God is a Dick - Part XXIV: David and Bathsheba
David is one of god’s favorite people ever. The Bible tells us in several locations what a good person he was and how god felt about him.
As Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods, and his heart was not fully devoted to the LORD his God, as the heart of David his father had been. (1KI 11:4 NIV)
After removing Saul, he made David their king. He testified concerning him: ‘I have found David son of Jesse a man after my own heart; he will do everything I want him to do.’ (ACT 13:22 NIV)
For David had done what was right in the eyes of the LORD and had not failed to keep any of the LORD’s commands all the days of his life—except in the case of Uriah the Hittite. (1KI 15:5 NIV)
Based on this last passage, I will analyze David in two parts. This week, we will look at the aforementioned case of Uriah the Hittite and see how god responds to David’s one transgression. Next week we will look at all of the things David did that were just fine with god. After all, if David is a man after god’s own heart, we can learn a lot about the nature of god from reading about David.
In chapter 11 of 2 Samuel, King Dave is puttering about the palace while his army is off destroying the Ammonites and laying siege to Rabbah. He goes out on the roof and from there sees a woman bathing. When he asks a servant who the woman is, he is told she is Bathsheba, wife of Uriah the Hittite who was off fighting. Dave doesn’t let her marital status bother him, though. He has her brought to the palace and sleeps with her. Following the pattern of nearly every sexual encounter in the Bible, Bathsheba conceives a son.
Dave sends word to Joab, his nephew and leader of the army, instructing him to send Uriah to the palace. When he arrives, Dave makes smalltalk about the war and then tells Uriah to go home and wash his feet. However, Uriah sleeps with the servants that night and will not go home.
When David was told, “Uriah did not go home,” he asked him, “Haven’t you just come from a distance? Why didn’t you go home?”
Uriah said to David, “The ark and Israel and Judah are staying in tents, and my master Joab and my lord’s men are camped in the open fields. How could I go to my house to eat and drink and lie with my wife? As surely as you live, I will not do such a thing!” (2SA 11:10-11 NIV)
Admirable. Dave tells Uriah to stay at the palace one more night and then sends him back to Joab with a letter. Joab is instructed to put Uriah in the most dangerous part of the battle and make sure he dies. The deed is done, and he is killed by enemy archers.
When Uriah’s wife heard that her husband was dead, she mourned for him. After the time of mourning was over, David had her brought to his house, and she became his wife and bore him a son. But the thing David had done displeased the LORD. (2SA 11:26-27 NIV)
So, how will god handle this? Saul was just impatient and merciful, and god withdrew his favor and tortured Saul until he died. Dave is a murderer and adulterer. Surely his fate will be equal or worse.
God sends Nathan to speak to Dave on his behalf. Nathan relates the following tale:
“There were two men in a certain town, one rich and the other poor. The rich man had a very large number of sheep and cattle, but the poor man had nothing except one little ewe lamb he had bought. He raised it, and it grew up with him and his children. It shared his food, drank from his cup and even slept in his arms. It was like a daughter to him.
“Now a traveler came to the rich man, but the rich man refrained from taking one of his own sheep or cattle to prepare a meal for the traveler who had come to him. Instead, he took the ewe lamb that belonged to the poor man and prepared it for the one who had come to him.” (2SA 12:1-4 NIV)
Dave tells Nathan that the man must die for what he did, and Nathan tells Dave that he’s the man. I’ll ignore the poor analogy and the reference to women as property. One need not look far in the Old Testament to find either.
Dave is allowed to live despite his own judgment of the situation. God has other ideas. First, he strikes ill the child Bathsheba had borne and kills him after seven days of suffering while Dave begs and prays for his son’s survival. OK, that sucks for David, but it sucks just as much for Bathsheba and even more for the innocent child. The arrow of divine justice has not scored a bullseye on this one. What else ya got, god?
Well, the other component of Dave’s punishment was foretold by Nathan right away but took a while to happen.
“This is what the LORD says: ‘Out of your own household I am going to bring calamity upon you. Before your very eyes I will take your wives and give them to one who is close to you, and he will lie with your wives in broad daylight. You did it in secret, but I will do this thing in broad daylight before all Israel.’ ” (2SA 12:11-12 NIV)
In chapter 16, Dave’s own son Absalom does just that, sleeping with his father’s concubines on the roof in sight of all. Now, I’m sure that hurt his pride, but it seems to me that Dave is still way ahead of the game, here. The people punished most by this were the women. I’m assuming that their permission was not requested or required for this little exercise.
There’s one more interesting point I’d like to make. When you look at the genealogy of Jesus in the first chapter of Matthew, you will find Bathsheba listed as “Uriah’s wife.” Isn’t it interesting that god was vehemently opposed to the union of David and Bathsheba, but decided that his own son would come from that very bloodline? In fact, if David had not taken Bathsheba, more than half of Jesus’ family tree would have been different. This leads to a few questions. Did David have a choice in what he did? If Solomon had not been born to David and Bathsheba, and Jesus’ genealogy were different, would it matter? Does genealogy, which is given so much space in the Bible, make a difference at all? And, most importantly, if god is the father of Jesus, why the hell should we care about Joseph’s ancestors? He was just in the right place at the right time.
Let’s review. Davey sees something he wants and he takes it like any good Biblical king. When a child is conceived, he has Uriah killed. To punish David, god sickens and kills an innocent baby. He also causes Dave’s son to screw (read: rape) his concubines on a rooftop. What’s done to David directly? Nothing. To top it off, many generations later, god chooses a byproduct of this unholy union and knocks up his wife. Ironic? You betcha. Dick.
~I AM~
December 18th, 2005 at at 2:42 am
I’ve been waiting for this story in particular to be exposed of its dickery in all its glory (brings to mind a giant, glowing, heavenly phallus, but I digress).
In my suddenly apparent myopia, I’d never looked further down the line and made the Jesus’ geneaology connection. Once again you’ve added insight. Damn you.
The quote from 1 Kings (11:4) has me curious as to which word was translated as “heart” (the same translation was put forth in the KJV). From context I take this to have an emotional connotation, going against the prevailing presumption of the times that the kidneys (”reins”) were the center of emotions (wonder how NIV translates this?).
Although, it could very well mean that Dave THOUGHT like God, since the heart was viewed as the seat of thought (not suprising that these people had no known use for the brain), which would explain Dave’s dickery.
In either case, it’s quite interesting that YHWH is apparently admitting to having a human physiology, and if speaking figuratively, it implies that man can have, at the least, a similar nature.
December 18th, 2005 at at 9:34 am
The quote from 1 Kings (11:4) has me curious as to which word was translated as “heart” (the same translation was put forth in the KJV). From context I take this to have an emotional connotation, going against the prevailing presumption of the times that the kidneys (”reins”) were the center of emotions (wonder how NIV translates this?).
The NIV is what I quoted from. For future reference, the Online Parallel Bible is a useful tool for these kinds of questions. I’ve added a link to it to the Research Resources section. In this particular passage, it seems that most of the major translations use ‘heart.’
December 18th, 2005 at at 2:51 pm
Another Sunday and another great post in the “God is a Dick” series with a promise of more to come. How good can Sundays get? How can anyone actually believe this crap is true?
December 18th, 2005 at at 7:15 pm
I’ve been waiting for this story in particular to be exposed of its dickery in all its glory (brings to mind a giant, glowing, heavenly phallus, but I digress).
Wow, that’s an image. I was going to comment, but I think I need to go
see my husbandwash my eyes.Okay, actually… that can wait a few minutes. I have to discuss the parable. Does anyone else see this man with his ewe, sharing his cup? In my mind she looks like she would if the Wallace & Grommit guy designed her (I can not for the life of me remember his name right now). She’s rather cute, but it’s a bit disturbing to think that Sheeb’s first hubby loved her as a daughter…
Then there’s the whole consent issue, of course. Sheeb’s brought to David, but there’s no obvious indication she wants to “lie” with
his giant, glowing, beloved phallushim. Given how the Bible deals with women and consentual sex, I’d guess she had no choice. So to punish her by allowing her to be raped, then allowing her hubby killed and then, finally, letting her son suffer and be killed… what a fuckin’ dick, and not the kind DUB is imagining!December 18th, 2005 at at 7:24 pm
My husband just informed me that it’s “consensual” and not “consentual”. English is such an idiotic language. My husband has an irritating habit of being right.
December 18th, 2005 at at 9:49 pm
Hi everyone. This is my first posting here.
What I always found curious about this story is why a Hittite would be serving in Israel’s army. After all, the Hittites were a major regional power based in Asia Minor, which is present day Turkey. He would have to be a mercenary, though why he would fight for a rump state like David’s Israel is unclear to me.
December 19th, 2005 at at 1:01 am
OK…first of all, I’m not “imagining” imagining the giant glowing phallus…it’s not like that.
Now…
Tommykey brings up a valid point. Especially in the face of the Israelites extreme sense of nationalism (read: racism) - not allowing pretty much any contact with “strangers” and all. But then again, in David’s time the Mosaic Deuteromical Law wasn’t known or apparently practiced (the “Book of Law” wasn’t “found” until later by Hilkiah during renovations of the Temple in the time of Josiah, 18 Kings after David).
Yam: I have the eSword FREE bible software, including Strongs and Greek and Hebrew versions and MANY other resources. It’s an excellent program that I highly reccommend to anyone seriously interested in studying the bible.
December 19th, 2005 at at 1:02 am
Why do all my comments have to “await moderation”? I didn’t even cuss in this one.
December 19th, 2005 at at 1:35 am
DUB:
Some of your comments have words that are on the list of common spam words. Others just have something about them that WordPress finds suspicious. Foul language should not be a problem. That last comment was held because of links. Any comment with more than two links is automatically held for moderation because comment spam often has a lot of links in it.
I will look around and see if I can find a way to whitelist certain commenters.
December 19th, 2005 at at 1:40 am
I’m even feared by revolutionary humanist atheists sites. MUWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
.
December 19th, 2005 at at 2:06 am
The whole story with the ewe…you know, the one that “slept in his arms.”
Yeah.
*cough*”Animal husbandry”*cough* (in an animal wifery sense) was VERY common in those days, especially amongst the sheperds out there all lonely in the desert. It can be taken that the Genesis (2:19-25) reference to Eve being made only AFTER Adam wasn’t “satisfied” with any of the other beasts hints at exactly what you think I’m getting at. It should also be noted that beastiality was such a common practice that Laws (Leviticus 18:23 - interestingly, the Talmud has a different perspective: Yebamoth 59b) had to be made about it.
By the way, please see the above link, as it is F#CKING HILARIOUS.
December 19th, 2005 at at 5:44 pm
You missed a level of David’s dickery here. When a child was conceived, he tried to trick the guy into thinking it was his own, then when that failed he tried to cover it up by having Uriah killed.
Course, this isn’t about David being a dick, except in the sense that he thinks like god.
December 20th, 2005 at at 1:33 am
You missed a level of David’s dickery here. When a child was conceived, he tried to trick the guy into thinking it was his own, then when that failed he tried to cover it up by having Uriah killed.
OH! Thank you. I couldn’t figure out why David tried to get Uriah to go home. I must have spent twenty minutes thinking about it. I feel really dumb now.
December 20th, 2005 at at 3:49 am
Wonderful post. I’m new to this series - have you ever addressed the story of Sodom and Gomorrah? That’s the one that pretty much ended my career as a Christian.
December 20th, 2005 at at 7:20 am
have you ever addressed the story of Sodom and Gomorrah?
Sort of.
December 21st, 2005 at at 10:10 am
I’m a new commenter, but I’ve been reading for a while. As long as you’re taking suggestions, I Am, I’m with my family for the holidays and they do devotions every night, and last night we talked about Jonah. I really wanted to get a discussion going but… I thought you would do a better job at it so, how about Jonah for the next edition of God is a Dick? I would do it myself but… a French term paper is calling…
I’ll still read, no matter which specific story you pick. There are plenty of choices!
December 21st, 2005 at at 10:29 am
Jaquie:
I’ve almost done Jonah at least three times. Just for you, I’ll try to get to Jonah after I finish up this David two-parter. Actually, I have one other in mind that I may try to sneak in there, so it may be January 8.
December 22nd, 2005 at at 8:16 pm
Just as long as it’s by the 10th… I’m leaving then for France for the semester and will be giving up an internet connection… I will have a lot of catching up to do by the time I’m back in June. I’m not too sorry about that though, since I’m trading Bible belt, Republican Indiana for France, which has its faults, but also MUCH less religion.
December 25th, 2005 at at 8:05 am
[…] Last week, we looked at the case of Uriah the Hittite. If you haven’t already read Part XXIV, please do so now. As promised, this week we’ll look at the rest of David’s reign in order to see the actions of which god approves. I will limit this analysis to Dave’s actions after the death of Saul. […]
December 25th, 2005 at at 8:40 am
Why a Hittite? Well, it is entirely possible that the author got confused, of course, but Israel’s brief period as a notable independent kingdom was enabled by the general disruption of the region during the invasion of the Sea Peoples, which among other things pretty much wiped out the Hittites. Any that were left were probably looking for shelter wherever they could find it. The period when the Hittites were a power was a few centuries earlier.
Great series, as always.