Translation & Sermon by Nate Wilson for Christ The Redeemer Church, Manhattan, KS, 8 May 2022
Read passage in NAW translation: Then, when the year began to turn to the time that kings go campaigning, David commissioned Joab - and his servants with him - along with all of Israel, and they laid waste to the descendents of Ammon, then laid seige to Rabbah. Meanwhile David sat in Jerusalem. So it was at the time of the evening that David got up from his bed and walked around on the housetop of the palace of the king, and he saw from the housetop a woman washing herself, and the woman was very beautiful-looking. So David sent someone and sought out information about the woman, and the man said, “Isn’t this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?” Nevertheless, David sent messengers and took her, and she went to him, and he laid down with her. Then she sanctified herself from her uncleanness and went back to her house.
So, it was springtime (literally the Hebrew is “the turning of the year1”), the time that the kings of those days would go out on war campaigns.
I suspect that this coincided with down-time in the agricultural year: In the early spring, farmers could plant their crops (and shepherds could attend the calving of their livestock), and then they would have a certain number of weeks that they could leave for a war campaign while the animals and crops grew without needing much attending from them.
It also would not be raining so much at this time of year, making it easier to conduct a war campaign.
Now, leading the Israelite army against Canaanites was David’s calling – this was why God had anointed him to be king: to deliver Israel from the Philistines and all other enemies. Going to war was what David was supposed to do, but this year he decided to sit it out. This smacks of disobedience to God.
The Hebrew word translated “remained/tarried/stayed” is the same word in Hebrew for “sitting;” it denotes inaction;
it wasn’t because he had anything important to do at home that he “sat tight” instead of going into battle. It wasn’t like he had scheduled an intense month of recording sessions for his next album of Psalms or anything.
And the rooftop where we find him ogling at women was a place of lounging in the Middle East. It was not a place of work.
And notice when it was that he got out of bed: it was in the evening2. Is that when you get out of bed? No! (Not unless you work night shift, and I don’t think David was working night shift!) Evening is the time to be tired and to sleep after a hard day’s work, not the time to be getting up and looking for things to do at night.
People are more prone to get into trouble with sin at night.
The Apostle Paul warned Christians in Ephesians 5:8&11 “...you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light… And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them.”
Here is David’s first mistake; he was not busy during the 6 days of the week, doing what God had commanded him to do, and, as the old saying goes, “Idleness is the devil’s workshop.”
There is a place for rest, and it is important to rest, and that’s why God gave us a sabbath, and that’s why God “gives His beloved sleep” at night, but, during the six days of the week, we are commanded to “work.” “Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work” (Exodus 20:9, KJV).
If you are cutting corners, over-sleeping, starting work late, taking unnecessary breaks during the day, quitting early,
and if you are filling non-work and non-sleep hours with entertainment and non-productive social life (as opposed to productive social life like raising children and ministering to others),
you are living in rebellion against God’s command to “work” and “be fruitful,” and this will make you a ‘sitting duck’ in the Devil’s workshop. It’s only a matter of time before sin finds you and devours you (Gen. 4:7) because the Devil is on the prowl (1 Pet. 5:8).
And so it was Joab instead of David who “led out the troops of Israel” into battle (1 Chr. 20:1).
This was to the same place to which he had led them in the Syrio-Ammonite war in the previous chapter.
Back he marched, 30+ miles out of the Judean hill country, across the Jordan River, and back up across the Jordanian steppes, to the Ammonite capitol city of Rabbah, where his brother Abishai had chased them like rabbits into their hole the previous year.
It was a city with a defensive wall all around it, so the only way to conquer it was through a seige. Our passage describes the usual strategy for attacking a fortified city like that:
first lay waste to the countryside all around the city so that it’s easy to control all the area around the city and isolate it,
then surround it with soldiers so that nobody can get in or out of the city,
then start the seigeworks. (The parallel passage in 1 Chronicles 20 mentions Joab doing demolition work, maybe working to collapse the city walls, or maybe collecting stuff to build seige ramps to climb over the walls.)
Meanwhile, in verses 2-4, David falls into the sin of adultery. It is a bit uncomfortable to meditate upon this, but God’s word assures us in 2 Timothy 3:16 that “all scripture is profitable... for training in righteousness,” so I want to work from that angle. I want to use this passage to train you in righteousness!
A big part of this lesson is that David didn’t just wake up one day with Bathsheba in bed with him. Adultery doesn’t happen like that. It is a process which begins in the heart and which first courts the sin of coveting (also known as lusting). It involves a series of deliberate choices in rebellion against God before you end up in bed with someone who is not your spouse, so avoiding the sin of adultery is a matter of bringing that process to a screeching halt the moment it begins in the thought life.
James 1:14-15 describes that process: “...each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death.” (NKJV) It starts as a desire.
Folks who go down this slippery slope generally don’t allow themselves to think about where it’s going. This story about David is one of the ways God “trains” us by giving us an example that highlights what’s at the end of this road.
There is only one verse in this chapter about David’s act of adultery,
but there’s 44 verses afterwards about the deaths that followed as a result.
God wants us to meditate on the results of sin so that we will fear sinning against Him rather than meditating primarily on the sin itself.
Deut. 32:29 “Oh, that they were wise, that they understood this, That they would consider their latter end!” (NKJV)
David, however, wasn’t “training in righteousness” or “considering the latter end” when “he saw from the housetop a woman washing herself.”
There has been some debate over Bathsheba’s role in this adulterous affair, but the Bible doesn’t give the account to us from Bathsheba’s perspective, so we don’t really know.
Is it possible that she was purposefully being immodest and flirting and trying to get noticed by another man while her husband was away? If she was, then that would be sin in her heart, and it would be easy to see how that would have coincided with the sin in David’s heart to result in the overt sin of adultery.
But the Bible doesn’t place any blame on Bathsheba for causing David to sin. It is just as possible that Bathsheba wasn’t doing anything wrong. Everybody has to take a bath every now and then, and it was common practice in the old world to do that by a stream. (They didn’t have indoor plumbing in ancient Jerusalem; the Myceans over in Europe were the only folks in the world at that time with indoor plumbing, as far as I know.) Several commentators I read thought that Bathsheba was actually inside her house and that David saw her through a window3; the scriptural account doesn’t tell us enough to know exactly.
All we know is that David didn’t show proper respect to this woman. Maybe his first glimpse of her was totally innocent, or maybe he was purposefully looking for sinful excitement, but in that moment when he saw her bathing, his mind had the choice either to engage lustfully or to disengage from what was none of his business.
There is a popular belief among men that we are victims of our sexual drives and that once we see skin on a woman, there is no way to stop the train of our desires until we have committed further sexual sin, but this is a lie from hell, designed to fool men into more slavery to sin. God holds us responsible for what we do and therefore we are able to manage what we do through thinking properly.
While it is indisputable that men are generally more easily excited than women by the mere sight of a woman revealing her body (and therefore Christian women can show consideration for Christian brothers by dressing modestly), it is also indisputable that men can choose how they respond to what they see (so it is invalid for a man to try to shift the blame for his sexual sin onto a woman simply because she was not modestly dressed).
1 Corinthians 10:13-14 “God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it. Therefore, my beloved, flee...” (NKJV) Do you believe God’s word that no matter what you’ve seen, you haven’t been tempted beyond what you were able to resist and flee from?
Do you actually believe the creed that we recite from Romans 6? “How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? ... our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. For he who has died has been freed from sin... Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. For sin shall not have dominion over you...” (Romans 6:2-14, NKJV) The Bible says you who are in Christ are dead. Dead men can’t be excited by temptations. Therefore you have the ability to deny lusts and devote yourself to righteousness. No sin is inevitable for you, so don’t get suckered-in by that lie!
That’s why Job (31:1) could say, “I have made a covenant with my eyes; Why then should I look upon a woman?” Lust and adultery were genuinely irrelevant to him, as they can be to us if we believe that “if the Son makes you free, you are free indeed.” (John 8:36, NKJV)
But David was not believing these truths in that moment. He made the choice to engage in lust and not to find the sight of a woman bathing irrelevant to him as a slave of righteousness. So he makes the observation that “the woman was very beautiful-looking.”
The same kind of thing occurred when Eve ate the forbidden fruit in Genesis 3: the process began in her mind when she first saw, then considered it to be desirable, then took in disobedience to God, then drew Adam into the same sin.
The initial sight might not be preventable, but the consideration of the object’s beauty is! It indicated a movement in Eve’s thinking and in David’s thinking toward abusing this beautiful object for selfish ends. Otherwise, what did it matter whether it was beautiful or not?
That glimpse could just as well have triggered unselfish thoughts in David’s redeemed mind, centered around fulfilling God’s will. Thoughts like:
“God, what beauty there is in all that You have created. In wisdom You have made them all!” (Ps. 104:24)
Or “O God, please bless that woman with peaceful sleep tonight after the refreshment of her bath, for you give to your beloved sleep. Let her know that you love her.”
Such thoughts might have gotten us another Psalm instead of another scandal.
Or he could have directed his mind to the things God had actually called him to do: “Whoah, that rampart over there is lower on the left than it is on the right. I need to get a work crew out there to raise the left a little higher.”
David already had about 9 other wives and again as many more concubines. He had no need whatsoever for another amorous relationship; he already had too many! He needed to be cultivating contentment instead of covetuousness.
Covetuousness/Lust is a choice to “want selfishly.” That’s why the Bible tells us we must choose not to entertain lust in our heart:
Prov. 6:25 “Do not lust after her beauty in your heart...” (NKJV)
1 Cor. 10: 6 “these [stories from the Old Testament] were examples for us to the end that it would not be us who are coveters of bad things like they coveted/lusted after” (NAW),
1 John 2:16-17 “For everything in the world – the desire of the flesh, the desire of the eyes, and the showy lifestyle – is not from the Father but is from the world, And the world and its desires are being phased out, but the one who does the will of God remains forever.” (NAW)
At this stage, David has broken the 10th commandment, “Do not covet…” This was a sin. Yet even at this stage, he could have stopped the train and turned away from his lustfull musings and confessed it to God as sin and turned to something productive to fill his mind. (“… whatever things are true, whatever things are noble… pure… praiseworthy—meditate on these things.” ~Phil. 4:8, NKJV) How much less pain and suffering and grief there would have been if he had done this, but instead, he allowed the mental process of sin to keep carrying him downward, so that, instead of being the protector of Uriah and Bathsheba as their king, he instead became their destroyer and abuser.
The next step in the process of David’s adultery was the research stage: v.3 “David sent someone and sought out information about the woman.”
He gets her name, which means “Daughter of the vow,”
and it turns out she’s the granddaughter of Ahithophel, one of David’s top-40 mighty men (2 Samuel 23:34) who was in David’s cabinet of advisors and counsellors (1 Chron. 27:33), so David knows her family well, even if he didn’t recognize this young woman.
Finally, the messenger reveals that Bathsheba is the wife of Uriah, another one of David’s top-40 mighty men (2 Sam 23:39, 1Ch 11:41), with whom David had fought side-by-side for years.4
Sometimes we rationalize lust by calling it mere “curiosity.” “I just wondered who he/she was.” “I just wondered what that internet search might turn up.” But we need to be honest with ourselves when it’s really just flirting with sin.
Information isn’t neutral; it is either fuel for doing God’s will or fuel for doing your will (which ends up being the Devil’s will). Unless you need that information to build God’s kingdom, don’t idly seek information for no good reason.
1 Cor. 14:20 says that when it comes to evil, we should be as ignorant as little children.
That has implications for browsing print or electronic media – especially where you are not steering the content; somebody else is – and we know for a fact that there are anti-Christian employees at many social media companies who are purposefully removing God-honoring content and purposefully promoting subversive information. (I’m not saying Facebook can’t be used to do God’s will; I’m just saying you need to be very intentional and self-disciplined and filled with the Holy Spirit if you do.)
And, if you’re a married man or woman, looking at dating programs – or even daydreaming about who you would marry next if your spouse were to suddenly die – is absolutely out-of-bounds for you,
and nobody – married or single – has any business looking up pictures of naked people or consulting “hookup” programs that identify others interested in committing adultery. Horrors!
God’s people must have nothing to do with exploring unfaithfulness.
All our energies need to be poured into faithfulness instead.
Faithfulness is a fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22),
“Moreover it is required in stewards that one be found faithful” (1 Cor. 4:2),
And Jesus commanded in Revelation 2:10, “...Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life.” (NKJV)
And if encouragement to faithfulness isn’t enough, God’s word is full of negative warnings too.
Could it be that some of Solomon’s material for Proverbs 6 was based on his father’s hard experience in the aftermath of his affair with Bathsheba? “Can a man take fire to his bosom, And his clothes not be burned? Can one walk on hot coals, And his feet not be seared? So is he who goes in to his neighbor's wife; Whoever touches her shall not be innocent... Whoever commits adultery with a woman lacks understanding; He who does so destroys his own soul. Wounds and dishonor he will get, And his reproach will not be wiped away. For jealousy is a husband's fury; Therefore he will not spare in the day of vengeance. He will accept no recompense, Nor will he be appeased though you give many gifts.” (Prov. 6:27-35, NKJV)
David should have thought about the fury that Ahithophel could unleash on him for disrupting his granddaughter’s marriage. (You can read about what he did in 2 Sam. 15:12!)
Think also of the damage to David’s legitimate marriage relationships – how betrayed and angry Micah and Abigail must have felt. (My wife once told me to expect to see the business end of a shotgun in her hands if I ever tried any funny business like that!) What’s it going to take to put the fear of God in our hearts and minds so we don’t sin against Him?
Do you see that adultery is a process? Several steps took place in David’s mind before he kidnapped Bathsheba and took her to bed with him: He was idle, he was covetuous, and he rationalized exploring sin further.
Sin starts in the heart and mind, and so that’s where it must be challenged and dealt with before it ripens into actions that are far more destructive.
That’s why Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 10:4-5 “For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ…” (NKJV)
Otherwise “lust [will conceive] and give birth to sin” (James 1:15, NASB), and that’s what we see in...
Adultery of this sort takes two persons, but we are told practically nothing about Bathsheba’s perspective except that “she went to David.”
Perhaps she was looking for illicit romance5,
but it is just as possible that she assumed the king had a legitimate reason to send for her, and that she was entirely innocent in this matter.
If she was taken against her will, David was an extremely-powerful older man, and it would have been very intimidating for a young woman like her to say, “NO” to him. And in power relationships like that, it’s the one with the power who bears the greater share of the responsibility for the sin.
However, at whatever moment she realized that David was up to no good, she should have resisted and screamed for help (Deut. 22:24), and she should have argued forcefully against David committing this sin, just like Abigail did when she stopped David from attacking her family (1 Sam. 25).
Bathsheba suffered dreadful consequences from what happened, whether or not she shared any fault. Adultery harms more victims than adulterers ever realize it will.
Adultery is wrong because God says it’s wrong in the 10 Commandments: “Thou shalt not commit adultery” (Exodus 20:14, KJV).
And the word for adultery there is explained in the ensuing case laws to mean any of the various forms of sexual sin where humans make wrongful use of the parts of their bodies that were designed by God for reproducing children.
Did God give us this prohibition because He is some cosmic party pooper who wants to spoil our fun? Not at all! God commanded us not to commit adultery because He made us in His image and He knows that integrity and covenant faithfulness are what make Him – and us – happy and healthy and free from anxiety. Being a one-man-woman or a one-woman-man for life is the “good life,” with no regrets, no shredded relationships, no venereal diseases, no illegitimate children, no guilt. God wants the best for us!
The judicial section of the law also leaves no doubt as to the criminality of what David did: Leviticus 20:10 “And any man who commits adultery with someone's wife – who commits adultery with his neighbor's wife – shall surely be put to death – the adulterer as well as the adulteress.”
The Apostle James wrote, “when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death,” and we will see in the rest of the chapter and the following chapters how that bears out, as one after another of those close to David dies, even though his life is spared.
But for now we end with verse 4 and Bathsheba going back to her house.
The statement just before the end of verse 4 about Bathsheba “sanctifying herself from her uncleanliness” is a bit unclear as to what it means6.
So, most English Bible translations7 interpret it regarding Bathsheba that she was cleansing herself after the bleeding of her monthly cycle (as per the regulations in Lev. 15 & 18) when David first saw her8, and therefore, when she turned up pregnant after that, the baby could not have been her husband Uriah’s.
On the other hand, the NASB and many of the ancient versions of this passage (notably the Greek Septuagint and Latin Vulgate) interpret it that Bathsheba washed up and tried to become ceremonially pure again (the way Leviticus 15:18 says a husband and wife should do) after committing adultery with David. I’m inclined to think that is the more-likely meaning9, although both are likely true.
I think it’s describing a hypocritical going through the motions of being holy and pure, while sinning against God and against one another and against their spouses and, indeed, against the whole nation. Religious people like us can find it all-too-easy to sin sanctimoniously like that.
In Luke 16:15 Jesus told the Pharisees, “You... justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts. For what is highly esteemed among men is an abomination in the sight of God.” God knows what’s going on in your heart. He isn’t fooled by any amount of religious behavior when it doesn’t actually mean that you are truly preparing yourself to interact with God in total devotion to Him.
Commenting on this passage, Matthew Henry wrote that, “ God left [David] to himself, as he did Hezekiah, that he might ‘know what was in his heart’ (2 Chron. 32:31)... But by this instance we are taught what need we have to pray every day, ‘Father, in heaven, lead us not into temptation,’ and to watch, that we enter not into it.” Let’s use that prayer that Jesus taught us to pray.
Let’s also heed what Jesus said in His Sermon on the Mount, “Y'all heard that it was declared, ‘Do not commit adultery,’ And I myself am saying to you that everyone who looks at a woman for the purpose of lusting after her already has committed adultery with her in his heart. So, if your right eye scandalizes you, snatch it and throw it away from you, for it bears together for you that [only] one of your members might be destroyed and not the whole of your body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand scandalizes you, cut it off and throw it away from you, for it bears together for you that [only] one of your members might be destroyed and not the whole of your body depart into hell.” (Matthew 5:27-30, NAW)
Let’s attack sin at its beginnings, guarding against being in situations we know could be tempting by working heartily six days a week, respecting modesty, keeping good company, and remembering the goodness of God’s laws and the painfulness of the consequences of breaking them, and “taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ,” not accepting sin as inevitable, but trusting that God won’t allow you to be tempted beyond your ability and taking the escape routes He promises to provide. Let’s cultivate contentment and invest in faithfulness so that we may enjoy the happiness God intended for us and be like the redeemed saints in Revelation 14:4 who “were not defiled... [but] follow the Lamb wherever He goes...”
LXX |
Brenton |
DRB |
KJV |
NAW |
MT |
1 Καὶ ἐγένετο ἐπιστρέψαντος τοῦ ἐνιαυτοῦ εἰς τὸν καιρὸν τῆς ἐξοδίας τῶν βασιλέων καὶ ἀπέστειλεν Δαυιδ τὸν Ιωαβ καὶ τοὺς παῖδας αὐτοῦ μετ᾿ αὐτοῦ καὶ τὸν πάντα Ισραηλ, καὶ διέφθειραν τοὺς υἱοὺς Αμμων καὶ διεκάθισαν ἐπὶ Ραββαθ· καὶ Δαυιδ ἐκάθισεν ἐν Ιερουσαλημ. |
1 And it came to pass when the time of the year for kings going out [to battle] had come round, that David sent Joab, and his servants with him, and all Israel; and they destroyed the children of Ammon, and besieged Rabbath: but David remained at Jerusalem. |
1 And it came to pass at the return of the year, at the time when kings go forth [to war], that David sent Joab and his servants with him, and all Israel, and they spoiled the children of Ammon, and besieged Rabba: but David remained in Jerusalem. |
1 And it came to pass, after the year was expired, at the time when kings go forth to battle, that David sent Joab, and his servants with him, and all Israel; and they destroyed the children of Ammon, and besieged Rabbah. But David tarried [still] at Jerusalem. |
1 Then, when the year began to turn to the time that kings go campaigning, David commissioned Joab - and his servants with him - along with all of Israel, and they laid waste to the descendents of Ammon, then laid seige to Rabbah. Meanwhile David sat in Jerusalem. |
1B וַיְהִי לִתְשׁוּבַת הַשָּׁנָה לְעֵת צֵאת הַמַּלְאכִיםC וַיִּשְׁלַח דָּוִד אֶת- יוֹאָב וְאֶת-עֲבָדָיו עִמּוֹ וְאֶת-כָּל- יִשְׂרָאֵל וַיַּשְׁחִתוּ אֶת- בְּנֵי עַמּוֹן וַיָּצֻרוּ עַל-רַבָּה וְדָוִד יוֹשֵׁב בִּירוּשָׁלִָם: ס |
2 Καὶ ἐγένετο πρὸς ἑσπέραν καὶ ἀνέστη Δαυιδ ἀπὸ τῆς κοίτης αὐτοῦ καὶ περιεπάτει ἐπὶ τοῦ δώματος τοῦ οἴκου τοῦ βασιλέως καὶ εἶδεν γυναῖκα λουομένην ἀπὸ τοῦ δώματος, καὶ ἡ γυνὴ καλὴ τῷ εἴδει σφόδρα. |
2 And it came to pass toward X evening, that David arose off his couch, and walked on the roof of the king's house, and saw from the roof a woman bathing; and the woman was very beautiful to look upon. |
2
In the mean time it happened that David
arose from his bed after X
|
2
And it came to pass in |
2 So it was at the time of the evening that David got up from his bed and walked around on the housetop of the palace of the king, and he saw from the housetop a woman washing herself, and the woman was very beautiful-looking. |
2 וַיְהִי לְעֵת הָעֶרֶב וַיָּקָם דָּוִד מֵעַל מִשְׁכָּבוֹ וַיִּתְהַלֵּךְ עַל-גַּג בֵּית-הַמֶּלֶךְ וַיַּרְא אִשָּׁה רֹחֶצֶת מֵעַל הַגָּגD וְהָאִשָּׁה טוֹבַת מַרְאֶה מְאֹד: |
3
καὶ ἀπέστειλεν
Δαυιδ καὶ
ἐζήτησεν τὴν
γυναῖκα, καὶ
εἶπεν Οὐχὶ
αὕτη Βηρσαβεε
θυγάτηρ Ελια |
3
And David sent and enquired about the woman: and one said, Is not
this Bersabee the daughter of Elia |
3
And |
3
And David sent and enquired |
3 So David sent someone and sought out information about the woman, and the man said, “Isn’t this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?” |
3 וַיִּשְׁלַח דָּוִד וַיִּדְרֹשׁ לָאִשָּׁה וַיֹּאמֶר הֲלוֹא- זֹאת בַּת-שֶׁבַעE בַּת-אֱלִיעָםF אֵשֶׁת אוּרִיָּה הַחִתִּיG: |
4 καὶ ἀπέστειλεν Δαυιδ ἀγγέλους καὶ ἔλαβεν αὐτήν, καὶ εἰσῆλθεν πρὸς αὐτόν, καὶ ἐκοιμήθη μετ᾿ αὐτῆς, καὶ αὐτὴ ἁγιαζομένη ἀπὸ ἀκαθαρσίας αὐτῆς καὶ ἀπέστρεψεν εἰς τὸν οἶκον αὐτῆς. |
4
And David sent messengers, and took her, and X
went
in to |
4 And David sent messengers, and took her, and she came in to him, and he slept with her: and [presently] she was purified from her uncleanness: 5 And she returned to her house |
4 And David sent messengers, and took her; and she came in unto him, and he lay with her; for she was purified from her uncleanness: and she returned unto her house. |
4 Nevertheless, David sent messengers and took her, and she went to him, and he laid down with her, then she sanctified herself from her uncleanness and went back to her house. |
4 וַיִּשְׁלַח דָּוִד מַלְאָכִים וַיִּקָּחֶהָ וַתָּבוֹא אֵלָיו וַיִּשְׁכַּב עִמָּהּ וְהִיא מִתְקַדֶּשֶׁתH מִטֻּמְאָתָהּ וַתָּשָׁבI אֶל-בֵּיתָהּ: |
1Therefore a few commentators thought it was the Fall (after the Mosaic new year), rather than the Spring. Alternately, Tsumura claimed it “would refer not so much to a particular season such as spring, as to the beginning of a new administrative year...”
2To be fair, several commentators (incl. K&D) interpreted “evening” as afternoon, and thus not a sign of laziness, since siestas were common in the hot midday of the middle east.
3So Willett, citing “Josephus... Vata[bulus]. Eman. Sa.” in support, so also Gill. K&D, on the other hand, with characteristic emphaticness declared it to be “an uncovered court of a... house where there was a spring with a pool of water...”
4The Dead Sea Scroll of this verse (dated around 50 B.C.) and the Jewish historian Josephus (who wrote in the first century AD), added that Uriah was “Joab’s armor-bearer.”
5Although some commentators noted this as a possibility, Jamieson was the only one I found who actually vouched for it, theorizing that it was at this time that David promised the kingdom to her son, using it as an inducement to convince her to join him, but since the promise in 1 Kings 1:13 seems to have contained the name of “Solomon,” and since no child is in existence at this point, it seems an unlikely theory.
6The only other place the phrase occurs is Lev. 16:19, where the High Priest, on the Day of Atonement, was to “sprinkle [the altar with blood to] ... purify it and sanctify it from the uncleannesses of the children of Israel.”
7Geneva, KJV, RV, ASV, NET, NIV, ESV, NLT, so also commentators Willett, Gill, and Tsumura.
8Most of the commentators I read (Willett, Goldman, Ben Gersom, and Gill) believed that this phrase was explaining that Bathsheba had been cleansing herself after her monthly cycle when David saw her bathing and that the point was to show that she was at the most fertile point in her cycle, heightening her sexual interest in David and making pregnancy more likely, but Tsumura’s point that it would have proved that the pregnancy wasn’t Uriah’s (since she had experienced a cycle after Uriah had left town) is more compelling to me. It seems strange, howeveer, that Bathsheba had no children by Uriah, even though, according to the law, Uriah couldn’t have left for a battle until he had been married to her for a year.
9Among the commentators I read, only Keil & Delitzsch agreed with me.
AMy
original chart includes the NASB and NIV, but their copyright
restrictions have forced me to remove them from the
publicly-available edition of this chart. I have included the ESV in
footnotes when it employs a word not already used by the KJV, NASB,
or NIV. (NAW is my translation.) When a translation adds words not
in the Hebrew text, but does not indicate it has done so by the use
of italics (or greyed-out text), I put the added words in [square
brackets]. When one version chooses a wording which is different
from all the other translations, I underline it. When a
version chooses a translation which, in my opinion, either departs
too far from the root meaning of the Hebrew word or departs too far
from the grammar form of the original text, I use strikeout.
And when a version omits a word which is in the original text, I
insert an X. (I also place an X at the end of a word if the original
word is plural but the English translation is singular.) I
occasionally use colors to help the reader see correlations between
the various editions and versions when there are more than two
different translations of a given word. The only known Dead Sea
Scroll containing 2 Samuel 11 is 4Q51Samuela, which
contains fragments of vs. 2-20, and which has been dated between
50-25 B.C. Where the DSS is legible and in agreement with the MT,
the MT is colored purple. Where the DSS
supports the LXX (or Vulgate) with omissions or text not in the MT,
I have highlighted with
yellow the LXX and its translation into English, and where I
have accepted that into my NAW translation, I have marked it with
{pointed brackets}.
B1 Chronicles 20:1 parallels this verse, skipping the beginning, “At the time that kings go campaigning, Joab instead led the force of the army away, and laid waste to the land of the descendents of Ammon, then went and laid seige to Rabbah. Meanwhile David sat in Jerusalem, while Joab attacked Rabbah and did demolition on it.” (NAW, different wording in orange and inserted words in grey). It then skips over the story of Bathsheba and Uriah and continues in verse 2 with the same text that is at the end of 2 Sam. 12. (1 Chron 20:2 Then David took the crown of their king from his head, and he found it to be 75 pounds of gold with a precious stone in it, and it came to be upon the head of David. He also brought out a vast abundance of plunder from the city. ~NAW)
CThe extra aleph towards the end of this word reads like the Hebrew word for “messengers” instead of “kings.” Several Hebrew manuscripts (including the Cairo Geniza) support this, but none of the ancient versions do (Greek, Latin, Aramaic), nor does the parallel account in 1 Chronicles 20, all of which read “kings” (except for the Syriac which reads singular “king”). Alone in his position among all the commentators I read, Tsumura argued nevertheless that the way it is spelled cannot be a form of the word for “kings,” and must mean “messengers.” Notice that the vowel in that place in the word, in the MT of 1 Chronicles 20, is a long a-class vowel pointing, whereas in the MT of 2 Samuel 11, it is the mater lectionis letter for the a-class vowel, so I don’t think this should be considered an actual variant. (Keil & Delitzsch agreed, “The א interpolated is a perfectly superfluous mater lectionis.”)
DThe Vulgate (which see) and Syriac (חדא סשׁיא כד סחיא) vary from the MT, and the DSS had space for a few extra words in illegible parts of this verse, but the LXX supports the MT.
EDSS runs the two parts of her name together without a maqif/hyphen. In some places in Scripture, the beth is reduced to a vav, but it’s the same person.
F“Eliam and Ammiel (1Chron. 3:5) have the same signification; the difference simply consists in the transposition of the component parts of the name.” ~Keil & Delitzsch
GDSS adds bawy ylk a?wn (“Joab’s armor-bearer”)
HThis Hitpael participle only ocurs one other time in the Hebrew O.T., referencing ceremonial rites conducted before a pagan garden orgy in Isa. 30:29. There are about 25 other instances of this verb in the Hitpael stem, and almost all of them refer to Israelites preparing themselves to be in the special presence of God (the Pentateuch instances being Exod. 19:22; Lev. 11:44; 20:7; Num. 11:18), washing themselves and staying away from anything that would make them unclean in order that fault would not be found in them when they had their interaction with God.
IDSS omits “from her uncleanness” and appears to read “went to her home” instead of “returned to her home.” The Syriac, Targums, Septuagint, and Vulgate all support the MT. These variants don’t change the meaning of the story, though.