Verses 18-27
David Gladly Receives The News That Uriah Is Dead And Weds Bathsheba, But Is Blissfully Unaware Of The Dark Shadow That Is Hanging Over Him (2 Samuel 11:18-27 ).
The writer now skilfully highlights the callousness of David in his present 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. Even that, however, could have been an act of compassion, a taking of her under his protection because of Uriah’s past loyalty. David’s personal servants no doubt knew of his dalliance, 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 writer draws out, there was One Who knew all, One Who had seen everything, and that was YHWH, and He was not pleased at all. The writer puts in one succint sentence the explanation for all the catastrophes that will follow, ‘But the thing that David had done displeased YHWH.’
Analysis.
a Then Joab sent and told David all the things concerning the war, and he charged the messenger, saying, “When you have made an end of telling all the things concerning the war to the king, it shall be that, if the king’s wrath arise, and he say to you, “Why did you go near to the city to fight? Did you not know that they would shoot from the wall? Who smote Abimelech the son of Jerubbesheth? Did not a woman cast an upper millstone on him from the wall, so that he died at Thebez? Why did you go so near the wall?” (2 Samuel 11:18-21 a).
b “Then shall you say, Your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead also” (2 Samuel 11:21 b).
c So the messenger went, and came and showed David all that Joab had sent him for (2 Samuel 11:22).
d And the messenger said to David, “The men prevailed against us, and came out to us into the open, and we were on them even to the entrance of the gate. And the archers shot at your servants from off the wall, and some of the king’s servants are dead, and your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead also” (2 Samuel 11:23-24).
c Then David said to the messenger, “Thus shall you say to Joab, ‘Do not let this thing upset you, for the sword devours one as well as another. Make your battle more strong against the city, and overthrow it,’ and do you encourage him” (2 Samuel 11:25).
b And when the wife of Uriah heard that Uriah her husband was dead, she made lamentation for her husband (2 Samuel 11:26).
a And when the mourning was past, David sent and took her home to his house, and she became his wife, and bore him a son. But the thing that David had done displeased YHWH (2 Samuel 11:27).
Note that in ‘a’ Joab is concerned lest David is displeased with what he has done and might cite a woman as the cause of his displeasure, a woman who caused the death of Ahimelech, and in the parallel David takes a woman for himself, a woman who has caused the death of Uriah, and is no doubt pleased with what he has done, but causes YHWH great displeasure (and YHWH will later cite the woman as being the cause of His displeasure). In ‘b’ the news is to given that Uriah the Hittite is dead, and in the parallel Uriah’s wife hears that Uriah is dead and laments the fact. In ‘c’ the messenger comes to David with Joab’s message, and in the parallel he returns to Joab with David’s message. Central in ‘d’ comes the news that Uriah is dead, along with the description of what caused Uriah’s death.
‘Then Joab sent and told David all the things concerning the war, and he charged the messenger, saying, “When you have made an end of telling all the things concerning the war to the king, it shall be that, if the king’s wrath arise, and he say to you, “Why did you go near to the city to fight? Did you not know that they would shoot from the wall? Who smote Abimelech the son of Jerubbesheth? Did not a woman cast an upper millstone on him from the wall, so that he died at Thebez? Why did you go so near the wall?”
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 (see Judges 9:52-53). This would suggest either that that story was regularly used as an illustration in the training of troops for siege warfare (why otherwise would Joab expect it to be cited?), or that Joab suspected that David’s request had been to do with a woman, thereby indicating that just as Abimelech had been slain by a woman when he went too near the walls, so had these men basically been slain by a woman when they went too near the walls of Rabbah.
“Abimelech the son of Jerubbesheth.” Jerubbesheth is, of course, the same as Jerubbaal (Judges 8:35). Thus we have here another example of where ‘baal’ in a name is replaced by ‘bosheth’, as with Esh-baal and Meri-baal who became Ishbosheth and Mephibosheth. But it only occurs in Samuel. It is another trait of the writer.
“Then shall you say, Your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead also.”
And then Joab told the messenger that if David was angry at the news of such deaths he was to tell him that “Your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead also.” It is clear that Joab expected that that would allay the king’s anger, an anger which he anticipated, and which poignantly would not later be described as forthcoming. The messenger probably thought that Joab was simply pointing out that the officer who had made the error had also died, and had thus paid the price for his error, but Joab and David would know differently.
‘ So the messenger went, and came and showed David all that Joab had sent him for.’
The messenger accordingly did as he was commanded and came to David and showed him all that Joab had sent him to relate.
‘ And the messenger said to David, “The men prevailed against us, and came out to us into the open, and we were on them even to the entrance of the gate. And the archers shot at your servants from off the wall, 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. On the other hand it may simply be that as a soldier the messenger considered it a necessary part of his message to indicate that the officer in charge had perished for his mistake. He would not realise how loaded the last few words were.
‘ Then David said to the messenger, “Thus shall you say to Joab, ‘Do not let this thing upset you, for the sword devours one as well as another. Make your battle more strong against the city, and overthrow it,’ and do you 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.
‘ And when the wife of Uriah heard that Uriah her husband was dead, she made lamentation 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, and would no doubt have arranged for loud lamentations by professional mourners according to custom (compare Genesis 50:10; 1 Samuel 31:13). It may well be that her mourning was genuine. It should be noted that there is nowhere any suggestion that she was at fault. It is very questionable whether, once the king had given his commands, she would have dared to disobey them. She may genuinely have loved her husband.
We should note also that Bathsheba’s name is only mentioned once in the chapter, and that was when her identity was being explained in answer to the king’s request (2 Samuel 11:3), otherwise she has simply been described as ‘the wife of Uriah’. This may well have been because the writer was underlining all the way through that she was a married woman, either to accentuate David’s guilt or as an indication of her shame. She is not again spoken of by name (even on her marriage) until after the child has died (2 Samuel 12:24).
‘And when the mourning was past, David sent and took her home to his house, and she became his wife, and bore him a son.’
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 manoeuvring, but now at last he could get on with his life.
Note the contrast with 1 Samuel 25:42-43 where when David’s first marriages were described the full details of the wife’s name and heritage were given. Here he has simply married ‘the wife of Uriah’. It has merely been a matter of convenience and adultery. There is no sense of pride here.
‘And the thing that David had done displeased YHWH.’
Like a bombshell falling into the narrative the writer now tacks on a final clause. On one else knew what David had done, bur there was One Who did know. ‘The thing that David had done displeased YHWH.’ 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 (and throughout most of the Ancient Near East) were punishable by death, and yet he appeared to be perfectly complacent. It is clear that 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 YHWH’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.
“And the thing that David had done displeased YHWH.” This sentence (in both senses of the term) will continue to govern his life from now on and will be reflected in the catastrophes that will fall on a number of his sons. The sins of the father will be visited on the children, not as a result of an arbitrary judgment, but because the father’s example will affect the behaviour 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. And these men were intercessory priests of YHWH! (2 Samuel 8:18). Oh David! What have you done to your own family?
Consider the nature of some of the consequences (all, apart from the first, resulting from the same royal arrogance as David had demonstrated towards Bathsheba and Uriah):
· The son to be born will die (2 Samuel 12:14).
· Amnon, David’s firstborn, will rape his half-sister (David’s daughter) and then reject her (2 Samuel 13:11-16).
· Absalom, David’s third son, will arrange for the assassination of his brother Amnon (2 Samuel 13:22-29).
· Absalom, beloved of his father (2 Samuel 18:33), will, partly because of his resulting estrangement from his father and recognition that he will probably no longer be allowed to succeed David, rebel against David and seek to take the throne (2 Samuel 15:10 to 2 Samuel 18:33).
· Absalom will take over his father’s concubines and have sexual relations with them quite openly in the sight of the people (2 Samuel 16:22)
· Adonijah, David’s fourth son, no doubt having Absalom’s rebellion in mind, will surreptitiously seek to pre-empt the succession while his father is still alive (1 Kings 1:5-11), and will subsequently seek marriage to David’s bed-warmer, Abishag (1 Kings 1:1-4; 1 Kings 2:17), resulting in his own death.
Thus from this time on there would be no settled peace for the house of David in respect of which so much had been promised. It will be riddled with both sexual misbehaviour and violence. Some have suggested that the four sons represent the fourfold restitution that David had to make to YHWH for Uriah’s life as a result of his crime in accordance with his response to the parable in 2 Samuel 12:6.
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