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Chapter 11: The Second Ammonite Campaign and David's Sin
The narrative in chapters 11-12 is the turning point in the book of 2 Samuel. In the first part of the book we have read about the triumphs in David's life through God's guidance and protection. In the second part of the book we will read about David's tragedies and God's judgments due to David's failures in yielding to temptation and sin in his life. God punished David for his sins with temporal judgments, but He never withdrew from David as He withdrew from Saul because David always acknowledged his sins, turned back to God, and humbled himself in sincere repentance. Despite his hardships, David continued to love God with all his heart.
The key word in Chapters 11-12 in recounting the narrative of the sin of David and Bathsheba is the verb "sent."
2 Samuel 11:1-5 ~ David's Sins
It is the probably just after the spring equinox, which is the "turn of the year" in the liturgical calendar (Ex 12:1-2; 13:3-4). It is the time of the year when armies go the war after the rainy winter months. The Israelites have defeated the Ammonite's Aramaean allies in the first Ammonite campaign (2 Sam 10:6-19), and now David turns his attention to destroying the power of the Ammonites in the Transjordan in a second campaign by sending Joab and the Israelite army to attack the Ammonite capital of Rabbah-Ammon (also see 1 Chr 20:1-3).
Question: Why is David in Jerusalem instead of being with his army at the siege of Rabbah-Ammon?
Answer: After his near-death experience in the battle with the Philistines, his men have made him promise to stay in Jerusalem. Israel's future depends on him, and they tell him he is too valuable to risk his life in battle.
David is probably restless. This new arrangement of not leading his men in battle must have been difficult for David. For his entire adult life he has been a warrior. Now he is confined to his palace and forced to leave the war against Israel's enemies to his nephew Joab and his loyal commanders. David has taken a siesta after the main, mid-day meal and is now walking on the roof-top of his palace in the late afternoon, when, looking down on to the houses below the palace, he sees a very beautiful woman bathing.
Question: When he makes enquires about the woman what does he discover?
Answer: The woman's name is Bathsheba; both her father and husband are commanders in David's army, and her husband is a Gentile Hittite. Her grandfather is a man from the Judean town of Gilo/Giloh.
Bathsheba at the Bath (Sebastiano Ricci)
The beautiful woman is a welcomed distraction and he sends for her despite the fact that her father and husband are men who are among David's elite commanders. He sends for her and sleeps with her. We are not told of Bathsheba's feelings; was she a willing accomplice to David's adultery or was she too afraid to refuse?
Question: What two sins has David committed that are listed in the Ten Commandments?
Answer: First he coveted his neighbor's wife and then he committed adultery.
Jesus raised the bar on the temptation of lust for New Covenant believers. The temptation in itself is not a sin so long as one renounces the temptation and turns away from it, but what did Jesus say about lust and sin in Matthew 5:27-28. He said as soon as one imagines committing the sin even before the actual act, that person is guilty of sin.
Bathsheba's father is a man name Eliam whose name in Hebrew means "God is kin" or "God is uncle." He is one of David's elite commanders (2 Sam 23:34). Eliam is called Ammiel in 1 Chr 3:5; both names include the same components but in reversed order. He is the son of the Gilonite Ahithophel. There is no general agreement on the meaning of Ahithophel's name but it may mean "brother of folly." Bathsheba name is rendered Bath-Shua by the writer of 1 Chronicles (1 Chr 3:5). The feminine name Shua refers to a foreign goddess, and if that is the case her name would mean "daughter of Shua" or "oath of Shua) which may indicate that Bathsheba's family was of non-Israelite origin.
Question: Why is it significant that she bathed as part of the purification ritual after her period? What impact might that information have on the story?
Answer: She has been ritually unclean for the week of her period and for seven days thereafter, and she has not had intimate relations with her husband during the time she was ritually unclean.
Question: What does this mean for the state of Bathsheba's fertility?
Answer: It is now the 15th day of her monthly cycle which means she is at her most fertile time of the month.
That she was at her most fertile time of the month is confirmed in verse 5: The woman conceived and sent word to David, "I am pregnant." Her pregnancy poses a serious problem. It will soon become obvious, since her husband is away at the war, that he is not the father of her child. The palace servants know that she has been with the king and David and Bathsheba could be accused and found guilty of adultery, destroying David's reputation as a righteous king and putting both of them in mortal danger.
Question: Under the Law of the Sinai Covenant, what is the penalty for adultery?
Answer: The penalty was death for both the man and the woman.
2 Samuel 11:6-13 ~ David sends for Uriah
David sends for Uriah under the pretext of inquiring about the progress of the war, but his real intent is to lure Uriah into sleeping with his wife to account for her pregnancy.
2 Samuel 11:8 ~ David then said to Uriah, "Go down to your house and wash your feet." Uriah left the palace and was followed by a present from the king's table.
In the days before paved roads it was the custom to wash one's feet upon entering a house, but in this case the phrase "wash your feet" is a Semitic euphemism for enjoying sexual intimacy in one's home. To help set the mood, David sends along a meal from his table for the couple.
David's plan is foiled by Uriah who stays at the palace. The next day when an irritated David inquires as to why Uriah didn't go to his house, his answer is a reflection of both his loyalty and his piety. Uriah appears to be astonished that David should not understand why he did not go home in verse 11b, using an oath formula and saying: "As Yahweh lives, and as you yourself live, I shall do no such thing!"
Question: What are Uriah's reasons for not going to his own home for the night?
Answer:
- The Ark and the armies of Israel and Judah are not in comfortable houses but are in temporary structures.
- The king's commander Joab and his guards are camping in the open.
- It is unseemly for him to go to his house when others who serve Israel and the king are deprived of such comforts including their wives.
There might also be another reason. Yahweh's holy warriors were to remain ritually pure and to refrain from sexual intimacy with their wives while on a campaign. Uriah may not have wanted to be tempted to becoming ritually unclean for battle by sleeping with Bathsheba (Ex 19:14-15; 1 Sam 21:6/5). David tried a second time to get Uriah to go to his home but with the same lack of success.
Question: What is the irony in the contrast between David the Israelite king and Uriah the Hittite warrior?
Answer: David the Israelites is supposed to be God's righteous warrior, but it is Uriah the Gentile who is the righteous man and pious warrior.
2 Samuel 11:14-21 ~ The Death of Uriah
Question: What is the irony in Uriah delivering David's letter to Joab?
Answer: He is faithfully carrying his own death warrant.
Question: How did Joab revise David's plan and why?
Answer: Instead of putting Uriah in the front of the battle and then ordering the men to withdraw from him, Joab sent a unit of men (probably under Uriah's command) into a dangerous position where they were exposed to the enemy archers on the city wall and did not withdrawn them. He realized that David's plan was flawed and either Uriah would withdraw when he saw the other men falling back or their murderous plan could be exposed by one righteous soldier who revealed the conspiracy. Joab sacrificed other soldiers to ensure Uriah's death.
It is the insidious nature of sin that one sin usually leads to another and another. David's sin that began with coveting another man's wife has led to adultery and now murder; and his plan to have Uriah killed in battle has not contributed to Joab's cooperation in the sin but to the unjust deaths of loyal Israelites including Uriah.
Joab knows that David will be upset with the loss of so many of his men and will criticize Joab for exposing them to the archers on the city wall. He even knows the example David will use in his criticism from an event that took place a century earlier in Israel's history. Notice that the Israelites are very aware of their history and probably not just from an oral tradition but from the books of their inspired writers. The story of Ahimelech is from the Book of Judges which, according to tradition, was written by the prophet/judge Samuel.
Question: After David has vented his anger, what is the soldier to say to David and why?
Answer: He is to simply say that Uriah has died too, then David will realize what Joab has done to secure David's command.
2 Samuel 11:22-27 ~ David Receives the News of Uriah's Death
Joab had correctly anticipated David's angry response to the number of men who were killed, but the messenger felt it was necessary to provide more information about the conditions of the battle than Joab told him to give. He is probably unaware of the plan and wants to defend his commander's decision have warriors deployed beneath the city wall. However, when he says the key sentence, "Uriah the Hittite is dead too," David completely understands that Joab has changed the initial plan to bring about the main objective. He then sends back an "encouragement" to his commander in what was probably a common saying for soldiers: "the sword devours now one and now another," which might be comparable to the modern expression "every bullet has its billet." David must have realized with a shock that now he is not only responsible for the death of one innocent man but for the deaths of many. His message to Joab is that he understands what Joab has done for him. And it should be noted that David arranging for Uriah's death is a crime that is equal to Joab's murder of Abner (2 Sam 3:27). Now the two men have more than the love of kinship linking them; they have the sin of murder.
Bathsheba probably mourned her husband the customary seven days and then David "sent" for her and married her. They were probably anxious to be married before she began to show that she was pregnant. The information that she bore him a son looks ahead to the next chapter when David is called to account for his sins, which we are made aware of through the statement: But what David had done displeased Yahweh.
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A Daily Defense
DAY 129 Mary as Mother of God
CHALLENGE: “Catholics shouldn’t say Mary is the mother of God. God is eternal and so can’t have a mother. Mary merely gave birth to Jesus’ human nature.”
DEFENSE: This misunderstands the title “mother of God.” You can’t have a correct view of Christ and still deny this title. A person’s mother contributes genetic matter to him, carries him in her womb, or both. Normally, a mother is older than her child, but Mary is an exceptional case, as the Virgin Birth shows. Mary did not exist before the Second Person of the Trinity, who has always existed in the eternal now outside of time, but she did become his mother by contributing genetic matter to him (cf. Rom. 1:3) and by carrying him in her womb (Matt. 1:18; Luke 1:35).
Mary was Jesus’ mother in the true sense. As the Second Person of the Trinity, Jesus is God, and so Mary is the mother of God. Mary did not merely give birth to Jesus’ human nature. Mothers do not give birth to natures. They give birth to persons, and Jesus was a divine person. To deny that Mary gave birth to the Second Person of the Trinity would be to commit the heresy Nestorianism.
In the fifth century, Nestorius—the patriarch of Constantinople—objected to the title “mother of God” (Greek, theotokos, “God-bearer”). His position was rejected by the Council of Ephesus (A.D. 431) because the council fathers recognized that the true understanding of the person of Christ was at stake. If Mary can’t be said to give birth to the Second Person of the Trinity, then a wedge is driven between Christ’s humanity and his divinity, so he is no longer one person.
This is recognized by many theologians, including Protestants. Martin Luther wrote: “Mary, the mother, does not carry, give birth to, suckle, and nourish only the man, only flesh and blood—for that would be dividing the Person—but she carries and nourishes a son who is God’s Son. Therefore she is rightly called not only the mother of the man but also the Mother of God” (Luther’s Works 24:107).
Although Scripture does not use the phrase “mother of God,” it uses an equivalent when Mary’s cousin Elizabeth asks: “Why is this granted me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me” (Luke 1:43).
Jimmy Akin, A Daily Defense: 365 Days (Plus One) to Becoming a Better Apologist
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