029 Bathsheba: Her story is not adultery but abuse

(TW: Rape, sexual assault, abuse of power, murder)

Start with the text, and the story starts to sound very different. We walk through 2 Samuel 11–12 line by line and confront the hard truth: Bathsheba was not a seductress or a co-conspirator; she was a woman overpowered by a king who chose to abuse his authority. From ancient bathing practices to royal protocol, we dismantle common myths and show how the power gap makes consent impossible. The Hebrew details matter, and so does the narrative’s moral center: what David did was evil in the eyes of the Lord.

We explore how Deuteronomy’s city-and-field framework helps modern readers understand rescue, consent, and why Bathsheba had no defender within the palace. Then we trace David’s escalating choices—coverup attempts, manipulation, and the engineered death of Uriah that cost other soldiers their lives. Nathan’s parable reframes everything: the rich man steals the poor man’s lamb, and God links this theft to a kind of murder. That biblical image is a trauma-informed insight long before we had the term, revealing how sexual assault destroys something vital in a person’s life.

Yet the chapter also carries a thread of hope. After judgment and grief, Bathsheba bears Solomon, and God names him Jedidiah—beloved of the Lord. In a world where a woman’s future rests in her children, that name becomes a promise to her that she is seen and her child is cherished. Our goal is to give listeners a clear, faithful reading that centers survivors, names abuse without euphemism, and honors God’s justice and mercy.

If this episode helped you see Bathsheba’s story with fresh clarity, share it with a friend, subscribe for the next part of our mini-series with Liz Day, and leave a review to help others find the show. Your reflections and questions shape where we go next.

Get the PDF download: “Evidence That Bathsheba’s Story Is Rape, Not Adultery.” Link in the episode description and on our website

Chapters

• 0:00 Framing The Big Questions
• 1:56 Reading 2 Samuel 11–12
• 9:54 Was Bathsheba’s Bath Seduction?
• 18:44 Power Dynamics And Consent
• 27:09 David’s Plot And Uriah’s Integrity
• 34:44 Nathan’s Parable And God’s Verdict
• 42:34 Trauma, The Law, And God’s Care
• 49:44 Bathsheba’s Future And Jedidiah
• 54:44 Takeaways And Next Episode Preview

Transcript

Jessica LM Jenkins: 0:24

Today we are looking at the story of Bathsheba, 2 Samuel 11 and 12, and answering two big questions. Question number one: Is what happened to Bathsheba to be considered rape? Second question: how do we begin processing this story through a trauma-informed lens, looking for how God views survivors and perpetrators? Today's focus is going to be on the passages in 2 Samuel 11 and 12. Really getting into the nitty-gritty of the passages and working through. We have a lot of text to cover, but working through those passages, the second episode in our Bathsheba mini-series, I am getting together with Liz Day to discuss the so what? So we've talked about the story of Bathsheba. How are we going to process that and how should that story impact our local churches and our communities? So you definitely want to come back for that episode after we work through the passages to begin with. So to start, I am going to begin our episode as I always do, reading my translation of the Hebrew text of 2 Samuel 11 and 12, using the name meanings of the characters, as would be heard by the original hearer, because this often gives some extra flavor and understanding to the text itself. So let's begin. And then it happened at the return of the year, at the time the kings go out to battle. And then beloved David sent the Lord his father, Joab, and his servants with him, and all of those who wrestle with God, Israel. And then they annihilated the sons of Ammon, and they laid siege to the great city, Rabbah. And Beloved David sat in founded by peace, Jerusalem. And then it happened at the time of the sunset, and then Beloved arose from his bed, and then he was walking about on the roof of the house of the king, and then he saw a woman washing for Bob on the roof, and the woman was very good looking. And then Beloved sent, and then he inquired about the woman. And then he, a servant, said, Is this not daughter of Oz? The daughter of God is the father's brother, Eliam, the wife of light of the Lord, Uriah, the Hittite. And then Beloved sent messengers, and then he took her, and then she came to him, and then he lay with her, and she was consecrating herself from her ceremonial uncleanliness, and then she returned to her house, and then the woman conceived, and then she sent, and then she informed beloved, and said, I am pregnant. And then Beloved sent to the Lord his father, Joab, send me light of the Lord, the Hittite. And then the Lord his father sent light of the Lord to Beloved. And then light of the Lord came to him, and then Beloved asked concerning the peace of the Lord his father, and concerning the peace of the people, and the peace of the war. And then beloved said to light of the Lord, Go down to your house and wash your feet. And then light of the Lord went from the house of the king, and then after him a present from the king went. And then light of the Lord laid down at the door of the house of the king with all the servants of his lord, and he did not go down to his house. And then they told this to beloved, saying, Light of the Lord did not go down to his house. And then Beloved said to Light of the Lord, Are you not coming from a distance? Why did you not go down to your house? And then Light of the Lord said to Beloved, The ark of those who wrestle with God and the and those who praise the Lord sit in booths. And my Lord, the Lord his father, and the servants of my Lord are laying siege in the field. Will I myself come to my house to eat and to drink and to lay with my wife? Upon your life, the life of your soul, I will not do this thing. And then Beloved said to Light of the Lord, Sit here today, and tomorrow I will send you back. And then light of the Lord sat in Jerusalem on that day and the following. And then Beloved called him, and then they ate, and he drank, and he, beloved, made him, light of the Lord, drunk. And then light of the Lord went out in the evening to lay in his bed with the servants of his Lord, and to his house he did not go down. And then it happened in the morning, when Beloved wrote a letter to the Lord his father, Joab, and then he sent it in the hand of light of the Lord. And then he wrote in a letter saying, See, light of the Lord and then he wrote in a letter saying, Set the light of the Lord to the front, to the front of the strongest fighting, and then turn back from him, and he will be struck down and die. And then it happened as the Lord his father was besieging the city, and he gave light of the Lord to that place where he knew the men of valor were there. And then the men of the city came out, and then they fought with the Lord his father. And then some of the people from the servants of Beloved fell. And then light of the Lord, the Hittite, died. And then the Lord his father sent, and he reported to Beloved all the words of the fighting. And then he commanded the messenger, saying, As soon as you finish telling all the words of the fighting to the king, as it happens, if the anger of the king rises, and he will say to you, Why did you approach the city to fight? Did you not know they would shoot from the wall? Who was it that struck my father as king, the son of Jerabesheth? Did not a woman throw an upper grinding stone upon him from the wall, and he died in Sebes? Why did you approach the wall? And he will say, Also, your servant, light of the Lord, the Hittite, died. And then the messenger went, and he came, and he told Beloved all which the Lord his father sent him. And then the messenger said to Beloved, For the men were superior over us, and they came out against us in the field, and then we were upon them as far as the opening of the gate, and the sh the archers shot your servants from upon the wall, and some some of the servants of the king died, and also your servant, light of the Lord the Hittite, died. And then Beloved said to the messenger, Thus you will say to the Lord his father, Don't let this thing be evil in your eyes, for this and as that the sword will eat. Strengthen your fight against the city, and tear her down, strengthen him. And then the wife of light of the Lord heard that light of the Lord, her husband, died. And then she mourned for her husband. And then the mourning period passed, and then beloved sent, and then he brought her to his house, and then she was to him a wife, and she bore him a son. And the thing which beloved did was evil in the eyes of the Lord. And the Lord sent gift, Nathan, to beloved David, and he came to him, and he said to him, Two men were in a city, one wealthy, one poor. To the wealthy man there were very great flocks and herds, and to the poor men there was not all of that. But he had one small ew lamb, which he had bought, and then he raised her, and she grew up with him and his sons together. From his plate she would eat, and from his cup she would drink, and in his arms she would lie, and she was like a daughter to him. And then a visitor came to the wealthy man, and he had compassion on his flock, and did not take from them to provide for the wanderer who came to him. Instead he took the ew lamb of the poor man, and he provided her to the man who came to him. Then Beloved's anger became exceedingly hot against the man, and he said to Gift, as the Lord did, as the Lord lives, for the man who did this is a son of death, and the you man and the you lamb he will restore fourfold the wage which he did for this thing, and to the extent he did not have compassion. And then Gift said to beloved, You are the man. Thus said the Lord God of Israel, I myself anointed you king over the people who wrestle with God, Israel, and I myself removed you from the hand of the one who was begged for, Saul. And then I gave to you the house of your Lord and the wives of your Lord into your arms, and then I gave to you the house of those who wrestle with God, and the people of the Lord be praised. And if that was too little, I would give you much, much more. Why did you despise the word of the Lord to do evil in his eyes? Light of the Lord, the Hitahite, you struck with the sword, and his wife you took for yourself as a wife, and you killed with the sword the son of and him you killed with the sword of the son of Ammon. And henceforth a sword will not turn aside from your house for ever, as wages, because of how you despised me, and you took the wife of light of the Lord the Hittite to be your wife. Thus says the Lord, Behold, I am raising up upon you an evil from your house, and I will take your wives from your eyes, and I will give them to a friend, and he will lie with your wives in the eyes of the sun, for you yourself did this in secrecy. I myself will do this thing before all those who wrestle with God, Israel, and before the sun. And then Beloved said to Gift, I have sinned against the Lord. And then Gift said to Beloved, also, the Lord will let pass your sin. You will not die. Nevertheless, because you have greatly disrespected God, like an enemy of the Lord in this thing, the son who is born to you will surely die. And then Gift went home to his house. And then the Lord struck the child, who the wife of light of the Lord bore to beloved, and the child became sick. And then Beloved called on God for the benefit of the young boy, and Beloved fasted a fast, and he came and he spent a night and he lay on the earth, and then the elders elders of his house stood on s on the side of him to cause him to stand from the earth next to him, and he was not willing, he did not eat bread with them. And then it happened in the seventh day that the child died. And the servants of Beloved were afraid to inform him that the child died, for they said, Behold, while the child was alive, we spoke to him, and he did not hear our our voice. How can we say to him, The child is dead, he will do evil? Then Beloved saw that his servants were whispering to one another. Then Beloved understood that the child was dead, and then Beloved said to his servants, Is the child dead? And they said, Dead. And then Beloved rose from the earth, and he washed, he anointed himself, he changed his clothes, and he came to the house of the Lord, and he worshiped, and he came to his house. And then he asked, and they set bread before him, and he ate. And then his servant said to him, What is this thing which you are doing? For the sake of the living child you fasted, and then you wept, and like that, and then when the child died, you arose and you ate bread? And then he said to them, While the child was alive, I fasted and I wept, for I said, Who knows if the Lord will have grace and the child will live? And now his he is dead. Why should I fast? Am I able to return him again? I will go to him, he will not come to me. And then beloved comforted daughter of Oath, his wife, and he came to her, and he lay with her, and she bore a son. And then he called his name his peace or his substitute, and the Lord loved him, that child. And then the Lord sent in the hand of Gift the prophet a word, and he, the Lord, called his name, the child's name, the beloved of the Lord, Jedediah, because of the Lord. And we'll talk about David just a little bit. But for the purpose of this podcast, the Women of the Bible in Context podcast, I really want to emphasize Bathsheba's story because often she is either ignored or maligned in the retelling of this text. And so it is important for us to understand her side of the story. We'll talk about some of the other details that are going along behind the scenes with David and Uriah and Joab and all the different figures. We'll talk about them a little bit, but I really want to emphasize Bathsheba and the Lord, because she is the one who is the living victim in this story. And it is really important to see what God thinks of her and what happened to her. We have to understand that. As I've been researching for this episode, I've gotten lots of DMs from people talking about how often they heard in sermons or books or read that people consider the relationship between David and Bathsheba to be adultery, or even that Bathsheba seduced David. And we're going to walk through the text and demonstrate that. But I also want you to know that you can download, I've created for you a downloadable PDF that has the reasons outlined for you that the story of Bathsheba is one of sexual assault or rape, not adultery. Adultery is when you have two consenting adults choosing to have a sexual relationship. That is not the case with Bathsheba. We do not see her consent to this, and there are reasons for that I believe we do not see her consent. Secondly, this in modern definitions of rape definitely counts as a rape of power. David did not necessarily force himself upon her with physical violence, but she he's the king. She has no choice other than to do what he says. The power differential there makes this a rape of power. She cannot consent because of the power differential. Now, brief note about rape and the definition of rape in the Hebrew culture of the Kingdom period and the Old Testament. The Hebrew Bible does not have a specific word for rape like English does. There is not a one-to-one equivalent. They have phrases, various phrases that they use, lie with, no, et cetera, that imply sexual relationships. And the context around the stories where you see a sexual relationship is what gives you the clue on whether that story is describing rape or not. In the Deuteronomy, the book of Deuteronomy, there's a couple considerations as for whether a woman is raped. And we'll come back to this. But one of those is if a woman is in the city and she has a sexual relationship with a man and she does not call out for help, the Mosaic law would consider that rape. And we'll have to have a whole discussion on that group of laws another time. I'm just telling you what it is. We're not discussing it today, but it needs to be talked about. So if she's in a city and she does not call out, the Mosaic law would not consider that rape. They would consider that adultery. Come back to this as we go through Bathsheba's story. If the woman is in the countryside, it doesn't matter if she calls out because no one could hear her anyway and rescue her. So thereby it is rape. And those definitions we're gonna come back to, but I want you to keep in mind as we go through the story of Bathsheba. So let's start walking through the text. 2 Samuel 11:1. The entire thing starts with um the return of the year is the literal Hebrews. That may be springtime, it may be fall. People aren't completely sure. Most translations will say springtime. Um and this is like winter has come. You can't really do a lot in winter, everybody just kind of hunkers down. Winter in Israel can be brutally cold, um, especially when you don't have when you have stone houses. I've been there. Stonehouses, not great heating. I've never been so cold in my life, and I grew up in um upstate New York. So it can be brutally cold in the winter, you're not going out and doing much. Spring comes back, that's what most people assume, and then this is when you can start having battles and fighting again. So this is the time of year where kings start conquests and battles and fighting. And David sends Joab and the armies of Israel out and they attack Ammon and then Joab and his armies lay siege to Rabba. So Joab and the armies, Uriah is with the armies, they have gone out and they are doing a massive siege campaign against Rabbah. Commentators are split as to whether David should have been with them or at home. Some people say he shouldn't have been at home, he should have been with the armies. Others are like, well, the king doesn't always go with the army. We see that in other places in uh Samuel and Kings and Chronicles. The kings don't always go with the army. The king, having the king on the battlefield is a liability because if he gets killed or hit by a stray arrow, your whole kingdom collapses. So often kings would show up for really pivotal battles or like the key moment at the end of a long siege. He'll show up then for really, really important moments. But a lot of the rest of the time, for the stability of the kingdom, he might stay behind. Also, if you have an extended siege period, you might not want the king there because the longer he's away from the capital and the government and the government structure, um, the more unrest can start to happen in the capital city. And uh there's opportunities for um unrest or people to come in and try to take the throne from the king because he's not physically there. And so the text isn't necessarily saying that David did a bad thing by staying in Jerusalem. Kings often did that. He may be just trying to provide some stability for the kingdom. The text is kind of commentators are on both sides of that on whether he should have been on the battlefield or whether it was okay for him to stay home. It really, this verse, verse one, is really just a statement of where everybody is at and why. Um, David's not there, he's the king, and then everybody else has left. So David stays in Jerusalem. And verse two gives the specific situation that starts the account with Bathsheba. And it happened at the time of the evening. David arose from his bed. This could either mean he's just being lazy and lazing around, or more likely, it means a lot of people would take a siesta, um, a nap in the heat of the day in the afternoon. Spring isn't necessarily super hot in Jerusalem at all. If it's like March, April, it's not that hot. Um, but it that's a life pattern that people would adopt from the heat of the summer, and it's likely they would still practice that in the spring. So he may have, in the warmest part of the day, kind of relaxed for a bit, worked all morning on whatever kingly duties he had, relaxed for a bit on the roof or in his bed inside. Um, and then as the evening cool breezes come, he goes up on the roof. And it says he rose from his bed and he was walking about upon the roof of the house of the king. So, and this Hebrew word walking about, it's not that he's like just standing in one place. He's walking all over his roof, to and fro, back and forth. He's just kind of meandering on his roof. We don't know if he has servants with him. It's likely he could have been discussing business or other things, but he's on the roof, walking around. And then he sees a woman bathing from up on the roof. Again, the fact that David is on the roof is emphasized here. We know David is on his roof. The Hebrew repeatedly tells us David is on his roof, which it's likely David's palace was one of the highest points of the city. And from that palace, he could kind of see the entire city of Jerusalem, which at this point in history is not terribly large at all. So he can actually see the entire city limits from his palace. And so he's up there just kind of surveying the city at sunset, at dusk. Light is starting, it's starting to get dark, it's not super bright out, and he's enjoying the cool breeze, maybe an after dinner stroll, um, because you would often wealthy people would eat reclining. So he could have been in his bed eating dinner as well, and he's now up on the roof, enjoying a stroll in the breeze. And as he is up there looking around, he sees a woman bathing. But the text does not tell us where she is bathing. Some commentators start to malign Bathsheba here. They say because she is bathing close enough to be seen by somebody in the palace, therefore, she must have wanted to be seen by somebody in the palace, therefore, she was purposely trying to seduce David, which is a lot of logical leaps on the onset, um, a lot of reading motivation that's not mentioned in the text. But it's a very common charge leveled at Bathsheba that because she's bathing where she could potentially be seen by somebody at the highest point of the city, therefore she wanted to be seen, and therefore she's purposely trying to induce seduce David specifically. They argue this. So let's talk about bathing. Remember, in the ancient world, I feel like everybody misses this related obvious point. In the ancient world, they do not have running water or bathrooms in their houses. They don't. So bathing in your house is not an option unless you were going to purposely cart lots of heavy water from wherever they're stored to collect, like say rainwater or other such into your house. Um, women historically, men either, did not bathe inside houses. That's not where bathing happens in the ancient world. So let's just take that assumption that she was bathing outside her house when she could have been bathing inside her house. Take that assumption off the table. People did not bathe in a house. That is not where bathing takes place. So that's not even an option. Okay. No running water. We're not bathing inside the house. So there are three possibilities for where she could have been bathing. I'll start with the one that's the most commonly taught. A lot of times it's taught that Bathsheba was bathing on her roof. So David just had to look a few roofs over and hey, look, naked woman hanging out on her roof, displaying herself from the world, scrub a dubdub in the tub, playing erotica tees, to King David, three roofs over. That is how this is commonly discussed. Okay, let's say she was bathing on the roof. Let's think this through logically. They still may have water on the roof because, again, Jerusalem, you may not know this. Jerusalem gets as much rain in a year as London. Um, but Jerusalem gets it in like really torrential downpours, and London gets it in like misty sprinkles. So in Jerusalem, which is kind of desert, you want to collect water as best you can during those elusive massive rainstorms. So it could be that people had a lot of rain-catching barrels and jars on their roofs to catch rain. They would be large because you want to catch a lot of water very quickly when that rainstorm that drops inches of water instantly happens. And you don't have time to like catch, you know, three gallons today and three gallons tomorrow. You need 30 gallons in 10 minutes. I'm making up figures, but you get the idea. And so it's possible that she could have been bathing on the roof because that is again where everybody in Jerusalem, not just Bathsheba, keeps their water, is on their roofs. And so that would be a logical place to bathe or to wash. And the text does not tell us what kind of bathing or washing she's doing. We don't know if this is a sponge bath. We do not know if this is a lather-up head-to-toe everything bath. We don't know if this is a dip and be done ceremonial washing. We don't know what kind of washing it is, just that it involved water. We don't know how much, we don't know how closed or uncloshed she was for a lot of ceremonial washing. They would still be partially closed. She would likely be wearing her linen shift that she would wear under her woolen tunic if she was not still in her woolen tunic. Yes, water's gonna make everything really form-fitting, but she's not necessarily parading around naked. And if she's on the roof, it's for a practical reason that everybody else in the city also had the same reason and likely had very similar bathing habits. But we don't know that she was on the roof. The text doesn't say that she was on the roof. The second logical place she could be would be in a kind of open but enclosed court, open to the sky, but enclosed courtyard in the middle of her house or right next to her house. This would be another place you could have large water jars to collect water. Um it's an enclosed space for bathing. It's also a space that's private, so she's not trying to display herself. She's in a private space, but David is at the highest point of the city and can kind of see down into people's backyards. Now, some people say because David could see into her backyard, she must have known that he could see into her backyard. Therefore, she must have been wanting him to see her. And the logic of this just does not flow. Let's think about this for a moment. She knows David can see into her backyard. So does that mean, and that is where she has to bathe? That's where every woman has to bathe, is in their courtyards or roofs or wherever as well. Does this mean she can only bathe when David is not in town? Does she have to wait for him to leave Jerusalem to take a bath? Like, this is the type of logic that often male interpreters are laying on Bathsheba. That because she is bathing in a place that it feels private to her, but happens to be visible from the highest point in the city, that she can't bathe in her own home until the person who lives in the house at the highest point of the city is not occupying his house. That just doesn't work. So those are two places she could be bathing, both of which would have been commonplaces for everybody to do that behavior. The third place she could have been bathing would be a pool in the city or a stream. Uh we see women go to streams or to uh gathered pools, like the pool of Siloam in the Roman Age or something like that to bathe. And so she could have been in a semi-public place bathing as well. No matter where she was bathing, Bathsheba is married to Uriah. We're gonna get to that in just a second. And they are likely fairly wealthy, maybe even nobility in Jerusalem. So she's not poor, she's not an average peasant, she likely has maidservants, she may have a mother in law or sisters in law. Remember, they live in extended family homes. It's not just her and Uriah living in that house, most likely. They have servants, they have extended family. And when she's bathing, she may be doing it accompanied by her maid servants or her family members. And there may be multiple women bathing at the same time, especially if they've gone out to a pool or a river or something, because you're not going to do this semi-dangerous activity by yourself. Even today, girls take a buddy when they go to the bathroom at a restaurant or a bar. In the ancient world, if you're going to put yourself in a vulnerable position by bathing, you're going to take someone with you. And so those are the three places she's bathing. None of which are necessarily that she's trying to expose herself. There is no evidence that she's exposing herself. And even if she was on the roof, it doesn't mean she's exposing herself. It means that's where water is because bathing in complete privacy with a locked door is not possible, practical. In the ancient world, modern interpreters are asking Bathsheba to do something that nobody else in the ancient world did. That's not fair. That turns into victim blaming very quickly. If you wanted to not be attacked by David, you should have done the thing nobody else was doing that we in 2025 think you should have done because we have one running water and therefore it makes sense to us. No. Bathsheba, David, walking on his roof, highest point in the city, sees a woman bathing. We don't know where, likely with other women, and it's at dusk. It's not like it's the heat of the day. It's at dusk, the sun's going down, it's starting to get dark. That indicates an expectation of privacy. She doesn't want to be out in dark, dark because that can be dangerous. But there's an and you need to be able to see, and it's hard to see by candlelight to do much. Um and so but she has at least some expectation that the light is her friend here. She is doing what she needs to do. Some commentators think she is bathing as purification from her monthly periods. There is conjecture on that. We'll talk about that in a little bit when we get to that part in verse four. But we don't know the exact reason she's washing. She has several places she could, and she's allowed to wash for whatever reason she wants to wash without being leered at. Women are allowed to take baths where they need to take baths. When you're camping, you take showers in weird places because you don't you can't shower in your tent. The same in the ancient world. We need to give her as much grace as we give a woman at a campground or who's backpacking through the mountains, um, who bathes in a stream. We need to give Bathsheba that same kind of grace. So it says, and then he, David, saw a woman washing from up on his roof. And the woman was very good looking. This is interesting. It does not say she is beautiful. The word beautiful Yepha in Hebrew is used to describe Sarai, Rachel, Joseph, David himself, Abigail, Tamar, David's daughter, and Esther. But this word describing Bathsheba is good to look at. It is, it's the word Tov. It means that David liked what he saw. This centers his appraisal of her physical form above her natural beauty, if that makes sense. And it's not saying she wasn't a natural beauty, but it's emphasizing his lust and his desire against her. She's good looking. But another time that women are considered good looking or good in the Hebrew Bible is when King Xerxes' um advisors are saying, hey, we should collect all the good looking girls to be in your harem, and you can pick a queen from them. Describing women as good like this, and at least these two instances happens when men are objectifying women. Somebody can be in their own personhood, Yafa. Beautiful. Sarah, Rachel, Joseph, David, Abigail, Tamar, Esther, they are beautiful people in form and figure and face. And Bathsheba likely was as well. I'm not denying that. But the way the Hebrew describes her, that she is good looking, emphasizes the leering of David, that he is peeking at her and he is appraising her. It's not an innocent noticing, it's that he sees she's good looking. I want that sexually. So then he inquires about the woman, and the servant tells him, is this not the daughter of oath or daughter of abundance? Her name, daughter of oath, is going to have significance in a couple chapters when we get to the end of Bathsheba's life. So when we get to that part of the series, we'll talk a lot more about her name because it has a lot more to do with that part of the story. But is this not the daughter of abundance or a daughter of oath? She is the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah the Hittite. So let's pause and listen to what this servant just told David. David has soldiers upon soldiers upon soldiers. He's the king. But he has a couple important groups of soldiers. He has his 30 mighty men. Um, and they are like his honor guard, they are SEAL Team Six, they are the Creme Le Creme. Um, he also has captains of the 30, and then he has three guys who are just like even better than the 30. But the 30 are his best soldiers. They're likely nobility, they are really good in battle, they're probably wealthy men. Um some of these men would probably stay with David while he's in the capital, and some would go and probably lead groups of other soldiers out on the battlefield. And so when the servant comes to David, he says, So the woman is Bathsheba, and her dad is Eliam, who's one of your mighty men. He is one of your 30 mighty men. And she's married to Uriah, who's another one of your 30 mighty men. So that should immediately tell David that Bathsheba is off limits. Your mightiest protectors, your personal bodyguard, the leaders of your army, the men you need on your side for stability of your kingdom. She is the daughter of one and married to another. Beyond that, her father, Eliam, is the son of Ahitophel, who was David's chief advisor, of whom people would say whatever Ahitophel says, it's like God is saying it. That is how wise Ahitophel is. So, yes, this is Bathsheba. She is the granddaughter of your very top chief advisor. She is the daughter of one of your personal bodyguards, SEAL Team 6, mighty mighty men, and she's married to another one of the guys in that company. David should take this as a huge warning that if I want stability in my kingdom and a long reign, I should just go on my merry way. I have five plus wives of my own, plus the harem I inherited from Saul. So 20 plus women I have at my beck and call. I can go find somebody else because I'm married to all of these women. No, he does not take the warning flags. He instead says, okay, that's fine. And he sends messengers to take Bathsheba. He hears who she is related to. He hears how this will cause ripples throughout his kingdom and destabilize his military and threaten his own life because I don't know, sleeping with your bodyguard's wife might not be a smart move. That could just be me. Maybe stealing the wife of your bodyguard is a smart move, but generally I would think not. And David hears all this. His chief advisor, who he trusts, he chooses, yeah. I'll take that guy's granddaughter. That's fine. I don't see any problem with this. There is a problem with this. So David takes her and she comes to him and he lays with her. Some commentators say that because she came to him, that she wanted to. Um, they say that she either was stupid and didn't realize what he wanted, that she liked the idea, um, and that, or that she just was a wimp and didn't have enough willpower to resist him. All of those suggestions are insulting to Bathsheba and don't understand the story. You have the king send multiple messengers to Bathsheba's house. At least one of the messengers is a man. There may have been a woman along with, but we're dealing with at least one male messenger appearing at Bathsheba's house while her husband and probably father are gone. If she lived with her father, he could be somewhere else. We don't know. But while the men of her house are gone, a male messenger from King David, or multiple male messengers from King David appear and say, Hey, the king wants you. Well, in the ancient world, when the king summons you, you go. The king summons Uriah. Uriah went. The Lord sent Nathan to David, and David or Nathan came. Uriah came to David, Nathan came to David, and here we see Bathsheba coming to David. She, we don't know that she was told why David wanted her to come. She she doesn't, we don't know that she even knows. We don't know that David was like, hey, hubba hubba, come have a rendezvous with me at the palace. It may have just been like, hey, the king wants you. And she's like, oh shoot, I gotta go now because you have to do whatever the king says. And so to say that she was either stupid to go with, everybody goes with when the king calls you, especially when he sends multiple messengers to get you. You don't have a choice here. She goes, I mean, for all she knows, David wants to tell her that her dad died or her husband died. She might be like preparing to mourn for her dad or her husband or her grandpa. Um, she's probably thinking there's some big news going on. She's concerned, she's curious, she's probably nervous, but she doesn't have a choice. Choice is not a luxury Bathsheba has in this instance. So, David, so her coming to him is not at all evidence that she desired a sexual relationship with him. She may not have realized. I mean, if I'm a woman and my husband's boss, his boss calls me in. I'm gonna think something happened to my husband. I'm not thinking that guy wants to sleep with me. She's she's also like, why would it even cross her mind that the king would cross his chief advisor and two of his personal bodyguard mighty men? Why would the king do that? That's stupid. Bathsheba doesn't think David's stupid. So why would she even guess that she he wanted to sleep with her? I don't know why that would even be something she could fathom at this juncture. She just knows potentially armed messengers have showed up at my door and said, come with us to the palace. So she does what any other person in the city would do, male or female, and she goes to the palace. So then, after she gets to the palace, David rapes her. Even if he did not physically force himself upon her with violence, she didn't have a way to say no. Let's think back to the Deuteronomy rape clause, where it says if a woman is in the city and she cries out, then she can be rescued. If she doesn't cry out, then it's considered consensual. If in the country, she if she is attacked in the country, it's automatically considered rape because even if she cried out, there's no one to rescue her. I would argue that what David does to Bathsheba is like a woman being attacked in the country. Because she's the king. Some commentators are like, well, she should have resisted him more. Towards what end? So that he could just kill her instead of raping her? Survival instincts are pretty strong, and a lot of women are gonna let a man rape them rather than die. Because our survival instincts are just gonna kick in and do whatever it takes to keep us alive. And who is she gonna call out for help? The maidservants in the palace can't do anything. The armed guards aren't gonna do anything against the king. She is like the woman in the field come upon by a man who has nobody to protect her. There is nobody to protect Bathsheba, even if she does cry out. There is nobody to whom she can appeal for rescue. No one. She is alone, and David has her his way with her. This is a situation of rape, even if it was not violent. The power dynamics means she could not consent, she could not say no, she could not cry out for help, and the only resistance she could do could lead to her death, or the death of her husband, her father, or her grandfather. And she's probably playing out every single one of these situations, and it is easier and less cost to let the king do what he wants to do and own that in her body and soul, and just try to slip away quietly and hope the damage is to her alone. Because she's probably thinking of her family and her mom and her sisters and her father and her husband and her grandpa. And how do I protect all of them? Because if I make the king mad, they are all in danger. So David rapes her, verse four. And then there's this little note that says, and she was consecrating herself from ceremonial uncleanliness. This phrase has been interpreted throughout the years to mean that she um had just finished her period and was washing to uh become clean after her time of menstruational uncleanliness. There's a paper done by multiple scholars who really dive in the Hebrew and say these particular words are never used around menstruation. That's what she is doing here is consecrating herself to the Lord despite what is happening to her in this moment. She is recognizing the heinousness of this situation and is consecrating herself to the Lord because David slept with her and because she had no power in this situation. Either way, whichever way you interpret that phrase, Bathsheba is a woman trying to follow the commands of God. She is either washing herself from ritual uncleanliness from menstruation, what she is supposed to do under the law, or she is devoting herself to the Lord as she's being sexually violated by the king and has no one to help her. Either way, Bathsheba is holy in this situation. We further see that after David finishes with her, he does not send her away. She leaves of her own will. She doesn't try to hang around the palace. It's possible that David, uh Oriental kings, kings in the ancient world, they would bring women, even if she was married to someone else. We see this with Pharaoh, we see this with Abimelech and Sarah. They didn't necessarily know she was married to Abraham because they lied. But, I mean, kings in the ancient world can take women whenever they want. You want that guide's wife, the king can just take her. That is how the ancient world works. And they can kill the husband if they want. That is how the ancient world works, which is why Abraham is so afraid of having a beautiful wife. So David takes her and she leaves. He takes her, he rapes her, and she says, I'm out. As soon as he's done, she's she goes home. She leaves. She wants nothing more to do with this. She's not vying for power here. She is not trying to move in the palace as the next queen. She goes home. And then verse five, it says, She conceived. So between the end of verse four, she returns to her house and the beginning of verse five, she conceived. We have weeks andor months until she can verify actual pregnancy. Maybe she sent word um a week after she missed her next period. I imagine she waited a little longer because we all know periods can be craziness, especially in times of stress. Um, so I'm imagining it may be a couple months later that she's like, Oh, I'm pregnant. My husband's been gone. David raped me. She sends word to David and says, I'm pregnant. David never replies to her. She lets him know the consequences of his actions. Some people say her telling him that she's pregnant means she um colluded with him for this goal or that she wanted to be pregnant. And she's letting him know. No, she's just letting him know, hey, I'm pregnant. Um, it's your fault, and I'm either gonna be executed for adultery or you're gonna have to take responsibility for this. And David does. And we're not gonna get into everything that David does because that's a lot, and I'm focusing on Bathsheba, but David goes through and he kills Uriah the Hittite, and there is collateral damage. An entire unit of soldiers dies when David murders Uriah at the hands of the citizens of Rabba. And Joab is an accomplice to the crime of the murder of Uriah. And Bathsheba is not the only woman who is collateral damage. There are women whose husbands died because David wanted Bathsheba. These women didn't have a choice. Their husbands weren't even supposed to die. They just happened to be near Uriah when Joab colluded with David to have him killed. So, in all of that, David brings Uriah to the palace. Uriah may be suspecting something. He doesn't want to go home sleep with Bathsheba. She probably knows Uriah's back in town because word from the palace is going to get to her. She probably knows servants at least, if not women in the harem. And but Uriah doesn't come see his wife. We don't know that they ever get to have a conversation. After all of this has happened, so Bathsheba is alone. She's completely alone. She never gets to see her husband. After he dies, she mourns. You get the idea that she really cared for Uriah and that they had a good relationship, um, from what little we can tell. And so she mourns after Uriah dies. And then David brings her to his house and makes her his wife. We don't know that she wanted that. That's a way for David to save face because he has sent a lot of messengers. What has gone on between David and Bathsheba is not a secret. Um, everybody knows the baby's his. He was hoping to keep it from Uriah. Uriah probably figured it out because he's hanging out at the palace gates for a couple days. Gossip trains do their thing. Everybody knows this baby's David's. David marries her. We don't know that Bathsheba wanted to marry David. There's no evidence to that at all. Some commentators take the um she's guilty until proven innocent tact with this passage. They're like, we don't know that she didn't want to have sex with David, so therefore she did want to have sex with David. The text doesn't do that. The text leaves her as innocent. David marries her and she has the baby. And the text tells us what David did is evil in the eyes of the Lord. And so the Lord sends Nathan to David. And I love the names here. The Lord sends gift to David, he sends a gift of repentance to David. The prophet Nathan, his name means gift. The Lord sends gift, the word of the Lord is a gift to David. You have sinned, you have raped and murdered, but I'm still sending you a word. And what and Nathan gives David a parable. And he he says, There's a rich man who has flocks and sheep, and then there's a poor man who has one ew lamb that he bought with his money. This a ew lamb in a poor man's household is hope for the future. A ew lamb, not a ram lamb, a boy lamb. The man is probably hoping he didn't buy this ew lamb for meat. She is not food. She's probably hoping to breed her, to have baby lambs for wool. This is this is hope for the poor man's family economically. This is an investment. But it's not just an investment, it's emotional. This man loves this sheep. He feeds her, he drinks with her, he lays in her arms like she's a a daughter. Bathsheba, daughter of oath, daughter of abundance. The lamb is like a daughter to the man who would lie in his arms. Shekhav, Shaba, Shekav, Shiva, daughter. These words are playing on words with the list this little you lamb. And then the rich man kills the little you lamb. Let us think carefully about this parable. You have a wealthy man in the parable. Obviously, David is depicted as the wealthy man. The poor man was likely be Uriah. David's wife, he wives, he got from lots of different ways. Uriah likely went through the typical bride price to get um Bathsheba from her father, Eliam. And read uh listen to my episode on Tamar, I think. I talk a lot about bride price and dowries and all of that in that episode. So go back if you're unfamiliar with that conversation. But Uriba likely pays a bride price. He invests in Bathsheba and he loves her and he takes care of her. And then she's like a daughter to him. But then the rich man, rather than partaking of his great flocks, David has lots of wives, an entire harem. He takes the ew lamb from the poor man and he kills it. God, through this parable, likens rape to murder. The Lord knows that when an image bearer is sexually assaulted, everything for that image bearer changes. Who they were before dies in a way, and who they will be going forward is not the same person. There is a death that happens to who the person was before when they are sexually assaulted. God knows that. Most interpreters of the text miss the bombshell that God drops in the middle of this parable. Bathsheba, whose name echoes the words describing the lamb, who is pictured by an innocent eulamb. If you're curious, is Bathsheba innocent or not? The parable describes her as an innocent victim of murder. The Bible, not just here but in the law, likens rape to murder. God puts those two things together. Unfortunately, our modern culture often minimizes the damage that sexual assault sexual assault does to the survivors. We minimize it. Oh, you know, like you scrape your elbow or something and you put a band-aid on it and you heal and you're fine. No, that is with sexual assault fundamentally changes a person forever. Some people, the damage is a lot deeper than others, and a lot of that's the support and everything else they get as they recover from the trauma. But we see God here recognizing that wound. And David never fully gets it. He never really owns the damage he does to Bathsheba or to Uriah or to Bathsheba's dad or to Bathsheba's grandfather or to all the women whose husbands were killed because of Uriah, or to the women that are going to be raped by David's son later on because of this sin. David never owns any of that. He repents to a level. He wants God to keep him in power, which is so often the response. Yes, I messed up, but let me keep my power. Let me keep my position. And God keeps David in position because of the Davidic covenant, which was an unconditional covenant. In the Bible, there are covenants that are conditional. The Mosaic covenant is conditional. If you obey me, I will bless you. If you disobey me, I'll curse you. Conditional covenant. The Noahic covenant, I will never again flood the earth. Unconditional. There's no conditions that humanity or the earth has to do. God just promises. The Davidic covenant, the Abrahamic covenant, those are unconditional. It does not matter. The horrible sins that both Abraham and David did commit, God is going to keep his covenant because God keeps his word even when we are horrible mess-ups, even when we harm image-bearers, and even when our repentance is flawed and not sufficient. God sends David a gift in the Word, offering him repentance, and God recognizes the harm done to the victim. Do not miss that. Some of you listening have been sexually assaulted or raped. Do not miss the fact that God sees and knows the depth of pain and death that you have experienced in that moment. Your God sees. The men in power may not see. And the Bible doesn't give us clear answers on that. Except that God really seems to honor people's agency. He does not force any of us to do things against our will. And we have a sinful world because of Adam and Eve's sin and because of the curse, men are predisposed against women to both rule them and to side with the evil serpent against them. And that is the way the sinful world works now. But in the midst of that pain, Jesus walks alongside and he sees what happens in the hearts, souls, and bodies of victims. David misses it. Many of the pastors who have preached on Bathsheba and blamed Bathsheba for seducing David miss it. But God does not. After David realizes this parable is about him, David looks at him and says, You took Uriah's wife as your own. You killed him with the sword, and you took his wife. Chiastic phrase there. He says, You killed, you struck Uriah with the sword, you took his wife, you killed him with the sword. Bathsheba's the middle of that chiasm. She's in the middle. And then the Lord gives a consequence after the chiasm. The sword will not turn aside from your house forever. The wages that you despised me, and you took the wife of Uriah. David's despising of the Lord is less Uriah's murder. That's horrible. It's emphasized twice, absolutely horrible. But the despising of the Lord is the rape of Bathsheba. Not adultery, the rape of Bathsheba. God emphasizes when you sexually assault a woman, you despise me. Unfortunately, our churches don't always take it that seriously. Join us next episode when I will talk with Liz Day about that. And we have a whole discussion about that that I want you to hear. But for this episode, remember God takes it seriously, and He gives them the knowledge they need, should they be willing to accept it. The story goes on. As the Lord promises, Bathsheba's firstborn son dies, and another child is born. And the Lord loves the second child, and that child is named Solomon, and then the Lord names him Benediah, if I'm saying that correctly, which means beloved of the Lord, which hints back to David was a man loved by God, even when he did not do the right things and fell away from that love and refused to act like the Lord. And then the son is beloved of the Lord, Jedediah, because the Lord loved him. And for women in the ancient world, their status, their future is tied up with their sons. That's just the way it was. We don't have to like it, it just happens to be the way it was. So when the Lord is saying, Bathsheba, the Lord sends Nathan the prophet to Bathsheba. I see her holding the baby. Her heart's still broken because of the child she lost. But he sends Nathan to her while she's holding her second child. And Nathan the prophet from God says, I love this child. He is loved of the Lord. Your husband named him son of peace, son of replacement. He named him the substitute, Solomon, his peace, his substitute. God names him beloved, which for Bathsheba is more than just a name for her son. It is the Lord, in a way, communicating to Bathsheba, because her entire life is wrapped up in this child. She's married to David, but David has multiple wives. After David dies, what happened to those wives really depends on any children those wives have. It is only, these women only have a future beyond David in their children. That's the way the ancient world works. So when the Lord offers this beautiful blessing on Solomon, Jedediah, he is communicating to Bathsheba, I love your son, I've got you. And because I love your son, you will be okay. You have a future. God is communicating through the ancient culture to the heart of Bathsheba to let her know he has her back as she heals, as she figures out how to move forward now that her husband is dead and her new husband has numerous other wives, and everything's going to start falling apart really bad pretty quick after all of this. As Bathsheba wanders through the next decades, the Lord says, I love your son, I love you, I've got you. God sees the survivors of abuse, and he cares deeply for them. And we see that beautifully in the life of Bathsheba. Join us next episode for my conversation with Liz Dye where we go more into the so what? I've spent a lot of time talking nitty-gritty in this episode. Get the download of evidence that this is rape, not adultery. Get that PDF download. It is in the description on this episode, and it is available on my website. Get that download. Listen to the next episode. God cares. We should care. Let's go forward with that truth as first and foremost in our minds and hearts. Have a great week.