A Few Notes on David & Bathsheba

Each time I read David and Bathsheba’s story, different details grab my attention. Below are some I noticed last time round, which seem to fit together quite well.

First, the text of II Sam. 11–12 consists of five basic ‘moments’, which give it a decidedly Genesis-3-like feel. If Genesis 3 recounts Adam’s fall, then II Samuel 11–12 recounts David’s. We have:

• a dereliction of duty (David doesn’t go out to fight), on the back of which temptation comes,

• an act of sin, in which David takes the forbidden fruit,

• a failed cover up (in one case with leaves and in the other with lies),

• God’s verdict and curse, and

• God’s remedy.

These similarities aren’t a mere literary flourish. They’re intended to portray David’s sin in proto-typical terms. While David’s sin has certain particularities, the main ingredients of his sin are common to every man’s sin.

Second, the information we’re given about Bathsheba’s ‘uncleanness’ might initially seem superfluous, but it’s not. Bathsheba’s uncleanness was most likely ‘menstrual impurity’, which makes it one of the most contagious types of uncleanness described in Leviticus: it continues for seven days, spreads to anyone or anything the unclean woman touches, and can even spread via indirect contact (Lev. 15.19–23). As such, it’s the perfect metaphor for David’s sin. What starts as a sinful desire soon leads to adultery, deceit, and murder, and the results of David’s sin will affect his men and his household for generations to come (II Sam. 12.10).

Third, David’s sin is dealt with in cursory fashion in II Samuel 11; the majority of the chapter is devoted to David’s cover-up (II Sam. 11.5–25). David puts as much distance as he possibly can between him and Uriah’s death: he sends Uriah off to Ammon with a letter in his hand, which instructs Joab to send Uriah into the thick of the battle so the Ammonites can dispose of him while David is still in his palace, hundreds of miles away. Yet in II Samuel 12 it is God’s turn to ‘send’ a message (via Nathan the prophet), which slices through David’s layers of secondary causation with a single sentence: “You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword…and have killed him with the sword of the Ammonites” (II Sam. 12.9).¹ It is a statement of remarkable power. Uriah may ostensibly have been struck by an Ammonite sword, but the hand on the hilt was David’s.

Fourth, the text of II Sam. 12.13 is highly significant. David is worthy of death, and yet God ‘transfers’ (העביר) his sin/penalty onto an innocent party. At one level, that seems awkward, and shocks us. Yet if God does not have the prerogative to act in such a way, then the foundations of penal substitutionary atonement are at stake. And the flow of the text is quite clear: David will not die; his child will die in his place (12.14).²

Tragic though they may be, therefore, the events of II Sam. 11–12 point us forward to the arrival of God’s Messiah—the Bathsheba-like ewe, destined to be slaughtered (Isa. 53.7), the Uriah-like servant, sent to the battlefield with orders to be slain, the Son born into a house from which the sword would not depart until it was finally satisfied in His death (II Sam. 12.10).

1. I am grateful for my recent interaction with Daniel Hill, who drew my attention to the above aspect of David’s story.

2. The verb להעביר doesn’t have to mean ‘transfer’, but it can do (Num. 27.7–8), and David’s sin does in fact seem to be ‘transferred’ to his child.