2 Sam. 11:26-12:13a, Psalm 51:1-12
Let me introduce myself. I am Bathsheba, wife of Uriah the Hittite.
You’ve heard of me because of my second husband, King David. Oh yes, now
you recognize me. I can feel you squirming. Adulteress they call me
still. I admit, things didn’t turn out the way they might have, if we
had let God’s own timing come through. Still, as some of you also may
know, my son Solomon became the successor to my husband, the King. And
from him, the line continues to my great-great-great-many times
great-grandson Jesus.
Some people like to say I was raped. Some people say I was only six or
eight years old at the time. Imagine! Pregnant at six? No. I was woman,
not child. Still young, but fully woman. But I am getting ahead of
myself.
It was spring. The time of battle. So many battles. Was David ever at
peace? Sometimes there was peace with one group or another. That spring
my lord the King was at peace with the Arameans, but that was only after
my David had killed seven hundred chariot teams and forty thousand
horsemen, including their commander. People wonder why the king was home
in Jerusalem when the army was still out to battle. Surely after all
that, the king can rest. Surely!
So it was spring, and spring was in the air. What a lovely afternoon it
was. I had just finished my period, and was having the customary bath.
Why was I having my bath on the roof? Because the mikva, the ritual
bath, was to be taken in Living Water. A stream or a spring would be
best, but a cistern on the roof would catch the living water of rain. So
there I was.
I hope I don’t embarrass you by speaking of such things, but I must.
My husband Uriah was very much a rules man. He insisted that I follow
the most stringent of mikva rules, that I wait an entire seven days
after my bleeding stopped, and then to take the ritual bath, to be
prepared for his amorous advances. Not that he was amorous often, as he
was a soldier, and we were at war. Yet I wanted to be ready, just in
case. AND I wanted a child. We had no children. My husband actually
would have to be in my bed for that to happen. Ha!
So it was spring, and spring was in the air and I had no husband waiting
for me after my bath. I hear that in your time, in the land of
Afghanistan, that there is now a law that you here sometimes have call
the Rape Law. A law that makes it unlawful for a woman to refuse her
husband, that she must allow her husband sex at least every fourth day.
Would that we had such a law in those days, as this so called Rape Law
also states that a woman may demand sex from her HUSBAND.
I was on the roof, having my bath, a complete immersion in the cistern,
the only Living Water I had. I must not have had the screens properly
placed, as someone noticed me. That someone was none other than the
king, David. I had seen him in the streets, in the parades, and coming
home tired and dirty from war. Even then he was handsome. They say that
when he noticed me on the roof that he said I was a beauty. The truth is
that I was young and slender, my long hair dripping in the late
afternoon sunlight, and I was obviously preparing for sex. The sight of a
woman in a ritual bath must be an aphrodisiac, as the bath is one of
the important preparations for the marital bed.
He called someone to find out who I was, and soon learned that I was the
wife of Uriah the Hittite, and that my father was Eliam. Notice how
they don’t say that I was Bathsheba, just Bathsheba. I was wife and
daughter. My identity was who I belonged to. When they told him I was
Uriah’s wife, the king knew that I was indeed beautiful. You see, Uriah
was one of the heros in the army, one of King David’s best warriors. I
was a prize, awarded to Uriah for his exploits. No, you won’t find that
recorded in the Holy books, but tradition tells that tale.
So the king called for me, and I came. Notice, the story does not say
that he called for me and the servants brought me. He called and I came.
Did I have a choice? Apparently one is allowed to say no to the King.
My husband Uriah did. But he died for it too. No, the story doesn’t read
that David had Uriah killed for disobedience. Some people say that
Uriah was a very holy and righteous man. Like I say, he was one to
follow rules, even the old taboo about not having sex during battle
times. Oh, Uriah said he didn’t want to spend time with his wife when
his fellow soldiers were at the Front, but is that more important than
obeying the king? More important than one’s wife? That is the kind of
man Uriah was. Like you men for whom the hockey games and the golfing
are more important than time with your wife. Ha! But I am getting away
from my story again.
The king called for me and I came. It was spring. I had just had my
bath. No, the king did not rape me. Could I have said no? Perhaps, but
most people do not say no to the king. If this was rape, I was willing
and ready. I was a young woman full of dreams and romance. When David
lay with me, he made love to me. So different from Uriah, and so
handsome. I won’t say that I fell in love with him that night, but I
never forgot what it was like to be with him.
It didn’t take long for me to realize I was pregnant. The thing is that
if a woman has sex after the bath, after the seven days of waiting,
AFTER the bleeding stops, she is at her most fertile time. I was young
and ovulating, and I was soon pregnant. I had to tell the king. I sent a
note.
With Uriah away, and for who knows how long, I would be in disgrace. The
fact that David did so much to protect my reputation shows how much he
cared for me. He did not have to claim the child. He could have let me
face all the humiliation and danger alone. No, he tried to fix it. He
called Uriah home, wined and dined him, asked him how the war was going,
told him what a great soldier he was. Told him he deserved some time
off to spend with his wife.
Uriah would have none of that. Like I say, to him rules were solid
things that can’t be bent. No sex during battle. That makes sense if the
woman is in the battle field as many women are, cooking the food, or
carrying materials. There is danger in that kind of sex. But sex at home
on leave with the King’s blessing? Not my Uriah. No.
I suppose there was a chance that Uriah would have been killed in battle
anyway. Perhaps that was God’s intention, that I, as a widow, would
come to the palace, as one of David’s wives, to become the mother of
Solomon, and establish my place in the lineage of the Christ. But Uriah
was one of the best warriors. If the king had not sent him into the heat
of battle intentionally, Uriah would have volunteered. He would have
raced to the front. The only thing that was unusual in this case was
that the king instructed Joab not to support Uriah and the other men in
battle. David was in a hurry. He wanted to spare me, and somehow thought
this would do it. Of course it did not spare me, as the whole story
came out in the wash, as they say.
Thus Uriah the Hittite died. As his wife, I was to mourn for seven days,
and I did. When that time was over, king David again called for me, and
I went to him to become one of his many wives. I was one of the more
fortunate ones. I had several children with David. Some of you may not
realize how many wives and concubines he had. Even before he took
Jerusalem, he had six sons in Hebron. Six sons by six different women.
Our first child was a son too. I wanted to call him Davy. One day Nathan
the prophet came to see the king, to tell him about some rich man who
had stolen the little pet lamb of the poor man next door. A rich man who
did not want to take from his own riches to feed a traveller. The story
made my lord the King very angry. People do that, you know, get angry
at what other people do, without noticing that the other person is a
mirror for what we ourselves do.
When David said that the rich man deserved death, and must replace the
lamb four times, Nathan told him "You are the man!" Nathan spelled out
the consequences, how the sword would never depart from the house of
David, how his own sons would try to steal his throne from him, and not
just his throne, but his wives, in full sight of the entire people of
Israel. The secret was out.
I wasn’t there when Nathan visited, but I can hear in my heart still the
words of King David’s confession: "I have sinned against the Lord."
God is a merciful God. When my lord the King confessed, he was forgiven.
Although he deserved death, his life was spared. Instead, our precious
baby, Nathan said, would die. He got so sick. All the best doctors were
called. We prayed day and night as we rocked and held him. David fasted.
He prayed all night prostrate on the ground.
My lord King David, my husband, my love, wrote one of my favourite songs
in those days. You have read it this morning. Psalm 51. A prayer to a
merciful and loving God. David did not blame anyone else. He claimed it
all. He said "MY transgression", "MY iniquity", "MY sin." He did not
minimize what happened. He didn’t say Uriah would have died anyway, so
grant mercy. No. He didn’t say a king can have any woman he wants. And
not once did he blame God for our son’s illness and death.
David had tried to cover up the whole affair, and the whole world heard
of it, but in this psalm, David says that God desires truth on the
INSIDE. He asks God to teach him wisdom in his secret heart. That is
where Truth begins. David and I lied to ourselves that we could keep
this secret. We lied to ourselves in thinking that no one would be hurt.
We really didn’t even allow ourselves to look at the whole of it. That
is the thing we learned in this, that we can parcel up that side of
ourselves that we don’t like, that people frown upon, and pretend it
isn’t even there. It isn’t so much an active internal lie, but a
complete burial of truth, even from ourselves.
David prayed for the wisdom of truth on the inside. No one needs to be
completely truthful on the outside. We keep our thoughts to ourselves.
We cover our sadness or irritation for the sake of others. But we MUST
shine the light of truth on our own hearts and know ourselves.
Otherwise, the secrets we keep from ourselves can turn on us.
David prayed for a brand new clean heart. He prayed for a new and steady
spirit. He prayed for renewed connection to God, for joy, and for
willingness. He, the king, humbled himself to be mere man, a man born
into human failings, and asked God to keep him willing. Willing to look
carefully on the inside with the bright light of the wisdom of truth.
And God heard. He changed our lives on the inside, even though we still had to face the consequences of our actions.
Seven days, again seven days, we prayed, and then our Davy died. We
would not pray for him any longer. It was done. We turned to each other,
to console each other, and soon I was pregnant again, this time with
Solomon.
Solomon grew into a wise man and would be a wise king. David and I grew
older. Each of the dreadful consequences that Nathan had predicted did
come true. David faced the treason of his sons. Absalom and Adonijah
each tried to claim the throne, and to take some of the king’s wives to
strengthen their claim. Nathan warned me of one plot, and we managed to
have Solomon, my son, installed as David’s successor. Those were hard
years. Yet David is remembered as a great and wonderful king, who
brought our people together under one crown. I am remembered as
adulteress. But David loved me. And so did God.
© Alice Finnamore
