2 Samuel 11: David Commits Adultery
“The spirit which characterized later Nebuchadnezzar when he walked in his palace (Daniel 4:4 ) puffed up with pride, which preceded his great humiliation, was no doubt David’s spirit also. Had he remained in the presence of the Lord, humble and depending on Him, as we saw him after the Lord had spoken through Nathan (7:18) this awful sin would not have happened. How often it has been repeated in the experiences of God’s people! Nor did this great sin like a mighty giant ensnare him suddenly. The way for it had been prepared. He had given way to the flesh before in taking wives and concubines.” (A. Gaebelein)
“The battle at Medeba took place in the autumn, and, as it was impossible to keep the field with winter so near, Joab marched back to Jerusalem, intending ‘in the spring’ to return to the siege of Rabbah,’ at spring time, when there is store of food and forage to be had.” (Trapp)’ that David sent Joab and his servants with him, and all Israel.’ that is, an army gathered from all the tribes....” (The Pulpit Commentary), composed of the able men.
“‘And they destroyed the people of Ammon and besieged Rabbah’ with the help of Jehovah of Hosts. “The text of 1 Chronicles 20:1, reads, ‘wasted the country of the children of Ammon’, and this was probably the original reading here; for if Joab had destroyed the Ammonites why should he besiege their city?” (Daniel Whedon) And how, could they serve him?
David was tired and took the king’s prerogative. “‘David tarried at Jerusalem’ - Our most difficult times are not when things are going hard. Hard times create dependent people. You don’t get proud when you’re dependent on God. Survival keeps you humble. Pride happens when everything is swinging in your direction. When you’ve just received that promotion, when you look back and you can see an almost spotless record in the last number of months or years, when you’re growing in prestige and fame and significance, that’s the time to watch out… Our greatest battles don’t usually come when we’re working hard; they come when we have some leisure, when we’ve got time on our hands, when we’re bored." (Swindoll)
"The Syrians being subdued, the war with Ammon was not of sufficient moment to require David’s personal presence.” (Albert Barnes) He had been a part of the real work in the main campaign. “The spring, when the late rain has stopped (symbolic of the Spirit), is the time for military action to be taken again. For David it means that the time has come to defeat Moab definitively. But instead of going out at the head of the army, he stays at home and [serves the flesh. And thus, he] sends ‘Joab and the whole people.’ It seems that he spent the whole day in bed, because we read that ‘when evening came David arose from his bed.” (2) (G. de Koning)
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.”
“This palace was on the height of Mount Zion, and looked down upon the open courts of the houses in the lower city. [But there was a low tide.] In one of these he saw a beautiful woman bathing. In the courts of the houses it was common to have a basin of water, and the place was probably entirely concealed from every other point of observation than the roof of the palace, from which no harm was suspected.” (C. J. Ellicott) I believed that Bathsheba was righteous. “‘For she was purified from her uncleanness; this clause is added in a parenthesis, partly to show the reason of her washing herself, which was not for health and pleasure, and to cool herself in a hot day, but to purify herself from her menstruous pollution, according to the law in Leviticus 15:19; the term of her separation being expired, she returned her house.” (John Gill)
"Instead of suppressing that desire which the sight of his eyes had kindled, he seeks rather to feed it; and first enquires who she was; that if she were unmarried, he might make her either his wife or his concubine.” (John Wesley)— "And someone said, 'Is this not Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?’— Who was not an born an Israelite, but converted to the true religion.” (Geneva Study Bible) Uriah was faithful man to Israel. His “name appears (2 Sam 23:39) in the list of David’s thirty chief heroes, and the whole story represents him as a brave and noble-minded soldier. David had now given rein to his guilty passion [of adding to his concubines] so far that the knowledge of Bath-sheba’s being a married woman, and the wife of one of his chief warriors, does not check him.” (C. J. Ellicott)
David sent messengers, "'and took her; and she came to him, and he lay with her,’ etc. It need scarcely be pointed out, how this truthful account of the sins of Biblical heroes evinces the authenticity and credibility of the Scriptural narratives. Far different are the legendary accounts which seek to palliate the sins of Biblical personages, or even to deny their guilt.” (A. Edersheim) “David may have hoped that this was the end of the matter, but God intervened in His righteous government. Bathsheba sent word to David that she had become pregnant (v.5).” (L. M. Grant) “Adultery was punishable with death.” (Keil) It is implied: “Consider therefore what to do for thy own honour, and for my safety, whom thou hast brought into a most shameful and dangerous condition.” (Matthew Poole)
2 Samuel 10: David Contrives to Conceal-
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.”
"The only recorded speech of Bathsheba, brief though it is [‘I am pregnant,’ 2 Samuel 11:5], sets in motion a course of action which ultimately results in her husband’s death." (Lawlor) Then David speaks: “’Send me Uriah the Hittite.’ As before, like the devil, Mat 13:25 he had sowed another man’s ground, so now he would fain father upon him his bastardly brood, intrudens filium suum in agros Uriae, thrusting his son into Uriah’s inheritance.” (Trapp)
“Uriah, we may suppose, had now been absent from his wife some weeks, making the campaign in the country of the Ammonites, and not intending to return till the end of it.“ (Matthew Henry) “David's design was that he should go and lie with his wife, that the child now conceived should pass for his, the honour of Bath-sheba be screened, and his own crime concealed.” (Adam Clarke) “The offspring of sin is sin. What cunningness and deception followed. But honest Uriah frustrates his wicked plan.” (Arno Gaebelein)
Uriah the Hittite— "Uriah’s name [‘Yahweh is my light’] turns out to be Yahwist, after all.” (Joel Rosenberg) “When David lets Uriah come to him and asks why he did not go home, Uriah speaks the language of faith, the language of a faithful and dedicated believer.” (G. de Koning) “And Uriah said to David, ‘The ark and Israel and Judah are dwelling in tents,’ etc. Some think that after its arrival in Jerusalem that the Israelites still took the ark to war to lead them. There is no proof of this. That was the place of the priest with the Urim and Thummim. Rather, “‘the ark (of God) abide in tents.’ The ark while in exile had acquired so much glory, that the army would not take the field without it.” (Joseph Sutcliffe) What a speech and what a man! The sons of Israel were living in tent and risking their lives for their country. God did not allow the king to build Him a permanent house. Nor would Uriah sleep in his own house during the conflict. “In the heart of the imperial phalanges we find an orthodox Israelite, quietly observing the wartime soldier’s ban against conjugal relations (cf. 1 Samuel 21:4-7).” (Joel Rosenberg, King and Kin: Political Allegory in the Hebrew Bible)
“Astonishingly, this Hittite mentions the covenant symbol before everything else that has influenced his behaviour. He is aware also of his solidarity with the fighting men at the front, over whom he will not steal an advantage. Both of these considerations applied even more forcibly to the king, who had final responsibility for the war, and had laid much stress on covenant loyalty himself, but now a foreigner is showing him to be despicably lax." (Baldwin, p. 233.) “The despicableness of the king’s behaviour contrasts with the noble figure of the wronged Uriah, several times referred to as ’the Hittite’ (2 Samuel 11:3, 6, 17, 24), as if to emphasize that, whereas the king of Israel was so obviously lacking in principle [in this matter], the same could not be said of this foreigner.” (Gordon, pp. 253-54.])
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.
David’s next plan was to get Uriah drunk hoping that in that condition he would return home to sleep with his wife (2 Samuel 11:13). But again David underestimated Uriah.” (Dr. Thomas B. Constable) “This fresh attempt of David to conceal his crime by attempting to send Uriah to his house while in a state of intoxication does not need comment, but Uriah’s resolve was so strong that it still governed his conduct while in this almost irresponsible condition.” (C. J. Ellicott) “Sober David was far worse, here, than drunken Uriah.” (F. B. Meyer)
The testimony of the Uriah's words and deeds in thwarting David's plans should have pricked David's conscience. No doubt David hardened his heart against the truth.
2 Samuel 11: David Commits Murder
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.
David had fallen and falls yet further. “Except God continually uphold us with his mighty Spirit, the most perfect fall headlong into all vice and abomination.” (Geneva Study Bible)
“‘In the morning it happened that David wrote a letter to Joab,’ not with black, but with blood.” “And he ordered Uriah to carry his own death warrant to Joab (2 Samuel 11:14-15). Compare wicked Queen Jezebel’s similar action in 1 Kings 21:9-11.” (Dr. Thomas B Constable)
“‘Set Uriah in the forefront of the hottest battle, and retreat from him, that he may be struck down and die.’ Joab must have smiled grimly to himself when he received his master’s letter. ‘This king of ours can sing psalms with the best, but I have to do his dirty work. He wants to rid himself of Uriah-I wonder why? Well, I’ll help him to it. At any rate, he will not be able to talk to me about Abner!’ 2 Samuel 3:27 .” (F. B. Meyer)… nor any other deed that I might do in the future against the law of the LORD.
“But ah, how changed! Is this he that executed judgment and justice to all his people? How can he now do so unjust a thing?… David prayed for himself, that he might not fall into the hands of man, nor flee from his enemies (2 Samuel 24:13-14); yet he sells his servant Uriah to the Ammonites, and not for any iniquity in his hand.” (Henry) “David has lost his mind through his adultery (Pro 6:32). He killed Goliath in broad daylight and before the eyes of all the people. He secretly lets the murder of Uriah happen, as a work of darkness.” (G. de Koning)
“Then Joab sent and told David all the things concerning the war,” “etc. (18) David only wanted Uriah to die, but he “was really responsible for their death, too.” (Dr. Thomas B Constable) The Septuagint (LXX) has a somewhat fuller account of this episode, and from it we learn that the number of the slain was eighteen men,[20] all eighteen of them murdered (their death was nothing else than murder) by the express command of David and the expert compliance with his order on the part of Joab.” (Coffman Commentary) David might question Joab’s tactics but Joab places the blame on David’s head. “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?’ etc. “Joab assumed that David might express his displeasure at the fact that Joab had sacrificed a number of his warriors by approaching close to the wall, if such should be the case, to announce Uriah’s death to the king, for the purpose of mitigating bis wrath.” (Keil)
“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’ (25a); officers as well as soldiers the strong as well as the weak, the valiant and courageous as well as the more timorous; the events of war are various and uncertain, and to be submitted to, and not repined at, and laid to heart. David's heart being hardened by sin, made light of the death of his brave soldiers, to which he himself was accessory; his conscience was very different now from what it was when he cut off the skirt of Saul's robe, and his heart in a different frame from that in which he composed the lamentation over Saul and Jonathan— ‘Now, make thy battle more strong against the city, and overthrow it’; more closely besiege it, more vigorously attack it; assault it, endeavour to take it by storm, and utterly destroy it, razing the very foundations of it: ‘and encourage thou him’; which words are either said to the messenger to encourage and animate Joab in David's name…” (John Gill) “One as well as another,’ i.e., “Though Uriah was a brave hero whom we could ill spare, yet in the fortune of war we cannot choose who shall fall. Notwithstanding this loss, let Joab go on with a good heart.” (C. J. Ellicott)
“The various arts and stratagems by which the king tried to cajole Uriah, until at last he resorted to the horrid crime of murder, the cold-blooded cruelty of despatching the letter by the hands of the gallant 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 want the restraining grace of God.” (Jamieson, Fausset, Brown)
“‘And when the wife of Uriah heard that Uriah, her husband, was dead, she mourned for her husband.’ There is something pathetic in this repetition of the name of the murdered man, and his close relationship with Bathsheba is dwelt upon by his being twice called ‘her husband,’ and she ‘Uriah's wife.’ Having been the cause of his murder, she is careful to make for him the customary mourning. How long it lasted is uncertain. The mourning for Aaron (Numbers 20:29) and that for Moses (Deuteronomy 34:8) were each for thirty days; while that for Jacob at Atad (Genesis 50:10) and that of the men of Jabesh-Gilead for Saul (1 Samuel 31:13) lasted only for seven days. Both these, however, were under such exceptional circumstances as made them no rule; but in Ecclesiasticus 22:12 we read, ‘Seven days do men mourn for him that is dead,’ and the national lamentation for Judith lasted the same time (Judith 16:24). Probably, however, the mourning of a widow for her husband would last a month.” (The Pulpit Commentaries)— “’And when the mourning was past, David,’ still with the same passionate desire for the woman as before, sent and’ fetched her to his house, and she became his wife, and bare him a son,’ the child begotten in adultery.” (Paul E. Kretzmann)
“‘But the thing that David had done displeased the LORD.’ (27b) These were overt transgressions of the Commandments of God. “To our mind there is nothing in all that man has written so terribly emphatic as the quiet sentence which the historian inserts at the end of his account of these sad transactions.” (Kitto) “‘The thing that David had done,’ i.e. his adultery and murder, as is evident from the next chapter.” (Poole)
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