Sermon 66 - FFFF4 - Bathsheba
Matthew 1:3-6
Judah the father of Perez and Zerah, whose mother was Tamar,
Perez the father of Hezron,
Hezron the father of Ram,
Ram the father of Amminadab,
Amminadab the father of Nahshon,
Nahshon the father of Salmon,
Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab,
Boaz the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth,
Obed the father of Jesse,
and Jesse the father of King David.
David was the father of Solomon, whose mother had been Uriah’s wife
2 Samuel 11:2,3
One evening David got up from his bed and walked around on the roof of the palace. From the roof he saw a woman bathing. The woman was very beautiful, and David sent someone to find out about her. The man said, "She is Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah the Hittite."
So on to the fourth foreign female failure, and the story of David and Bathsheba. I am quite sure that you all know this one. This is David's famous big failure.
Just to set the scene, the Israel is at war. They are fighting somebody, but David has stayed in Jerusalem. Obviously this is not a major battle for Israel.
So he's walking around the roof of the palace in the evening, and he sees this woman taking a bath on a roof nearby. She is Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah the Hittite. (And, yes, I know that some people will object that I have not proved that she is foreign. Uriah the Hittite is foreign, but he may be fighting in King David's army, because he is married a Jewish woman. We are even given her father's name. Okay, I haven't proved that all four are foreign, but there's a chance.) So he summons her to the palace, and asks to have sex with her. And she agrees.
Now, at this point, possibly particularly because she ends up in the genealogy of Jesus, an awful lot of people will try and object that Bathsheba hasn't really done anything wrong here. Yes, she is the wife of Uriah. Yes, by sleeping with King David, she is technically committing adultery. But you can't really say no to a king.
Well, maybe so. But David is, pretty famously, and probably pretty famously even then, known for his love of God. David obviously knows the ten commandments. He knows that committing adultery is a bad thing, and that by sleeping with somebody else's wife, both of them are committing adultery. It would probably be pretty easy to point this out to him, and there's a really, really good chance that, simply pointing it out would make him change his mind how about sleeping with her. And there's no indication here that she even tried.
Anyway, on with the story that we do know. Bathsheba gets pregnant. She tells the king. He then compounds the original sin of adultery, by setting up Uriah to be killed. God sends the prophet Nathan to point out that this is a pretty big sin, and, to his credit, David realizes that he has really messed up, big time.
And the punishment is that the child is to die.
David pleads with God for the life of the child. In fasting and ashes. Literally. He is so distraught, that, when the child dies, none of his officials want to tell him, probably for fear that he will commit suicide.
Finally, the courtiers admit to David that the child has died. And David gets up, cleans up, changes his clothes, and has something to eat.
The courtiers are a bit bemused by this. They didn't expect this kind of reaction and ask David about it. David said that while the child was sick, he pleaded with God. Possibly God would change his mind. But now that the child has, in fact, died, what point is there in continuing? The child is dead. David will, eventually, go to the child, but the child will not return to life here on Earth. Everybody grieves in their own way. Believe me, I know. But this seems to be a remarkably realistic and clear-eyed position to take.
And where is Bathsheba in all of this? Well, we aren't really told much about her, or her reaction. We are told that David comforts Bathsheba, and she becomes pregnant. (You kids can ask your parents to explain that after the sermon.) And a son is born, whose name is Solomon, and it is decided that it is this Solomon who is going to become king after David.
We aren't told an awful lot about Bathsheba. We aren't told how eagerly she went along with the adultery, we aren't told how much comforting she needed after the death of the child. We aren't really given an awful lot of detail about Bathsheba. What kind of a person is she? But we do get a few other mentions of Bathsheba. And, once again by speculation, we can determine a bit about what Bathsheba was like.
To be quite honest, she was a bit of an airhead. I mean, there's this whole business of adultery. Yes, a lot of people make the point that, if the king brings you to the palace, and ask you to sleep with him, if you say no, there's a possibility you're going to get your head cut off. But the thing is, this is David we're talking about. David was passionate yes, and a warlord yes, but he was also very passionate in his love of God. If David calls you to the palace, and asks you to commit adultery with him, it probably wouldn't take too much brain power to figure out that all you had to do was mention that this is adultery, and that God has given a commandment specifically prohibiting it, and there's a very good chance that David is going to change his mind. But, apparently, Bathsheba doesn't even go this far.
We get a few more mentions of Bathsheba. King David gets old. So old that he can't keep himself warm anymore. The courtiers find a young girl to sleep with him. Not for sexual purposes, just as a kind of a bed warmer.
I figure David should have stuck with Abigail. The one time we meet her she demonstrates that she is kind, smart enough to take good advice, decisive, and resourceful. *Her* son never got in trouble. David probably isn't a great parent. He doesn't seem to have much luck with his sons. One commits rape, another one kills the first in retaliation, and then leads a coup (and dies as a result). And then, when things are somewhat settled, and Solomon is promised as next in line for the throne, another of David's boys, Adonijah, tries the coup thing again. And he sets up a coronation ceremony for himself.
And somebody else (Nathan, again) has to alert Bathsheba to the fact that this is probably not in her best interest. The throne has been promised to Solomon, which would make Bathsheba Queen Mother. If somebody else decides that he's going to become king, and take the throne, Bathsheba is not going to become Queen Mother. So Nathan alerts Bathsheba, and Nathan alerts the king to what's happening, and King David puts together a hurry-up coronation ceremony, very quickly, and Solomon does, in fact, become king.
And after Solomon *does* become king, and after David dies, well, you remember that bed warmer that they had for David? Well Adonijah, the same guy who decided that he should become King instead of Solomon, then goes to Bathsheba, and asks to be able to marry this bed warmer. And Bathsheba takes this request to Solomon.
And Solomon, very correctly, points out, to his mother, that this is probably not a great idea. After all, Adonijah was, in fact, older than Solomon, and, in the normal line of succession, would have had a greater claim on the throne. And the bed warmer, despite the fact that we are told that David was never actually physically intimate with her, was still a royal concubine. And taking over a dead Kings wives and concubines was one of the ways that you announced that you were the new king. And so giving the bed warmer to this other son is giving this other son a definitely stronger claim to take over the kingdom at some point. Solomon was no fool. God, after Solomon was established as king, promised Solomon to give him whatever he wanted, and Solomon famously asked for wisdom. We call him Solomon the wise. There are tales in the Bible about his great wisdom. Which he got from God, because he *obviously* didn't get it from his mum!
And this, inevitably, reminds us of the places, all through the Bible, where we are reminded that the wisdom of the world is foolishness to God. Here is a woman who is not particularly smart. Not particularly wise. And she makes it into Jesus genealogy. And she makes it in the same way we all make our relationships with God. As it says over and over again, God does not choose his people because they are particularly wise, or strong, or even righteous. God chooses us because God chooses us. We do not deserve this. We are not the chosen ones because we are better than everybody else. We are beloved by God because God loves us. It may be a bit humbling to have to realize that, but we all could probably stand a bit of humility.
Four Foreign Female Failures series
Sermon 63 - Four Foreign Female Failures 1 - Tamar
Sermon 64 - FFFF 2 - Rahab
Sermon 65 - FFFF3 - Ruth 1
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