Years ago, before I came to Quartzsite, I had a dream. I’ve shared this dream before years ago. In the dream, I lived in a suburb, where the houses all matched each other. The lawns were a bright green, and they slanted up towards the homes. I had been cleaning out the garage and was now sweeping it. As I swept, I saw a rattlesnake. Instead of clearing it out, I began to poke and prod it. In that moment I understood what the dream meant. God taught me that even if everything looks good on the outside, and everything appears to be in its place, that doesn’t mean I’ve overcome sin in my life. In fact, God was teaching me that I had been playing with sin as if I could control it, but just like that snake could strike me at any moment, sin could take me down.
After that dream, I began to take sin more seriously, because I understood it’s not something you play with.
This concept that sins isn’t a toy, brings us back to our sermon series in Second Samuel 11, where we’re moving from the Best Days of David in section one of the book, to the Dark Days of David in section two.
We can summarize the first section of Second Samuel with this, God raised David to be the undisputed king over Israel, yet there were seeds of sin that began flowering into full problems. We can see this rise through David’s coronation and God’s subjugation of other nations, and we can see this sin in David allowing wicked men to advise him, and his own lustful desires. It’s in the case of both of these seeds of sin that we now find David start his dark days.
So let’s read together, Chapter 11, starting in verse 1 of Second Samuel.
1 In the spring of the year, the time when kings go out to battle, David sent Joab, and his servants with him, and all Israel. And they ravaged the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David remained at Jerusalem.
2 It happened, late one afternoon, when David arose from his couch and was walking on the roof of the king's house, that he saw from the roof a woman bathing; and the woman was very beautiful. 3 And David sent and inquired about the woman. And one said, “Is not this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?” 4 So David sent messengers and took her, and she came to him, and he lay with her. (Now she had been purifying herself from her uncleanness.) Then she returned to her house. 5 And the woman conceived, and she sent and told David, “I am pregnant.”
6 So David sent word to Joab, “Send me Uriah the Hittite.” And Joab sent Uriah to David. 7 When Uriah came to him, David asked how Joab was doing and how the people were doing and how the war was going. 8 Then David said to Uriah, “Go down to your house and wash your feet.” And Uriah went out of the king's house, and there followed him a present from the king. 9 But Uriah slept at the door of the king's house with all the servants of his lord, and did not go down to his house. 10 When they told David, “Uriah did not go down to his house,” David said to Uriah, “Have you not come from a journey? Why did you not go down to your house?” 11 Uriah said to David, “The ark and Israel and Judah dwell in booths, and my lord Joab and the servants of my lord are camping in the open field. Shall I then go to my house, to eat and to drink and to lie with my wife? As you live, and as your soul lives, I will not do this thing.” 12 Then David said to Uriah, “Remain here today also, and tomorrow I will send you back.” So Uriah remained in Jerusalem that day and the next. 13 And David invited him, and he ate in his presence and drank, so that he made him drunk. And in the evening he went out to lie on his couch with the servants of his lord, but he did not go down to his house.
14 In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it by the hand of Uriah. 15 In the letter he wrote, “Set Uriah in the forefront of the hardest fighting, and then draw back from him, that he may be struck down, and die.” 16 And as Joab was besieging the city, he assigned Uriah to the place where he knew there were valiant men. 17 And the men of the city came out and fought with Joab, and some of the servants of David among the people fell. Uriah the Hittite also died. 18 Then Joab sent and told David all the news about the fighting. 19 And he instructed the messenger, “When you have finished telling all the news about the fighting to the king, 20 then, if the king's anger rises, and if he says to you, ‘Why did you go so near the city to fight? Did you not know that they would shoot from the wall? 21 Who killed 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?’ then you shall say, ‘Your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead also.’”
22 So the messenger went and came and told David all that Joab had sent him to tell. 23 The messenger said to David, “The men gained an advantage over us and came out against us in the field, but we drove them back to the entrance of the gate. 24 Then the archers shot at your servants from the wall. Some of the king's servants are dead, and your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead also.” 25 David said to the messenger, “Thus shall you say to Joab, ‘Do not let this matter displease you, for the sword devours now one and now another. Strengthen your attack against the city and overthrow it.’ And encourage him.”
26 When the wife of Uriah heard that Uriah her husband was dead, she lamented over her husband. 27 And when the mourning was over, David sent and brought her to his house, and she became his wife and bore him a son. But the thing that David had done displeased the Lord.
v.1-5 - We can see that in the first five verses, things are starting to unravel for David, because of his lustful desire. Let’s break down the issues in the first five verses: First, David was at home while his army was out fighting. Notice it says,“… when kings go out …(v.1)” Right after the rainy season was a time when battles happened because there was good weather, but this time, the king isn’t going out with his army. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. David had been fighting since his late teens. He’s in his mid forties now. I can understand why he’s staying home. Perhaps he’s tired, but there’s an issue, so he sends his general to do it. Except, because he’s not leading his army, he’s left to his own devices. And as the old saying goes, “Idle hands are the devil’s playthings.” And as we’ve seen, that’s what happens.
The second issue is David’s lust. Men are visual creatures, we notice things, especially pretty things like women. At this time, David has at least seven wives that are explicitly named in Second Samuel (3:2-6,13), but we also know that he took on more wives and concubines while king in Jerusalem (5:13). So we know he has plenty of ladies around to satisfy his sexual desires. But that’s the problem with lust, if one is not satisfied with his wife, then there isn’t enough women to satisfy it. So David sees this woman on the roof bathing, and instead of doing the godly things an looking away, he stares and allows his lust to grow.
Which brings us to the third issue, David let’s his enthrallment to move beyond a personal sin, and seeks to have sex with this woman. There’s a moment here where David inquires about Bathsheba. Some scholars have noticed that the wording here isn’t that David is asking a servant, but rather himself, and acknowledges that this woman is the wife of one of his closest warriors. If this is the case, then it compounds the initial sin even more.
But we might be asking, why is she bathing on the roof. First, as the ESV translates it, she wasn’t necessarily on her roof, but rather from David’s roof he saw her. Second, if she was on her roof, it was evening, and the roof was probably the most secluded place for a person to bathe. The question is, why was she bathing? Well, the most common interpretation is that Bathsheba was purifying her uncleanness, which meant that she had just had her period and would be unclean for seven days. This meant that she couldn’t lie with her husband (Lev. 15:19-24), which wouldn’t be an issue since he was away at war. I believe this is the correct translation because the same word for uncleanness here is the root for the word used in connection with a women’s menstruation in Leviticus 15. However, some have argued, that the bathing, since it is mentioned after the intercourse, means that she was cleansing herself of the act with David. If true this would shine a different light on her role in the situation. However, we’re told about her uncleanness to let us know two things: Bathsheba was not pregnant prior to David, and that David didn’t care that she might have been in a prime time to get pregnant. So I believe the traditional interpretation is the correct one. Bathsheba was bathing in response to her menstruation cycle, not from her lying with David.
The fourth issue is that of the willingness of Bathsheba. As far as we can see from the text, there doesn’t seem to be any push back on her part, making this seem like a mutual adultery. Some might say that since David was the king, he forced himself on her and she was a unwilling bystander, but there is no indication that is true. If it were, we know that the writer of Second Samuel has no qualms about writing about things like rape, as we’ll see in Chapter 13 with Tamar. So it seems, like Bathsheba might have been as willing as David was in this moment. That doesn’t mean that she might not have regretted it later, as she did mourn at her husband’s passing. But she also quickly went to become David’s wife soon after that mourning period.
Finally, the last issue is, that once Bathsheba tells David she’s pregnant, David is put in a situation where now there is a child and he has to find a way to “fix” the situation. We need to notice that abortion never enters his mind. Instead, he has another idea.
v.6-13 - To fix the situation, David has the idea to bring Bathsheba’s husband, Uriah, back from the battle and have him sleep with her. This way, it will seem like Uriah impregnated her. David encourages him to “… wash his feet …(v.8),” a Hebrew idiom that’s not a subtle way of telling Uriah to go sleep with his wife. David even gives a present to him, which is most likely something to make sure their union happens.
However, Uriah, whose name means “Yahweh is my Light,” even while drunk, did not want to be treated any different than the other men who had gone out to battle. The fact that he is a Hittite is important, because it shows that non-Israelite people could act in righteous ways and that Israelites, even the king, were not above falling to temptation. Uriah acted honorably, wanting to return to the battle, unlike David who stayed away from it.
v.14-27 - Since David’s first plan didn’t work, he chose to employ Joab to help him kill Uriah. Here’s the connection to Chapter 3, where I emphasized before that there would be a fallout for David keeping Joab around, even knowing that he was a wicked man. David knows that Joab is wicked because he took vengeance on Abner, even though David had made peace with the man. But, instead of punishing Joab then, David allowed him to continue in his role, because Joab was family, and a skilled general. However, in God’s economy, surrounding ourselves with wicked people, only allows wickedness a foothold in our lives. It is possible that if David would have dealt with Joab before, then he would have to face the problem without killing Uriah, because he wouldn’t have a willing partner in the crime.
Instead, when David needs a wicked thing done, he has an ally in Joab, and Joab is willing to help. Uriah gets “killed” in battle, and no one is the wiser as to why. Only David and Joab know the truth.
The chapter ends with the words, “But the thing that David had done displeased the Lord. (v.27)”
From this I find myself asking, ‘What particular thing? Was it the lust of the eyes? The act of adultery? The cover up? The murder? The conspiracy?’ And the answer is, all of it. It is multiple sins compounded into one horrible situation.
How easy it is for us, even to be in the best place in our walk with God, to have one sin cascade into a massive destruction of lives. But this is the reality of sin. Sin doesn’t just say one move away from God is good. It wants us as far as it can get us from the One who created us for righteousness. Sin craves for us to indulge our wicked desires so that it can take us into greater wickedness. Was David’s intention to kill Uriah? Probably not, because Uriah was one of David’s thirty greatest warriors (1 Chron. 11:41). But his lustful desires, something that God had already warned the kings of Israel about, led to the death of a man trying to live his life in righteousness under the God of Israel.
It makes more sense then why Jesus uses such harsh words about sin in places like Matthew 5:27-30, where he zeroes in on the sin of lust. Jesus say, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.”
Think about the imagery. It’s better to brutally maimed, with eyes gouged out, and hands cut off, than to allow sin to lead us into separation from God in hell. Now Jesus’ isn’t saying to go and gouge out eyes out, or cut off our hands. He’s invoking visceral imagery, that makes us think about the horrid nature of sin, and to take it seriously. David’s lust over Bathsheba, leads to the death of Uriah and other Israelite men not even connected to the situation, and we’ll later find out, the death of a child. It leads to a deeper association with Joab, giving a wicked man more dirt on the king. Sin isn’t something to wag our finger at, but a serpent among the bushes, a wolf among the sheep. We need to take it seriously, because its consequences are serious.
God is calling us away from all sin, even if it seems innocent. I’m sure it was innocent for David to let his eyes linger just a little longer on Bathsheba than he should. But that innocent sin, led to greater acts of sin. I’ve shared that one of the things I do to avoid allowing my eyes to rest on lustful things, is that when I’m in a store, and there’s a woman in an isle alone, and I’m alone, I go to another spot. A couple of months ago, we were shopping in Ross, and I sat down on one of the chairs in the back, which was at the back end of the woman’s clothing. A lady came up and was looking at some clothes and then turned her backside to me, so I just got up and left. I don’t know if she intentionally did that or not, but I didn’t want to sit around and find out.
Sin isn’t to play with, but when we fall to its temptation, we confess it and seek the Holy Spirit. But if we’re not willing to do the work of getting up and moving out of sin’s temptation, it will lead to greater acts of sin, and we’ll eventually find ourselves in a place where we’re doing things we never thought of. And it all started because we lingered too long in a place we should not have been.
My challenge for you this week is to think of those areas your most susceptible to sin. For most guys, it’s lust. For most women pride, envy, and control are said to be the areas women struggle the most in. This week I want you to take that area of your life, and every day bring it before the Lord, seeking him to make you aware of the situations that allow you indulge that sin. For guys it might be getting rid of that calendar in our shops, or no longer watching that movie we like. Ladies, it might be a person you listen to, or a person you don’t like. Seek the Lord to make you aware of the temptation, and give you to strength to get out of it.
God is calling all his people to view sin as he sees it, and a devastating disease that needs to be eradicated, not a toy to be played with. Let us be a people who turn from our sin, to God’s righteousness. Amen.
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