Are you a typical human who doesn’t see the truth about yourself? – 2 Samuel 11—12, Part 4

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.

David has a big responsibility as king, and he continues to abuse it.

In the story of 2 Samuel 11, David has forcibly committed adultery with a married woman, Bathsheba. Now she is pregnant. What about her husband, Uriah? David David recalls Uriah from the front lines to see if he would sleep with his wife to cover up the fact that Bathsheba is pregnant with David’s baby.

It turns out that Uriah didn’t go home; he slept at the palace, and David finds him the next morning, and asks him, “What are you doing? Why didn’t you go home?” This is not working out like David planned.

Uriah’s answer is so honorable. He tells David that while his brothers are out fighting a battle that he should also be fighting, it doesn’t feel right to go to the comforts of home and his wife because his friends on the front line would also like to be home. Uriah doesn’t feel like he deserves these comforts while his fellow soldiers are serving on the front lines.

David then proceeds to get Uriah drunk, thinking a tipsy Uriah just might give in to his desires to be with his wife. But again, Uriah chooses not to go home! David can’t believe it.

So David ends up conceding, sort of. He realizes he’s lost the opportunity to get Uriah and Bathsheba together, and there’s only one more course of action he can take: he sends Uriah back to war with a note for Joab the general, and that note instructs that Uriah be put on the front line and abandoned and left to die. Which is exactly what happens.

David commits murder by proxy.

So a further consequence of David abusing his power is that Bathsheba is a widow. Uriah is killed by the very man that he showed intense loyalty to, and Bathsheba loses her husband at the hand of the man who sexually exploited her. Two lives are arguably in ruin because of one’s man’s selfish decisions. The reason I say selfish is because it appears as though David has gotten away with it, doesn’t it? Bathsheba is pregnant with his child, but no one will know about the infidelity because after Bathsheba goes through a standard period of mourning, David takes her as his wife.

He’s off scot-free and this baby will be born as royalty. Or is he? 2 Samuel 11 closes with a phrase about something going on behind the scenes, “The thing David had done displeased the Lord.”

In chapter 12, Nathan the prophet shows up and tells David the parable of a rich man stealing another man’s only sheep and slaughtering it. David becomes enraged and yells that this man must pay for his wrong doing. In a dramatic turn of events, Nathan turns to David and says one of the most dramatic lines in the Bible,

“YOU ARE THAT MAN!”

The fact that David did not immediately see the parallel to his own life shocks me a bit, but then again, isn’t it so classically human to not be able to see the truth about ourselves when it’s presented to us?

How will David respond to finally being confronted about his sin? What will David do when he realizes that he hasn’t covered up his wickedness? We find out in the next post.

For now, consider the question above: “isn’t it so classically human to not be able to see the truth about ourselves when it’s presented to us?” Do you see the truth about yourself? Do you have a Nathan in your life who speaks truth to you?

Photo by Ante Hamersmit on Unsplash