Her name means: "The Seventh Daughter" or "The Daughter of an
Oath"
Her character: Her beauty made her victim to a king's
desire. Though it is difficult to discern her true character, she seems to have
found the courage to endure tragedy, winning the king's confidence and
eventually securing the kingdom for her son Solomon.
Her
sorrow: To have been molested by a supposedly godly man, who then
murdered her husband. To have suffered the loss of one of her
sons.
Her joy: To have given birth to five sons, one of whom
became king of Israel after David's death.
Key Scriptures:
2 Samuel 11:1-12:25
Her Story
Bathsheba squeezed the sponge, moving it rhythmically across her body as
though to calm the restless cadence of her thoughts. Normally, she looked
forward to the ritual bath marking the end of her monthly period, but tonight
the water soothed her skin without refreshing her spirit.
She should be glad for the cool breeze. For flowers. For a lush harvest. But
spring could also yield its crop of sorrows, as she well knew. Spring was the
season for armies and battles. Once the rains had ceased and the harvest had
been gathered, men marched off to war, leaving their women behind.
Bathsheba shivered as she stood up. Though her husband, Uriah, was a seasoned
soldier, she still worried about him, wishing she could fall asleep in his arms.
But he was camped with the rest of the king's army beneath the open skies of
Rabbah, an Ammonite fortress some forty miles northeast of Jerusalem.
The king rose from his bed, unable to sleep. Pacing across the palace roof,
he gazed at the city below. Jerusalem seemed calm, a city at peace with itself
though at war with its neighbors. Soon his soldiers would gather a great harvest
of Ammonite captives, laborers for his expanding kingdom. The casual observer
might have thought David a man at peace with his growing power. Instead, the
king could not quiet an increasing sense of discontent.
Then, in the half-light, David noticed the figure of a young woman bathing in
the walled garden of a house below him. He leaned against the outer edge of the
roof for a closer view. Wet hair curling languidly against skin soft as lamb's
wool. Breasts like rounded apples. He reached as though to steal a touch.
Unaware of watching eyes, the woman toweled herself dry and stepped into the
house. He waited and watched, but even the king could not see through walls.
Over the next few days, David made inquiries and discovered that the vision
had a name: She was Bathsheba, the wife of one of his soldiers, Uriah the
Hittite. He sent for her. She came to him and became pregnant with his
child.
Fearing discovery, the king ordered Uriah home from battle. But the soldier
surprised him by refusing to spend the night with his wife: "The ark and Israel
and Judah are staying in tents, and my lord's men are camped in the open fields.
How could I go to my house to eat and drink and lie with my wife? As surely as
you live, I will not do such a thing!"
So David convinced Uriah to spend another day in Jerusalem, managing to get
him drunk. Surely the wine would overcome his scruples. But it didn't. So David
played his last card, entrusting Bathsheba's husband with a letter to Joab,
commander of the army. It read: "Put Uriah in the front line where the fighting
is fiercest. Then withdraw from him so he will be struck down and die."
So Uriah died by treachery, and David claimed Bathsheba as his wife, her
child as his own.
One day, the prophet Nathan approached David, saying: "There were two men in
a certain town, one rich and the other poor. The rich man had a large number of
sheep and cattle, but the poor man had nothing except one little ewe lamb he had
bought. He raised it, and it grew up with him and his children. It shared his
food, drank from his cup, and even slept in his arms. It was like a daughter to
him.
"Now a traveler came to the rich man, but the rich man refrained from taking
one of his own sheep or cattle to prepare a meal for the traveler who had come
to him. Instead, he took the ewe lamb that belonged to the poor man and prepared
it for the one who had come to him."
David was incensed: "As surely as the Lord lives, the man who did this
deserves to die! He must pay for that lamb four times over, because he did such
a thing and had no pity."
Then Nathan said to David, "You are the man! This is what the Lord, the God
of Israel, says: 'I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you from the
hand of Saul. I gave your master's house to you, and your master's wives into
your arms. I gave you the house of Israel and Judah. And if all this had been
too little, I would have given you even more. Why did you despise the word of
the Lord by doing what is evil in his eyes? You struck down Uriah the Hittite
with the sword and took his wife to be your own. Now, therefore, the sword will
never depart from your house.' "
David's lust for Bathsheba marked the beginning of his long decline. Though
God forgave him, he still suffered the consequences of his wrongdoing. His sin
was a whirlpool that dragged others into its swirling path. And despite David's
prayer and pleading, God allowed the son David had conceived with Bathsheba to
die from an illness.
But why did Bathsheba have to suffer along with the man who molested her and
murdered her husband? Though the story gives us little insight into her true
character, it is hardly likely that Bathsheba was in a position to refuse the
king. In Nathan's parable, in fact, she is depicted as an innocent lamb. Why,
then, have so many people painted her as a seductress? Perhaps Bathsheba's
innocence is too painful to face. That a good person can suffer such tragedies,
especially at the hands of a godly person, appalls us. Worse yet, God punishes
both David and Bathsheba by taking their son. If we can believe that Bathsheba
had an affair with David, we could accept her suffering more easily; her guilt
would make David's sin seem less grave and God's punishment less cruel.
Though Bathsheba may not have understood the reasons for her suffering, God
gave her favor with King David, making her both a powerful queen and the mother
of David's successor, Solomon, who became famous for his great wisdom.
Her Promise
The story of David and Bathsheba outlines in graphic detail the horror of sin
and where it leads. David's first step toward sin leads to adultery, lying,
deceit, murder, and, finally, the death of a son. The link between sin and
restoration comes when David admits his sin and Nathan says the Lord has taken
it away (2 Samuel 12:13).
How much guilt is Bathsheba's isn't clear; however, when God tells them through
the prophet Nathan that he loves their son Solomon and wants him to be called
Jedidiah, the restoration is Bathsheba's as well as David's. If God could
forgive this terrible sin of David, don't you think he could forgive your sin,
whatever it may be?