Conception, Concretization, & Consequences

[2 Sam. 11:2] And it came to pass in an evening tide, that David arose from off his bed, and walked upon the roof of the king’s house: and from the roof he saw a woman washing herself; and the woman was very beautiful to look upon.
[27] And when the mourning was past, David sent and fetched her to his house, and she became his wife, and bare him a son. But the thing that David had done displeased the LORD.
Sin is conceived in the heart and is concretized in actions in one’s life. All temptations have three aspects:
1. The object or the person who tempts the sinner appeals to the sinner as being highly desirable.
2. The sinner finds this object easily obtainable.
3. This action leads to undesirable consequences.
The Hebrews, like other Orientals, rose at daybreak, and always took a nap during the heat of the day. Afterwards they lounged in the cool of the evening on their flat-roofed terraces. It is probable that David had ascended to enjoy the open-air refreshment earlier than usual.
It is the greatness of the Bible that it speaks not only about the glorious side of its characters, but also about their darker side. It speaks both about the good and the bad in its characters, yet of course, often with a certain amount of theological bias. The Deuteronomic historian, who step by step builds up the image of David as an ideal king, is not guilty of covering up David’s weaker side; this certainly adds to the credibility of the account. Here are the bare facts of an account without any toning down or touching up. There is so much realism in the report which exposes the basic nature of David – an ordinary man, vulnerable to human temptations, unscrupulous and crafty in removing any barriers that block his plans and in getting things don in his own way. This account is also meant to affirm G-d’s promise to David regarding his throne, that the L-rd will not take His steadfast love from him, but will chasten the king with the stripes of the sons of men when he commits iniquity (7:14-16).
A sinner is often taken unawares by the impulsive nature of temptation so that it blinds his eyes from its consequences. It is for this reason that Y’Shua warned His disciples to ‘watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation’.) Mat. 26:41 and also taught them to pray, saying ‘lead us not into temptation’ (Matt. 6:13).
Most of the houses in Palestine were built with a flat mud roof, with a staircase leading to it from outside (1 Sam. 9:25). Because it was the palace of the king, the roof of David’s house would probably have been the highest in that area, so that from there he could look down into the open bathroom in the open space of the neighboring house.
Bathsheba’s husband is away and David’s royal authority is to his advantage; when David sends messengers to fetch Bathsheba, she goes with them without any protest because the men have come with the authority of the king. So he orders Bathsheba to come to his house, and has sexual intercourse with her. Bathsheba was purifying herself from her uncleanness in David’s house, probably because she had her menstrual period, while she was there. It is not said how long her cleansing should take; perhaps it was for seven days, as required by the Law regarding menstruation (Lev. 15:19).
The despotic kings of the East, when they take a fancy for a woman, send officers to the house were she lives, who announces it to be the royal pleasure she should remove to the palace. An apartment is there assigned to her; and if she is made queen, the monarch orders the announcement to be made that he has made choice of her to be queen. Many instances in modern Oriental history show the ease and dispatch with which such secondary marriages are contracted, and a new beauty added to the royal seraglio. But David had to make a promise, or rather an express stipulation, to Bath-sheba, before she complied with the royal will (1 Kings 1:13,15,17,28); for in addition to her transcendent beauty, she appears to have been a woman of superior talents and address in obtaining the object of her ambition; in her securing that her son should succeed on the throne; in her promptitude to give notice of her pregnancy; in her activity in defeating Adonijah’s natural expectation of succeeding to the crown; in her dignity as the king’s mother in all this we see very strong indications of the power she gained and maintained over David, who, perhaps, had ample leisure and opportunity to discover the punishment of this unhappy connection in more ways than one.
She knows what would happen to her if the public came to know that she had conceived outside her marital relationship. According to the Law, those who are involved in adultery – both man and the woman – must be stoned to death (Lev. 20:10). David must act quickly. In taking another man’s wife, David had used his royal authority without rhyme or reason. Sin leads on to undesirable consequences. Sin breeds further sins; in order to hide one sin, the sinner commits more sins. This is what is illustrated in David’s life. David first attempts to cover up Bathsheba’s conception by making it appear as normal through her marital relations with her husband. David orders a compulsory holiday for Uriah and tries to persuade him to go to his house and sleep with his wife.
It is customary for servants to sleep in the porch or long gallery; and the guards of the Hebrew king did the same. Whatever his secret suspicions might have been, Uriah’s refusal to indulge in the enjoyment of domestic pleasure, and his determination to sleep “at the door of the king’s house,” arose from a high and honorable sense of military duty and propriety (v. 11). But, doubtless, the resolution of Uriah was overruled by that Providence which brings good out of evil, and which has recorded this sad episode for the warning of the church.
Uriah as a loyal citizen cannot enjoy life for himself when the nation is in an emergency, with the ark and Israel and Judah dwelling in booths and his lord Joab and other fellow servants camping in the open field. (v.11), Uriah had morals and respect for his men.
David then makes a second attempt to send Uriah to his wife. This time he tries to make Uriah drunk, in the hope that in the state of drunkenness Uriah might go and have sex with his wife. But here again Uriah disappoints David. David plunges still deeper into the darkness of sin. Having failed in his attempt to make Uriah appear responsible for the child in Bathsheba’s womb, he now conceives a heinous plot to eliminate the innocent Uriah, so that there will not be anyone to refute the claim that the child is Uriah’s.
David wrote down his secret plan for Joab and has Uriah deliver it. Note the irony of the tragedy! Uriah carries his own death sentence! David devises the plan to have Uriah killed on the battlefield, and orders Joab to execute it. Uriah is to be set in the forefront of the hottest battle. In order to have Uriah killed without arousing the suspicion of people; Joab must put him in the front along with other servants of David. His fellow soldiers are to draw back from him, then he may be struck down, and die. Joab thus becomes the accomplice in David’s crime. The sinner does not stop with sinning himself, but implicates others also in his sin. In this way David sold himself to Joab; this may be one reason why David was afraid of Joab (3:39).
The various arts and stratagems by which the king tried to coax Uriah, till at last he resorted to the horrid crime of murder the cold-blooded cruelty of dispatching the letter by the hands of the brave but much-wronged soldier himself, the enlistment of Joab to be a partaker of his sin, the heartless affectation of mourning, and the indecent haste of his marriage with Bath-sheba have left an indelible stain upon the character of David, and exhibit a painfully humiliating proof of the awful lengths to which the best of men may go when they forfeit the restraining grace of G-d. Getting near the city wall where the enemy can attack from above could appear as a tactical mistake in warfare; therefore a redactor could have inserted verses 20-21 in its present context to show that Joab was aware of the danger, yet purposely acted as he did to get Uriah killed.
Love for G-d and love to mankind goes together; one without the other is not possible. As such, David’s love to G-d should have been reflected in his relationships to his fellow humans, and most especially to his subjects. In this then David failed.
David’s sin is of a much greater nature both in quality and quantity, aroused his conscience, and brought him to his knees. The sincerity and depth of his repentant sorrow are evinced by the Psalms he composed (Psalms 32:1-11, 51:1-19, 103:1-22). He was pardoned, so far as related to the restoration of the divine favor. But as from his high character for piety, and his important rank in society, his unpardonable fall was calculated to do great injury to the cause of religion, it was necessary that G-d should testify His hatred of sin by leaving even His own servant to reap the bitter temporal fruits. David was not himself doomed, according to his own view of what justice demanded; but he had to suffer a quadruple expiation in the successive deaths of four sons, besides a lengthened train of other evils.
See what one night of ‘pleasure’ can result to – is it worth the price you will have to pay?