Todays Daily Lesson comes from 2 Samuel chapter 11 verses 1-20 and 22:
In the spring of the year, the time when kings go out to battle, David sent Joab with his officers and all Israel with him; they ravaged the Ammonites, and besieged Rabbah. But David remained at Jerusalem.
2 It happened, late one afternoon, when David rose from his couch and was walking about on the roof of the king’s house, that he saw from the roof a woman bathing; the woman was very beautiful. 3 David sent someone to inquire about the woman. It was reported, “This is Bathsheba daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite.” 4 So David sent messengers to get her, and she came to him, and he lay with her. (Now she was purifying herself after her period.) Then she returned to her house. 5 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 and the people fared, and how the war was going. 8 Then David said to Uriah, “Go down to your house, and wash your feet.” Uriah went out of the king’s house, and there followed him a present from the king. 9 But Uriah slept at the entrance 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, “You have just come from a journey. Why did you not go down to your house?” 11 Uriah said to David, “The ark and Israel and Judah remain in booths;[a] 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 such a 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. On the next day, 13 David invited him to eat and drink in his presence and 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, so that he may be struck down and die.” 16 As Joab was besieging the city, he assigned Uriah to the place where he knew there were valiant warriors. 17 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 was killed as well. 18 Then Joab sent and told David all the news about the fighting; 19 and he instructed the messenger, “When you have finished telling the king all the news about the fighting, 20 then, if the king’s anger rises, and if he says to you, ‘Why did you go so near the city to fight?. . .then you shall say, ‘Your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead too.’”
I have preached and written on this text on numerous occasions and it is interesting to me that while we outright, cold-blooded, first-degree murder in the story, if you also say you have outright, clear-as-day rape there is controversy. Why is that? Are we trying to protect David's reputation? That, and the fact that many misunderstand the power dynamics involved in a rape case like this.
But look at the text and notice especially how many times the word "sent" is used. (I'm grateful to Eugene Peterson for this insight, though it wasn't his originally.) David "sent" men to war. He "sent" servants to do his bidding. He "sent" for Bathsheba -- twice. And he "sent" for Uriah to return home and to his death.
David had all the power. He called the shots. So when he "sent" for Bathsheba to come to his palace this was not a consensual, equally-yoked tryst. This was a king ordering the wife of a resident-alien to do his bidding just like he ordered his servants and his soldiers.
Unto we get this story right we are going to continue to have problems understanding and the dynamics of sexual assault and rape.
David was a murderer -- and a rapist, not just a philanderer. And he needs to still be held accountable for that also-- along with a whole lot of other men in high places like him.
NOTE: We are reading the Bible straight through this year. Tomorrow's Lesson will be from 2 Samuel 13-15.
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