Bathsheba

I didn't write much in January and it was largely beca^use I spent most of my free time working on a lesson for our PWOC's January series on the five women in the genealogy of Christ. In lieu of January blog posts, here is my lesson on Bathsheba:  

Last week, Kristen spoke to us about stories: the elements of a story and why the stories matter to us. The stories in the Bible shape our faith and, in the case of our family stories, they point to who we are…just as the genealogy of Christ tells us who HE is. Today, we will look at another story that shapes who we are and how we understand Christ. She is listed in Matthew as simply the Wife of Uriah, bur she is Bathsheba.

I love that Kristen spoke about stories because that has been the question on my heart since receiving this assignment: Five women were included in the Genealogy. Since this is a clear break from what would be typical of the time…there must be something important that these stories impart. What does the writer want me to learn, to understand and to take away from this story? What does it tell me about Christ and about myself? (I also questioned what I was doing with this task, but that’s a story for another day!)

If you have spent any time at all with me…you know I love to talk. I love stories and I love details…when I meet someone, I want to know their story. I want to sit down and ask them where are you from, WHO you area, who you used to be, where you are going, what you want to do, what makes you happy and WHY. But, that’s a bit intense so I try to refrain myself and act normal. I felt the same way about Bathsheba…WHO was she? What REALLY happened? How did she feel? What did she say? What did she wear? (Nothing, apparently?!)

When I began this study, I honestly thought I KNEW her story already. Bathsheba: adulteress, cheated on her husband with King David, husband was killed, lost the baby and then married King David. Seriously, if it’s not right out of Army Wives: Old Testament Edition, I’m not sure what would be. BUT, like so many stories we hear. I knew the basics but lacked a full understanding. I opened up my Bible and read her story…as Kristen said: with NEW eyes. I wasn’t reading this story to focus on David’s sin and repentance…I wanted to know about Bathsheba and her experience.

I’m going to read the first part of her story from 2 Samuel, Chapter 11…you can follow along or just listen, but try to focus on what we are given about HER.

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.
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, 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.” Then David sent messengers to get her. She came to him, and he slept with her. (Now she was purifying herself from her monthly uncleanness.) Then she went back home. The woman conceived and sent word to David, saying, “I am pregnant.”

I’m going to just briefly summarize the rest of Chapter 11, because it’s more about David than about Bathsheba. Basically, David decides to hide his tracks. He summons Uriah from the front. Wines him, dines him and sends him home for the night, hoping he’ll spend some quality time with his wife. Uriah is an honorable soldier and it doesn’t work. He sleeps outside on the ground since that’s where his soldiers are. King David tries again and again, it doesn’t work. So, he goes with plan B: send Uriah to the front lines, mount a tactically bad assault and hope he is killed. This is exactly what happens, so King David then plays the benevolent and caring leader, and takes his loyal soldier’s widow under his protection, as wife.

When I looked for answers about Bathsheba, I was frustrated. There wasn’t much about her. In Matthew, she is referred to simply as the “Wife of Uriah.” I dug through Chronicles, Kings and Psalms…not much. I discovered it was very hard to separate her from David’s story because they are so intertwined. But: I really felt that if God felt it important that she be listed in the genealogy of Christ, then it must be for a reason so I needed to focus on her!

Here’s what the Bible gives us, in this order:
She’s bathing outside
She’s really attractive
She’s married
She’s summoned by Messengers to King David
She sleeps with King David
She becomes pregnant
She sends a message to King David
She is widowed and mourns.
She becomes King David’s wife
She gives birth to a son
She loses her son
She gives birth to another son.

I don’t know about you but I have a whoooooole lot of questions that are unanswered. There are a lot of connections there that are not made. For example, WHY did she do it? Did she WANT to sleep with King David? Did she know King David summoned her husband? Did she even see her husband while he was back? Did she know King David was plotting to kill her husband? Did she want to become his wife?

How should we understand her story?

In my quest for answers, I discovered that there are several different interpretations about her story. I’ll deal with the two extremes and then tell you what I think.

First is the view that I thought I knew. She was adulteress. She tempted King David by bathing in view and wanted a liaison with a king. Her sins were immodesty, lust and adultery. Pretty straight forward, except that 2Samuel 11:27 says: “…But the thing David had done displeased the Lord.” David. Not David and Bathsheba. God delivers a message to David through the prophet Nathan in 2 Samuel, Chapter 12.

First, Nathan came to David with a parable of a rich man and a poor man. The rich man had a huge flock of sheep and the poor man had but one little ewe that he cared for tenderly. The rich man took the poor man’s ewe. When David hears this, he burns with anger and declares the man that has done this should be put to death. He demands to know who did this deed and this is Nathan’s reply:

Nathan then said to David, “You are the man! Thus says the LORD God of Israel, ‘It is I who anointed you king over Israel and it is I who delivered you from the hand of Saul. ‘I also gave you your master’s house and your master’s wives into your care, and I gave you the house of Israel and Judah; and if that had been too little, I would have added to you many more things like these! ‘Why have you despised the word of the LORD by doing evil in His sight? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword, have taken his wife to be your wife, and have killed him with the sword of the sons of Ammon.‘Now therefore, the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised Me and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife.’ “Thus says the LORD, ‘Behold, I will raise up evil against you from your own household; I will even take your wives before your eyes and give them to your companion, and he will lie with your wives in broad daylight. ‘Indeed you did it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel, and under the sun.’”

It’s a pretty scathing condemnation, right? But Bathsheba, is only mentioned briefly. Through it all, and at David’s own admission in verse 13, it is David that has sinned against the Lord. Not Bathsheba.

Some of what I read indicated that she was behaving immodestly by bathing outside, but, at this time in history, that wouldn’t have been unusual. Though archeologists and historians still argue over the exact location of David’s palace, there are a few things that they can agree on. Ancient homes in Jerusalem were typically built with a walled-in courtyard where bathing was normally done. Bathing was typically done in the evening, just after sunset. If this is true, then what she was doing wasn’t that unusual and there was some expectation of privacy. Archeologists also believe that the palace was on a hill (I read a very interesting a series of reports making an argument that the palace was located north of the area known as the City of David and just outside the city wall…) Regardless, 2Samuel mentions “going down” to Uriah’s house several times in this narrative, which seems to support the elevation of the palace. The homes of those important would have been just down the hill, relatively close to the palace. Uriah was one of the 30-or so members of the Royal Guard, elite fighters and some who may have been with him since he fled Saul, so he certainly would have had a certain status and likely lived in close proximity to the castle. So…it would appear that Bathsheba was doing nothing out of the ordinary in her bathing routine. In fact, the way the account is given in 1 Samuel, it appears David is the one out of routine, since he failed to go to war that spring and is out wandering the rooftops instead of attending to his duties.

The opposite of this is the view that she was raped. I read a couple of very long and technical [also rather boring] articles that basically put forth the argument that she was “taken” against her will. The articles studied the Hebrew verbs used in the passages describing these events and compared them to typical usage of the time. Their conclusion is that the verb choices imply she was an unwilling partner. Confession time: I don’t read Hebrew. Nor am I a historian. So, I can’t offer my own interpretation of the verbs. However, from what I read of those refuting this theory, the weak link in these arguments and interpretation of Bathsheba’s story is that verbs used are NOT the same verbs used in the rape of Dinah in Genesis. What I can say is that from the preponderance of literature, it appears this does not appear to be a widely held belief.

For me…I don’t necessarily have a Scriptural basis for this because there simply isn’t much about how Bathsheba felt about the situation. But, as an Army spouse, left alone for days, weeks and months by my Soldier…I can imagine how things might have unfolded and how she might have felt. As Army spouses here, I feel like we should take a moment here to pause and make not of the cautionary tale that can be gleaned from Bathsheba. Husband is deployed; we’re home alone for days, weeks, months...waiting. Someone offers a kind word, a small gesture or a bit of flattery. Ladies, I spent my husband’s first deployment alone and pregnant. I worked full-time and slept the rest. It was during the surge so my husband wasn’t able to call me more than once every four to six weeks for about five minutes. My boss at work was my age, we shared hobbies – scuba diving, motorcycles, etc. She was expecting their first child and I was expecting my first child….we talked quite a bit about pregnancies, children, and plans for the future for our respective families. It was purely platonic but I came to a hard realization one day when I caught myself thinking “Oh, I’ve got to tell him about…” whatever pregnancy related thing I had discovered. I looked forward to sharing a story about my pregnancy with a friend, who was a man, my boss and had a wife of his own….not my husband. Do you see where this could have been dangerous? I was lonely and had lost focus…I missed the sharing and companionship from my husband and it could have lead down a dangerous path. When I realized this, I created an online pregnancy journal to record my baby stories for whenever my husband had time to read them and dove into social activities with my girlfriends outside of the office. I never made that mistake again. I have a heart for Bathsheba. Maybe she meant to be a loyal wife. Maybe she was lonely. Maybe she made a mistake. I don’t know and I can’t condone it but I can see where the path of loneliness and distance from her spouse could lead.

I must say that I struggled with this for a couple of weeks. Did she or Didn’t she? Was she an aggressor or a victim? Guilty or innocent? I felt like these labels were necessary to my understanding and to discovering whatever it was that I was supposed to learn from her situation. I was miffed that I didn’t get MORE of her story from the Bible and I wanted to know why. You see…the Bible is God’s word to us. We operate on a Need to Know basis. God tells us everything we NEED to know. And he tells us it WHEN we need to know it. So, if the Bible doesn’t have the gory details about Bathsheba’s story, it’s because we don’t need to know. It doesn’t matter.

In the end, it doesn’t matter.

It doesn’t matter what she did or what she didn’t do.

Either she was a temptress, a seductress that strayed from her marriage bed or she was victimized by rape. Neither one was a “good” thing or easier to bear. If she was reluctant but not unwilling, well…it’s still the same end result, isn’t it? It was a bad situation or it was a bad situation.

This, my sweet sisters, is the beautiful part of Bathsheba’s story. Regardless of how she got there, she was in the middle of a train-wreck. She’d had relations with a man not her husband. She’d become pregnant, widowed, remarried and a grieving mother…all in the span of no more than nine months. (She needed at least 30 days to figure out she was pregnant and the baby was likely not more than a week or so old when he died.)

How would you feel in this situation? Despair? Heartache? Regret? Anger? Resentment? Grief? Like you had turned away from God? Like God had abandoned you?

Bathsheba, though wife to the King, was ashamed, humiliated, rejected, dishonored. And that was just what she felt publicly. Can you imagine what she felt in her heart, where she knew the TRUTH of the sin? She had been widowed, claimed by the King and then lost her infant son. In this time, to lose a male child was not just a death to grieve, it was a sign that you were somehow “less than” in God’s eyes. She was not favored…among the King’s wives and concubine’s her status would have been pretty low. I can’t say whether or not David shared Nathan’s condemnation with her. But, I am confident that she knew and felt, to her core, that she was in a union that had been condemned by God…a union born of sin and lust. Surely, nothing good could come out of that.

And yet…we know otherwise because we know the ending. She is chronicled for all time among those one who carried the royal line to Christ, the Redeemer of Sin, the one who sheds his blood to cover our sin and redeem our souls.

She gave birth to Solomon. In 2 Samuel 12:25 it says “The Lord loved him,” This child, born of a sinful union that had brought down God’s judgment had brought forth a child so precious that he was called Jedidiah, which means Beloved of God and child that becomes a great King, renowned for his wisdom.

2Samuel is very skimpy on the details of the time after the death of her son and the birth of Solomon. It says “David comforted Bathsheba and lay with her.” It doesn’t even say how long it might have been, though in my reading one author speculated that it was probably around five years. Bathsheba, in a union born of sin and condemnation has been redeemed with the birth of Solomon and a blessing from God. Later on, in Kings, she is portrayed as faithful to David and the kingdom and an influential force in the Kingdom. She uses her influence to prevent a coup as David lay in his deathbed. Does this sound like the same woman we described earlier? The woman that could be a temptress? A victim? Or a lonely misguided spouse?

I can’t tell you precisely what happened to Bathsheba in those five years between the events described in Chapter 11 and 12. I can’t describe the journey that Bathsheba took from adultery, shame and grief to faithful wife and mother of a beloved child. I don’t have all the answers to this because it simply isn’t there. I can only believe that God decided we don’t need the play by play gory details of Bathsheba’s journey through grief, regret and sin to redemption since we can see David’s condemnation and judgment. It’s enough to know that it’s here…she is redeemed: Solomon is born and the royal line continues to Christ.

For me, Bathsheba’s story is one of HOPE and REDEMPTION. It is nothing less than miraculous. Merriam-Webster defines Redeem as:
to free from what distresses or harms:
to free from captivity by payment of ransom
to extricate from or help to overcome something detrimental
to release from blame or debt
to free from the consequences of sin
to change for the better
repair, restore
to free from a lien by payment of an amount secured
to remove the obligation of by payment
to make good :
to atone for
to offset the bad effect of
to make worthwhile

With the birth of Solomon, God redeemed Bathsheba from the wreckage that her life had become. God conquered her circumstances, her sin, her trials and her mistake, whatever they may have been to accomplish his purpose: sending Christ to us. He turns her train-wreck into His greatest Gift to us all…Jesus Christ. How beautiful is that?

Bathsheba’s story gives us a clue buried in Matthew’s genealogy that Christ REDEEMS. We don’t even need to read the rest of the Gospel to know that this child born of this line is sent to REDEEM us.

I’d like to close with a moment of reflection. We all are Bathsheba. We all have a “big ugly” in our lives, something we carry with us and that weighs us down…at one time or another. I can absolutely assure you that I fail, every day…even every hour…in big and small ways to live my life the way God proscribes. My entire life, I have struggled with anger. Oh ladies, I have an ugly green monster that lives inside and some days I fear it will destroy me. I spend hours agonizing over the hurt my sin causes those around me, just as the sin of David and Bathsheba hurt those around them, including Uriah, the comrades that fell with him and their newborn son. I can’t tell you that I have conquered it…yet. But, we know that it took Bathsheba at least five years. I have HOPE that my story is not finished. Each day brings a new beginning and a new chance to write the next part of my story. This is not a question you must answer out loud but take a moment to quietly reflect before we pray. WHAT is your “big ugly?” Have you put it in God’s hands to redeem, to transform for his purposes? Do you have circumstances that you need God’s redemption? Do you have sin burdening you? I have scars on my heart and on my soul that I fear will never fade. I believe my harsh words and anger has left scars on the hearts of those I love. I hang onto the promise of Christ’s redemption show here in Bathsheba’s story as my HOPE for the future. Christ has redeemed me. Over and over and over. This is my hope that God can conquer the big ugly of my sin…He can change the damage my sin has caused to achieve his purposes. God can conquer this…Christ has redeemed us…even the worst we have to offer