eyes stopped as he saw a woman bathing on her back deck. Instead of controlling his thoughts after seeing her he stayed focused on her physical beauty.
The first loss of controlling his thoughts came with the intake with his eyes that ‘he saw a woman bathing.’. His first glance was probably quite accidental as he noticed a woman bathing. But what any decent Israelite would then have done would have been to ensure that he did not, by his interest, intrude on the woman’s privacy again. To deliberately look on a woman’s nakedness was a great sin unless you were married to her (even if she was herself unmarried) to a far greater extent than it is today. It was a total betrayal of decency, and almost in terms of those days, a kind of rape, and was almost certainly punishable at law. A bored David, however, decided to ignore God’s commands concerning the matter and take a longer look, gazing because he noticed that the woman was very beautiful. In a instant David lost control of all God’s truths that he had stored in his memory. He deliberately sought to take the view all in forgetting that God had instructed how distasteful and disreputable it was. It was inexcusable.
3 So David sent and inquired about the woman. And someone said, “Is this not Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?”
After allowing the sin to grow in his mind we see that the next thing was that he enquired after the woman. He was idle. He had nothing to do. He had a harem full of beautiful women, but he was looking for something more exciting, and what more exciting than eating forbidden fruit? So, he deliberately continued his downward path.
David not only sinned by gazing at her nakedness, he went even further. For he sent for his servants and enquired about the woman and learned that she was the wife of Uriah the Hittite, one of his faithful military officers. In fact we are going to find out in an upcoming chapter that Uriah was listed with David’s special and trusted friends. That should certainly have quenched his interest, for otherwise he would be both contemplating forbidden adultery, which in any ordinary person was punishable by death, while at the same time being disloyal to one of his own officers, something which was contrary to his own deepest principles. It would thus be a heinous sin against Yahweh, and an act of gross disloyalty and treachery as well. The fact that he even considered it demonstrated his sad spiritual condition.
4 Then David sent messengers, and took her; and she came to him, and he lay with her, for she was cleansed from her impurity; and she returned to her house.
It is then stressed that he learned who she was, and that she was the wife of one of his own finest warriors who was away fighting for him in the war against Ammon, and yet he still did not hesitate. His lusts had been aroused, and he had deliberately fed them. He was no longer thinking straightly. Sin had him in its grip. There are absolutely no grounds for excusing him. He deliberately intended to do what he knew to be wrong, engage in adultery with the wife of a loyal subject and friend, and that as one who lived in a society where adultery was a major crime against Yahweh Himself. And he was himself fully aware of the law on the matter. There can be no excuse. Even a king in Israel knew that he must marry a woman before having sexual relations with her.
David thoughts now controlled him. He was not to be denied his pleasure, whoever Bathsheba’s husband might be, and in his supreme royal arrogance he sent messengers and ‘took her, and she came into him, and he lay with her’. The fact that she had just purified herself after her period only accentuates his crime. She was pure, and he took her in her purity and defiled her, and himself as well. And then ‘she returned to her house’ a despoiled woman. It was all over with the minimum of fuss. No one need ever know anything about it.
5 And the woman conceived; so, she sent and told David, and said, “I am with child.”
Then, having despoiled the woman, and having almost dismissed it from his mind (after all what was the point of being a king if you could not have what you wanted?) David went on quite happily with his life. He saw it as just a brief and fleeting incident in his life, which could now to be forgotten, almost like eating a. He seems to have made no further attempt to see Bathsheba. After all, that might have caused a scandal, and he did not want to do that. But then two or three months later he received a note from Bathsheba which shook him to the core. She was pregnant at his hands, and that certainly would cause a scandal. However, he did not foresee any serious problem. All he had to do was cover it up by calling for the loyal friend Uriah to return from the battlefield and letting him sleep with his wife. Who then could prove for certain who the father was?
Unfortunately for David there was a problem that he had not foreseen, for the woman conceived. Please notice the emphasis on her as ‘the woman’. There was nothing particularly personal about David’s action, it had just been a king misusing his position, having a fling and satisfying his lust. It was a one-night stand, which ‘the woman’ could probably have done little about. You did not argue with the king. But the fact that she had conceived made all the difference. Now she could not just be overlooked. There were bound to be repercussions (her husband might well demand the death penalty for Bathsheba) and David’s name would be soiled. Because he was the law he himself, of course, would not be called to account for his adulterous act, which would normally be punishable by death, nor would Uriah be able to do anything about him. But Uriah could, and probably would, reject any child born and divorce his wife, or have her put to death, and either way great ignominy would undoubtedly come on David. He would thus be shunned by many of his men for what they would see as a despicable act and a betrayal of a loyal servant.
6 Then David sent to Joab, saying, “Send me Uriah the Hittite.” And Joab sent Uriah to David.
The thought of all this was too much for David, so he conceived a simple plan. He would bring Uriah back to Jerusalem. Uriah would then make love to his wife, dates could be blurred, and who would then be able to say that the child was not Uriah’s? So, David sent a messenger to Joab, saying, ‘Send me Uriah the Hittite,’ and naturally Joab did just that. No one had any cause to be suspicious.
7 When Uriah had come to him, David asked how Joab was doing, and how the people were doing, and how the war prospered.
When Uriah arrived, he would report straight to David, and David enquired of him about the progress of the war. How was Joab doing? How were his people faring? How was the war going? They were simply the normal questions expected of a considerate king. Uriah probably felt honored that David had called for him. (As one of David’s mighty men he had quite possibly shared his desert adventures and been with him in Philistia).
8 And David said to Uriah, “Go down to your house and wash your feet.” So, Uriah departed from the king’s house, and a gift of food from the king followed him.
Then David told Uriah to go home and wash his feet. That is, spruce himself up and make himself comfortable after his journey. And once Uriah had left the king’s presence, David sent after him some special delicacies to demonstrate his appreciation, no doubt not forgetting to include a skin of potent wine. He did all the things that a nice king would do. And it was all a sinful scheme.
9 But Uriah slept at the door of the king’s house with all the servants of his lord and did not go down to his house.
But unfortunately for David Uriah was of a different calibre than he had expected. For when he left the king’s presence, instead of going home he went to the officers’ mess and spent the night among the serving soldiers who were guarding the palace. In his view he was still on active service, and he did not want to let his men down by enjoying luxuries while they were camping out in the rough ground around Rabbah. Nor did he want to defile himself by lying with his wife, even if it was only a temporary defilement. It was not the soldierly thing to do (1 Samuel 21.5).
10 So when they told David, saying, “Uriah did not go down to his house,” David said to Uriah, “Did you not come from a journey? Why did you not go down to your house?”
We can imagine David’s chagrin when he learned from his servants that Uriah had not gone home to his wife. And, no doubt feeling a little annoyed, he sent for Uriah and asked him why, as he had come from a journey, he had not gone home to relax? Outwardly he still appeared to be the concerned king.
11 And Uriah said to David, “The ark and Israel and Judah are dwelling in tents, and my lord Joab and the servants of my lord are encamped in the open fields. Shall I then go to my house to eat and drink, and to lie with my wife? As you live, and as your soul lives, I will not do this thing.”
Uriah’s reply should have struck David’s conscience. You can almost see Uriah standing stiffly to attention as he gives his reply. To him as a loyal officer it was inconceivable that he should enjoy the luxuries of home while the very Ark of God, and all Israel were living in tents and Joab and his fellow-officers were encamped out in the open in rough surroundings. Uriah felt so strongly about it that he asserted by an oath that there were no circumstances under which he would do it. His integrity, grit and loyalty stand in strong contrast with the king who had remained at home to enjoy his luxuries while his men went to battle.
12 Then David said to Uriah, “Wait here today also, and tomorrow I will let you depart.” So Uriah remained in Jerusalem that day and the next.
Recognizing Uriah’s call to duty and obedience David told him to remain ‘but another day’ and then he could return to his war duties. Uriah would probably think that the delay was due to the necessity to prepare dispatches. There is absolutely no hint of any suspicion on his part. But the truth was that David still had to come up with another plan. He would get Uriah drunk, and then surely, he would go home to his wife.
13 Now when David called him, he ate and drank before him; and he made him drunk. And at evening he went out to lie on his bed with the servants of his lord, but he did not go down to his house.
So later that day Uriah was invited to eat with the royal courtiers in the king’s palace, and there David ensured that he was plied with plenty of food and drink, so that he ended up at the end of the day drunk. But when night fell, drunk or not, Uriah simply returned to the guard-house with his fellow-officers. He did not go down to his house. He was probably very grateful to the king for his generosity. What a nice king. It would never have crossed his mind that by his failure to go home he was signing his own death sentence.
14 In the morning it happened that David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it by the hand of Uriah.
The next day he reported to David in accordance with what had been agreed to receive the dispatches that he would be required to take to Joab. And with them he received a personal letter to Joab, written by the king himself. (David would not want anyone to know what he had written).
Now driven almost mad by the fear that the truth might come out David then recognized that his only hope was to arrange for Uriah’s speedy death. It was the only solution to the problem, for if Uriah was not there to testify who else would query the source of the baby? He was desperate. How sin clouds the mind. But in Israel even he could not arrange people’s deaths with impunity. So he recognized that there was only one thing to do, and that was to arrange for a ‘planned accident’. Accordingly, he sent Uriah back to Joab a doomed man, bearing a note which made quite clear to Joab, under sealed military orders, what he wanted him to do. Make sure that Uriah died on the battlefield. After all, Joab was his nephew. He knew that he could trust Joab the loyal dope who never recognized that David did not like him and only used him. Thus he was seeking to implicate Joab, as well as himself, in the murder. He was making his nephew, to whom he should have been an example, into a murderer. He no doubt felt sure that Joab, the ‘hard’ man who did not waiver in killing people, would do it without a qualm. (What dreadful things people will do when they are seeking to cover up for their sins). We will later learn that on his death bed David informs his son to make sure that Joab did not die a natural death. Partly from this act might be a reason for his dying request to his son Solomon.
15 And he wrote in the letter, saying, “Set Uriah in the forefront of the hottest battle, and retreat from him, that he may be struck down and die.”
Little did Uriah know what David had written. Indeed it is a sign of how kingship and luxury had for a short while dragged David down and seared his conscience. For what the letter required of Joab was a straightforward act of treachery and murder. He was to send Uriah to the hottest part of the battlefield, and then suddenly withdraw his supporting troops leaving Uriah exposed so that he would be smitten and killed. The sheer callousness of it can only make us grow cold. Indeed, as we shall see, even the hardened Joab shrank from doing it. He was prepared to send him where the battle was fiercest, after all someone had to be sent there, but he was not prepared to betray him on the battlefield. In fact, he probably recognized how difficult it would be to persuade any of his men to do it. They would be totally unwilling to betray a good and loyal officer. How Joab must have sneered in his heart at David’s words. David had so often made him feel guilty, and now here was David doing something that even Joab shrank from.
We can learn from Joab’s act a similar reaction people make today regarding believers. They think that was the trouble with these very religious men. In the end they turned out to be worse than anyone else.
16 So it was, while Joab besieged the city, that he assigned Uriah to a place where he knew there were valiant men.
Joab obeyed half of David’s instructions. Watching the course of the fighting carefully he sent Uriah into battle where the most valiant men were fighting because it was the most dangerous place to be and that was near the walls of the city. And that would have been in accord with Uriah’s own wishes. He had proved himself that kind of man. But even Joab would not betray his comrade-in-arms on the battlefield.
17 Then the men of the city came out and fought with Joab. And some of the people of the servants of David fell; and Uriah the Hittite died also.
The battle grew hot and a party came out of the city to engage with the Israelites, and there they fought with Joab and his men, before again withdrawing inside the city gates. One of their aims was to draw the opposing troops under the city wall where they could be shot at by the archers and slingers stationed on the walls. The valiant men of Israel then obliged, and pressed up to the gates, eager to pursue the enemy. And Joab, who should have stopped them, did not do so. It is doubtful if he ordered them to pursue the enemy up to the walls, for that would have counted against him, but it is very possible that he saw what was happening and knew that he should have sounded the retreat so that his men would not come under the threat of the arrows and missiles from the walls, but deliberately delayed, having in mind what David had asked of him, in the hope that Uriah would be killed. And sure enough that was what inevitably happened. Uriah was killed. But so were many of the valiant men who were fighting alongside him. The insidious plot now had expanded to multiple murders of some of Israel’s finest warriors. That is how sin goes.
I want you to take a moment and notice how bad sin can cause a person, even one who was a close follower of the Lord. Can you see the callousness of David in his present sinful mood, a David who was no longer concerned for the lives of his men but was simply satisfied with the fact that, at the cost of a few men’s lives, he had managed to cover over his own sin so that there would be no repercussions? Whatever some may have suspected he was confident that no one knew anything for certain. Joab was aware that the king wanted Uriah punished by death, but he would not know the reason for it, although he no doubt took note of David’s subsequent marriage to Uriah’s wife. David’s personal servants no doubt knew of his affair, but they would not know of what followed. They would just think that David had been ‘lucky’ and were possibly pleased for him. But as the Holy Spirit draws out, there was One Who knew all, One Who had seen everything, and that was Almighty God, and He was not pleased at all.
18 Then Joab sent and told David all the things concerning the war, 19 and charged the messenger, saying, “When you have finished telling the matters of the war to the king, 20 if it happens that the king’s wrath rises, and he says to you: ‘Why did you approach so near to the city when you fought? Did you not know that they would shoot from the wall? 21 Who struck Abimelech the son of Jerubbesheth? Was it not a woman who cast a piece of a millstone on him from the wall, so that he died in Thebez? Why did you go near the wall?’—then you shall say, ‘Your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead also.’ ”
Joab now sent a messenger to explain to David ‘all the things concerning the war’. In them he admitted that he had made a seeming tactical error in allowing the men to fight too close to the city wall with the result that a number of men were lost. And then he suggested to the messenger that David might be angry and might cite to him the example of the woman who hurled a millstone on Abimelech when he went too close to the wall at Thebez (Judges 9.52-53).
22 So the messenger went and came and told David all that Joab had sent by him.
The messenger accordingly did as he was commanded and came to David and showed him all that Joab had sent him to relate.
23 And the messenger said to David, “Surely the men prevailed against us and came out to us in the field; then we drove them back as far as the entrance of the gate. 24 The archers shot from the wall at your servants; and some of the king’s servants are dead, and your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead also.”
He then explained what had happened. This explanation might be simply a summary of a more detailed conversation, for Joab had only told him to mention Uriah’s death if it proved necessary.
25 Then David said to the messenger, “Thus you shall say to Joab: ‘Do not let this thing displease you, for the sword devours one as well as another. Strengthen your attack against the city, and overthrow it.’ So, encourage him.”
The impression given is that David was so pleased at the news about Uriah’s death that he did not react to the news about the reason for so many fatalities. Instead he glided over the fact and treated it as a matter of course. What were a few lives if Uriah had been got rid of? This is brought out by his glibly citing a proverb, ‘the sword devours one as well as another’. Having then sent assurance to Joab, David exhorted him to intensify his attempts to take the city and to overthrow it. And he asked the messenger to ‘encourage Joab’, that is, assure him of the king’s pleasure at what he was doing, and had done.
The final sin was that when David heard of the deaths of his loyal soldiers, instead of being angry he dismissed the matter, simply because it had resulted in his foul purpose being accomplished. And this from a man who had always in the past had the greatest concern and respect for his men! And all because of a one-night stand which had resulted from his not fulfilling his duties as a king! But at least he was satisfied that the matter was now over. His secret sin was now quietly covered up and no one would ever know the truth. He could marry the woman and adopt the child. No one would ever guess. And after all he was only doing what other kings did all the time. It is a further indication of his sad state that he never even considered what Yahweh would think about the matter. It emphatically brings out that he was in a state of sad spiritual declension.
26 When the wife of Uriah heard that Uriah her husband was dead, she mourned for her husband.
When the news reached ‘the wife of Uriah’ of the death of her husband she went into the necessary period of mourning. Can you imagine the stress that was on Bathsheba? She was with child and her husband had not been home to be intimately with her yet she was pregnant. How would the word spread as to the curiosity seekers? In addition, by her participation in the adultery I am sure she recognized that her act had something to do with the death of her husband. How would she be able to offer any sacrifices to Yahweh for her sins?
27 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.
When her mourning period was over David sent for her and took her to his home and she became his wife and bore a son (the child of adultery). This would, of course, be the necessary thing to do, in order that the son might become legitimately David’s son, and it would preserve her from her shame. It also prevented Bathsheba from breathing a word to anyone about what the true situation was. David could thus now relax, confident that his secret lapse was well covered up, and that no one would ever know. It must have been a huge relief. It had taken some maneuvering, but now at last he could get on with his life.
Nn one else knew what David had done but there was One Who did know. ‘The thing that David had done displeased Yahweh.’ And yet David appears to have been oblivious, even to the possibility. It is a sad indication of David’s spiritual and moral state at this time that this thought seems never to have struck him. He had committed two crimes which according to the Law were punishable by death, and yet he appeared to be perfectly complacent. This was not a matter of a temporary lapse. It was indicative of a backslidden state of his heart at the time. It revealed that he had become complacent, had begun to feel that as king he could do what he liked, and could sweep aside Yahweh’s requirements, and that he felt that he was beyond the reach of any possible repercussions. How wrong he was now to be proved to be.
In closing we need to understand and take to heart the words ‘And the thing that David had done displeased Yahweh.’ This sentence will continue to govern his life from now on and will be reflected in the catastrophes that will fall on a few of his sons. The sins of the father will be visited on the children, not because of an arbitrary judgment, but because the father’s example will affect the behavior of his children, bringing his sins upon them. Each would behave with the same arrogance as their father, and in the end would be able to say to their father, ‘we were only following your example’ as they suffered the consequences of their sins.
