Scripture: 2 Samuel 11:1-27 (NKJV)
1 It happened in the spring of the year, at the time when kings go out to
battle, that David sent Joab and his servants with him, and all Israel; and
they destroyed the people of Ammon and besieged Rabbah. But David remained at
Jerusalem. 2 Then it happened one evening that David arose from his bed and
walked on the roof of the king’s house. And from the roof he saw a woman
bathing, and the woman was very beautiful to behold. 3 So David sent and
inquired about the woman. And someone said, “Is this not Bathsheba, the
daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?” 4 Then David sent
messengers, and took her; and she came to him, and he lay with her, for she was
cleansed from her impurity; and she returned to her house. 5 And the woman
conceived; so she sent and told David, and said, “I am with child.”
6 Then David sent to Joab, saying, “Send me Uriah the Hittite.” And Joab sent
Uriah to David. 7 When Uriah had come to him, David asked how Joab was doing,
and how the people were doing, and how the war prospered. 8 And David said to
Uriah, “Go down to your house and wash your feet.” So Uriah departed from the
king’s house, and a gift of food from the king followed him. 9 But Uriah slept
at the door of the king’s house with all the servants of his lord, and did not
go down to his house. 10 So when they told David, saying, “Uriah did not go
down to his house,” David said to Uriah, “Did you not come from a journey? Why
did you not go down to your house?” 11 And Uriah said to David, “The ark and
Israel and Judah are dwelling in tents, and my lord Joab and the servants of my
lord are encamped in the open fields. Shall I then go to my house to eat and
drink, and to lie with my wife? As you live, and as your soul lives, I will not
do this thing.” 12 Then David said to Uriah, “Wait here today also, and
tomorrow I will let you depart.” So Uriah remained in Jerusalem that day and
the next. 13 Now when David called him, he ate and drank before him; and he
made him drunk. And at evening he went out to lie on his bed with the servants
of his lord, but he did not go down to his house.
14 In the morning it happened that David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it by
the hand of Uriah. 15 And he wrote in the letter, saying, “Set Uriah in the
forefront of the hottest battle, and retreat from him, that he may be struck
down and die.” 16 So it was, while Joab besieged the city, that he assigned
Uriah to a place where he knew there were valiant men. 17 Then the men of the
city came out and fought with Joab. And some of the people of the servants of
David fell; and Uriah the Hittite died also. 18 Then Joab sent and told David
all the things concerning the war, 19 and charged the messenger, saying, “When
you have finished telling the matters of the war to the king, 20 if it happens
that the king’s wrath rises, and he says to you: ‘Why did you approach so near
to the city when you fought? Did you not know that they would shoot from the
wall? 21 Who struck Abimelech the son of Jerubbesheth? Was it not a woman who
cast a piece of a millstone on him from the wall, so that he died in Thebez?
Why did you go near the wall?’—then you shall say, ‘Your servant Uriah the
Hittite is dead also.’”
22 So the messenger went, and came and told David all that Joab had sent by
him. 23 And the messenger said to David, “Surely the men prevailed against us
and came out to us in the field; then we drove them back as far as the entrance
of the gate. 24 The archers shot from the wall at your servants; and some of
the king’s servants are dead, and your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead also.”
25 Then David said to the messenger, “Thus you shall say to Joab: ‘Do not let
this thing displease you, for the sword devours one as well as another.
Strengthen your attack against the city, and overthrow it.’ So encourage him.”
26 When the wife of Uriah heard that Uriah her husband was dead, she mourned
for her husband. 27 And when her mourning was over, David sent and brought her
to his house, and she became his wife and bore him a son. But the thing that
David had done displeased the LORD.
Devotion
Even with the wonderful self-awareness David had, and all of his faith in God,
he still is but a man who is subject to sin. It is always astounding to hear
people who are interviewed on television after some horrible crime say that the
suspect could not have possibly committed such a crime. “It was not like them
to do such a thing,” or so we hear. But of course, it is within everyone’s
nature to sin, and sin in the most heinous ways, given the right circumstances.
It is easy for us to sin. We are driven by lusts and fears. Our minds are
darkened and captivated by sin. We are not able not to sin. The only escape
from sin is through the power of the Holy Ghost. We must fervently pray to be
kept away from sin. We must pray for the awareness to be able to physically
flee from sin and not to indulge it. Only through God’s help can we do this.
Once sin is indulged, it grows. And if it involves others directly, it will
grow that much faster, and with greater harm.
One surely wonders why David thought that God could not see all that he was
doing and that there would be a reckoning. But sin can drive us to
rationalizations that are clearly absurd to anyone else. Unrepented sin
ultimately makes us fools. We end up looking ridiculous for believing we could
get away with it. We must live our lives Coram Deo (in the presence of God) so
that we may face our Lord on the Last Day.
Posted by The Reverend Jeffrey A. Ahonen on behalf of the Evangelical Lutheran
Diocese of North America, publisher of the Lutheran Herald.
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