Have you ever heard a woman’s perspective of the story of David & Bathsheba? – 2 Samuel 11—12, Part 1

Editor’s Note: This week we welcome guest blogger, Emily Marks. Emily is an adult and community educator. She and her husband Sean live in Lancaster, PA, with their dog Corvus. I learned so much from her sermon on 2 Samuel 11-12! I’m excited for you to read these blog posts.

We will be continuing in the life of David today, but I’m going to give the Type A blog readers a heads up right now: it’s not where we left off! The choice to move out of order is intentional this week. When Joel and I began discussing what passage I would preach and blog, he mentioned he thought new insights could be gleaned from this passage if it was taught by a woman.

So we’re going to jump ahead to 2 Samuel 11—12, talking about David and Bathsheba.

This study is going to serve two purposes: obviously we’re in a series about David so we first need to continue in his story, but the second focus is that we are going to be learning what happens when we misunderstand a passage of the Bible.

I am excited to talk with you about this story, but I must admit that my initial excitement turned to nerves pretty quick. The story of David and Bathsheba is a classic that many people even outside of the church know. The risk you run when discussing a well-known story is that no one is listening because “we already know this one,” or it would be easy for me to slip into the “way this is always taught.”

But as I studied this passage and read about what scholars said about it, and as I looked back at the way this passage was taught to me, I learned some new things. I also discovered some ideas that were probably taught incorrectly to me.

I’ve been going through this process of unlearning and listening to different voices and re-learning, and I’m hoping you’ll take that journey with me this week. I would challenge you to take a moment and sort of wipe out mentally what you already know about this passage. I would encourage you to ask the Lord to open your heart and give you eyes to look at this passage in a new way, almost like you’ve never heard the story before. Even if it gets uncomfortable.

This story begins in 2 Samuel chapter 11. We initially read the context of this story in verse one: “In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war, David sent Joab out with the king’s men and the whole Israelite army. They destroyed the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David remained in Jerusalem. 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.” Then David sent messengers to get her. She came to him, and he slept with her. (Now she had purified herself from her monthly uncleanness.)”

There a couple of issues in this passage that we are going to come back to in a future post, but I want to acknowledge them now: David slept with a woman that is not his wife. He has more than one wife already, for heaven’s sake. But on top of that, David knew that this new woman was married because he inquired and the person who reported back told him so! Not only has David been unfaithful to the women he has covenant relationships with, but he has also inserted himself into another marriage.

These are not okay, but we’re going to come back to these in a bit.

First, let’s talk about Bathsheba. The Old Testament writers took great care to point something out about Bathsheba that is incredibly consequential to the rest of the story, but that has been breezed over as a random fact in every sermon that I’ve heard about this passage that I can remember.

But it’s only consequential if we understand women’s health.

And this is where things might begin to get uncomfortable for some of you. How so? We’ll find out in the next post.

Photo by Ran Berkovich on Unsplash