David's Progressive Slide Into Sin

INTRO

This is a week of studies of the big stories in 2 Samuel. First, we looked at the Davidic Covenant, and then we looked at how David fulfilled his covenant with Jonathan by adopting Jonathan’s son Mephibosheth into his own family. Today’s passage looks at the break with Israel through David’s sin with Bathsheba. “Even though David had been faithful to Jonathan in keeping his covenant with him, he was not faithful to Jehovah in keeping His covenant with Israel.”¹Constable introduces his commentary on 2 Samuel 11 with this statement: “This is perhaps the second most notorious sin in the Bible, after the Fall.”²Even in this context, the Davidic Covenant still holds, and the Eternal Throne will still happen.

TEACHING

2 Samuel 11:1–2: Nelson’s Commentary explains, “In the Near East, kings normally went out to battle in the spring of the year because of the good weather and the abundance of food available along the way.”³However, David sent his commander and all his soldiers for war, but he remained in Jerusalem (v. 1). Wiersbe points to the issue of idleness in David’s life and states, “Idleness isn’t just the absence of activity ... idleness is also activity to no purpose.”⁴(Luke 9:62). David got out of the groove of what he was called to do. David rose from his bed and went out on the roof and, from a distance, saw that a very beautiful woman was bathing (v. 2). When we are idle, our imagination kicks in and we tend to take our eyes off Jesus. Swindoll points out: “This king who took another man’s wife already had a harem full of women. The simple fact is that the passion of sex is not satisfied by a full harem of women; it is increased. Having many women does not reduce a man’s libido, it excites it ... it stimulates it.... One of the lies of our secular society is that if you just satisfy this drive, then it’ll be abated.”5 David created an environment that this happened. He needed to flee the scene (Matthew 5:27-28). He needed to go back inside or head to war with his men.

The year before, the Arameans and the Ammonites had fled from David’s approaching army and the Ammonites had gone into the city of Rabbah for protection (2 Samuel 10:14). Joab returned with the army a year later to besiege the city of Rabbah. Swindoll writes, “Our most difficult times are not when things are going hard. Hard times create dependent people. You don’t get proud when you’re dependent on God. Survival keeps you humble. Pride is what happens when everything is swinging in your direction.”⁶

2 Samuel 11:3–5: David found out the woman’s identity was Bathsheba and sent messengers to bring her to him (vv. 3–4a). David was in the position of authority over her. David and Bathsheba had sexual relations, and then she returned home. When Bathsheba came to David, she had just gone through ritual purification after menstruation. Bathsheba became pregnant and let David know (vv. 4b–5). Under the law, their adultery was evil, and both should have been killed (Leviticus 20:10; Deuteronomy 22:22). That didn’t happen, and David didn’t repent, so his evilness and sin progressed. First John 1:9 explains that we are to confess our sins, no matter what we’ve done, and God will forgive us.

2 Samuel 11:6–13: To take care of his sin problem, David sent a message to Joab to send Uriah the Hittite, Bathsheba’s husband, to him with news of how the war was going (v. 6). After receiving Uriah’s report, David told him to go to his house and “wash his feet,” meaning to sleep with his wife (vv. 7–8).⁷David even gave food to Uriah to take home. But Uriah did not go to his house, choosing instead to stay with his soldiers (v. 9). When David questioned Uriah about why he didn’t go home, Uriah stated that the ark, Israel and Judah, Joab, and his soldiers were all dwelling in tents, so how could he possibly sleep in a bed with his wife (vv. 10–11)? Uriah had the same heart David had shown when he wanted to build God a temple to dwell in. David told Uriah to stay in Jerusalem until the next day and invited him to eat and drink with him that evening (vv. 12–13). David kept passing the cup to Uriah, hoping that if Uriah became drunk, he would return to his wife. Even drunk, Uriah held to his integrity.

5 Charles R. Swindoll, David: A Man of Passion and Destiny. Great Lives from God’s Word series. (Dallas: Word Publishing, 1997), p. 182; quoted at Constable’s Expositional Bible Study Notes: 2 Samuel, p. 81; available online at http://planobiblechapel.org/tcon/notes/pdf/2samuel.pdf.

2 Samuel 11:14–21: When all his manipulations of Uriah didn’t work, David wrote Joab a letter, which he gave to Uriah to deliver (v. 14). In verse 15, David sent Uriah to deliver his own death sentence. David told Joab to put Uriah on the front lines of the worst fighting and then pull back so Uriah was left alone to face the enemy (Proverbs 6:23–33). Joab followed David’s instructions, and Uriah died in battle (vv. 16–17). Notice that Joab did not follow David’s instructions exactly, because his soldiers did not retreat and leave Uriah alone. Some of David’s men also died in the battle. Joab sent word to David, anticipating David would question why his soldiers died in the battle. Joab told the messenger to tell David that Uriah died with the soldiers (vv. 18–21).

2 Samuel 11:22–27: The messenger delivered Joab’s message, explaining the army had counterattacked and were shot down by archers, killing some soldiers and Uriah (vv. 22–24). David took the news as though the loss of life were no big deal (v. 25). Bathsheba mourned the death of her husband (v. 26). When the time of mourning was over, Bathsheba returned to David and became his eighth wife, and she bore him a son. “However, the LORD considered what David had done to be evil” (v. 27).

Despite the evilness David had done, God would redeem him. Matthew 1:6 records the lineage of Jesus: “Jesse fathered King David. Then David fathered Solomon by Uriah’s wife.” There was such respect for Uriah that he was listed in David’s line. In Matthew 1, four women are listed: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Uriah’s wife (Bathsheba). Three of these were marked with sin. Their presence in this list of male ancestors give evidence of “the principle of the sovereign grace of God, who not only is able to use the foreign (and perhaps even the disreputable) to accomplish his eternal purposes, but even seems to delight in doing so.”⁸

CLOSING

I want to wrap this up by addressing sexual sin. David was not where he was supposed to be, and when confronted with Bathsheba, he didn’t keep his eyes on the Lord. If he had, this story would be different. Constable provides several suggestions of how to protect ourselves from falling into sexual sin.⁹

1. None of us are immune to sexual sin (Corinthians 10:12).
2. We must focus daily on the Lord (Luke 22:46; Romans 6:12-13).
3. We must develop intimacy in our marriages (Philippians 4:11).
4. We must develop accountability with our spouses.
5. We should expect sexual temptation, and evade it at all costs.

When you see temptation, run. David didn't.