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After a reign of forty years, the once
feisty David lies in his royal bed,
shivering, all alone in his last days.
Where, then, is Queen Bathsheba? Why
isn't she at his beck and call, attending to
his every whimper? I always wonder
whether her absence is due to a three-decade
long simmering resentment over the
engineered murder of the love of her youth,
her first husband Uriah the Hittite. |
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Our scene opens in Second Samuel with David
strolling on the ramparts of his palace at
the high point of Jerusalem, D.C. (David's
capital). He spies a bathing beauty on
a lower rooftop nearby. David tweets
his officials, "Who is this woman?"
The reply tells him that she is the daughter
of Eliam, a member of his inner circle of
champions and the wife of Uriah the Hittite,
likewise a loyal champion. (Second Samuel
23:34,39)
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City of
David diagram |
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Bathsheba's roof was
somewhere below David's palace |
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So, from the get-go, David knows Bathsheba
is a married woman – and supposedly
off-limits. However verse 4 in Second
Samuel tells us he brazenly sent envoys to
fetch her to bring her and he laid with her.
From the Hebrew text with its curt verbs it
seems that David is the initiator, the
activist.
We don't know whether Bathsheba was
frightened or flattered at the summons.
She seems totally passive. In fact,
the first time she speaks it is to send
David a message, "I'm pregnant." |
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Courtesy of
Wikipedia Commons |
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Rembrandt paints Bathsheba
(in 1654) holding a note from David |
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David loses no time in summoning Uriah the
Husband home from the fighting front.
David needs a cover story, for adultery was
a capital offense in Israel and indeed,
throughout the ancient Near East. And
furthermore, "shaming," as it's called
today, cut across cultural boundaries and
class lines. Everyone, including the
king was vulnerable. |
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Photo: Gila Yudkin |
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City of David would have
been on right | the mirror image (today
Silwan) is on left |
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Uriah arrives at the palace, but, alas, he
refuses to go home to his wife, even when
David plied him with the most potent palace
wine. The cover-up scheme to present
Uriah as the father of the to-be-born is
thwarted. |
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Perhaps Uriah even suspected David's
motives, for he knows the king well, perhaps
too well, from the time David was a man on
the run from Saul. Or perhaps Uriah
overheard courtyard gossip that David had
summoned Bathsheba in his absence. |
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David even sent Uriah a gift of food (was it
spicy shish kebab?) like a doggy bag, but
Uriah ignores the royal command to go home.
Uriah insists on sleeping amidst the palace
guards near the king's bedroom. |
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Photo: Gila Yudkin |
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The king's bedroom could
have been where the brown wooden structure
is |
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David (the "engineer") then sends Uriah back
to the front with a sealed message that
Uriah be put in the fore-front so he will
fall in battle. Uriah is sent with
others to fight by the city gate of Amman
(today capital of Jordan) where the fighting
was fiercest. As expected, Uriah fell.
I imagine David, hearing the news, heaved a
sigh of relief, thinking he got away with
his crime without "shaming." |
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After the mourning period, David sends for
Bathsheba and marries her. The
cover-up is seemingly complete. Until Nathan
the prophet appears. |
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Nathan tells David a parable about a rich
man who had exceedingly many lambs.
Nevertheless the rich man helps himself to a
poor man's single ewe lamb to slaughter for
a feast. David is incensed at this
injustice and shouts that the man who did
this should surely die. Then Nathan
fingered David, "You are the man!" |
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Photo: Gila Yudkin |
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Little ewe lamb in the
wilderness of Judea |
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In the aftermath of Nathan's appearance,
David composes Psalm 51, a song of
repentance for the chief musician.
Part of it follows: |
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Purge me with hyssop
and I shall be clean,
Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow.
Make me hear joy and gladness,
That the bones You have broken may
rejoice.
Hide your face from my sins,
And blot out all my iniquities
Create in me a clean heart, O God,
And renew a steadfast spirit within me.
Do not cast me away from Your presence,
And do not take Your Holy Spirit from me.
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So then, David is the rich man with multiple
wives. Is Bathsheba the "poor man"
with only one husband and Uriah the ewe lamb
who is slaughtered? Or should we think
that Bathsheba is the ewe lamb that is
sacrificed with Uriah being the poor man? |
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We can discuss this as we ourselves stand on
the highpoint of David's City when you come
to Jerusalem. We'll have a mirror
image of the congested sloping city built
above the Gihon spring and the Kidron
Valley. We can contrast Bathsheba's
passivity at the first encounter to her
assertiveness when she reappears on stage in
the closing scene of David's life. |
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COMING TO
JERUSALEM?
BOOK GILA for your customized private tour |
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Bathsheba in Hebrew means "daughter of the
oath." Did David indeed take an oath
that their surviving son Solomon would rule
after his death? Or was it a
manipulation (or fabrication) of Bathsheba? |
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Photo: Gila Yudkin |
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Is this massive 10th century BC
wall in Jerusalem part of
David's palace? |
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There's lots to talk about in David's City
where the black and white print just jumps
off the page as the characters acquire three
dimensions in their actual habitat.
Don't miss it! |
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Copyright 2015 Gila Yudkin. Permission
needed for any reuse. |
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Postscript from Kathy Merwin, Hudson, OH |
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Gila, reading this, I felt like I was
there and you were talking to me - you
write with the same ‘voice’ you use to
guide us!
I am a daily reader of the Proverbs, and
every time I come back around to Proverbs
1, I am reminded of the good that God
brought out of this story, that Solomon
was born and penned so much wisdom for us,
things that are true down through the
ages.
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If you'd like your own one-on-one half-day
Jerusalem tour
book Gila.
You
can create your own tour with her where those
beloved bible characters jump off the pages
right in front of your eyes! |
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David bought the Temple Mount for 50 shekels
of silver and today it's at the epicenter of
the (Near East) universe. Listen to
Gila's one hour
audio tour of the Temple
Mount as a CD.
Gila's Temple Mount tour
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and ten recommended reads on the
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