In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war, David sent Joab out with the king’s men and the whole Israelite army. They destroyed the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David remained in Jerusalem. One evening David got up from his bed and walked around on the roof of the palace. From the roof he saw a woman bathing. The woman was very beautiful, and David sent someone to find out about her. The man said, “She is Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah the Hittite.” Then David sent messengers to get her. She came to him, and he slept with her. (Now she was purifying herself from her monthly uncleanness.) Then she went back home. The woman conceived and sent word to David, saying, “I am pregnant.” So David sent this word to Joab: “Send me Uriah the Hittite.” And Joab sent him to David. When Uriah came to him, David asked him how Joab was, how the soldiers were and how the war was going. Then David said to Uriah, “Go down to your house and wash your feet.” So Uriah left the palace, and a gift from the king was sent after him. But Uriah slept at the entrance to the palace with all his master’s servants and did not go down to his house. David was told, “Uriah did not go home.” So he asked Uriah, “Haven’t you just come from a military campaign? Why didn’t you go home?” Uriah said to David, “The ark and Israel and Judah are staying in tents, and my commander Joab and my lord’s men are camped in the open country. How could I go to my house to eat and drink and make love to my wife? As surely as you live, I will not do such a thing!” Then David said to him, “Stay here one more day, and tomorrow I will send you back.” So Uriah remained in Jerusalem that day and the next. At David’s invitation, he ate and drank with him, and David made him drunk. But in the evening Uriah went out to sleep on his mat among his master’s servants; he did not go home. In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it with Uriah. In it he wrote, “Put Uriah out in front where the fighting is fiercest. Then withdraw from him so he will be struck down and die.”
(2 Samuel 11:1-15)
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Everyone knows the story of David and Bathsheba. Or, at least, people think they know the story of David and Bathsheba. When I hear people speak about it, it’s talked about almost as a romance. The usual way I’ve heard of relating the story from people who haven’t studied it in depth is that David sees Bathsheba and is completely smitten with her – it’s love at first sight – and nature takes its course and they marry and they live happily ever after. What could be better than a biblical romance? Except that it’s not quite that clear. Rather than a love story, this seems much more like a lust story. If you really listen to the story, David actually comes across as something of a peeping tom, spying on this presumably naked woman while she’s taking a bath. He’s a bit of a stalker, sending someone to get information about her. And many have suggested that – although the passage is worded very diplomatically – this was more of a rape than a romance. The story never tells us that Bathsheba was David’s willing partner. In today’s language – there’s no sign of consent here. And, of course, it’s all followed up with David panicking when he found out that he had made Bathsheba pregnant, desperately trying to get himself off the hook by making it seem as if her husband were the child’s father, and then carefully and deliberately arranging for Bathsheba’s husband to be killed because he couldn’t be convinced to play along with the game David was playing to get himself off the hook for the apparently unwanted and possibly scandalous pregnancy. It’s really not a nice story – but some parts of it we gloss over because it’s so fascinating. As Ronald Peters wrote, “because of human nature's popular fascination with the trappings of wealth, privilege, and power, whenever the biblical story of David and Bathsheba is read or discussed, most attention is quickly drawn to the Hollywood-style glamour or soap opera intrigue that surrounds the salacious, the unfettered license, and the corruption in high places that adorns this tragedy.” And I think that remains typical of how we respond to those with wealth and power today. In one way, the decadent lifestyle appalls us; in another way it fascinates us; part of us wants to turn away, another part can’t get enough. One thing that we can say, though – and one of the first things I thought of when reflecting on what to say about this story – is that it represents quite a contrast with what we read last week. Then we saw Jesus acting with compassion and providing a meal for five thousand hungry people. Today we see David fixated only on himself – his own desires, his own needs and his own well-being. It’s a classic contrast between the selflessness displayed by Jesus and the selfishness of David.
But I wanted to take a bit of a different direction with this story today. I wanted to think about Uriah – Bathsheba’s husband. The story of David and Bathsheba is a well known story, but Uriah is the unknown character within it. I suspect that if I were to mention David and Bathsheba to people on the street, many would at least know that they’re the central characters in a biblical story. But if I mentioned Uriah? My guess would be that even a lot of faithful Christians would draw a blank. “Uriah?” It actually sounds more like a medical condition or maybe a medical treatment – a drug or some such thing. But Uriah – once you come to know the story – is really the one who makes the story of David and Bathsheba such a tragedy. In a way, he’s the one who gives the story meaning.
The name “Uriah” in Hebrew means “the Lord is my light.” By naming a child “Uriah,” his parents were expressing the hope that their child would, indeed, devote his life to walking in the light of God. Uriah did that – right up to the end – and yet his faithfulness is usually overlooked in favour of David’s power. The king matters – but one of the king’s soldiers? And Uriah was no general, out on the field directing and winning battles. He was apparently a foot soldier – expendable and easily sacrificed as David displayed by sending him to the front of the line in the hope that he would die. And maybe that’s why Uriah is so easily overlooked and forgotten. David was king of Israel and ancestor of Jesus; Uriah simply died. He’s one soldier who died in a battle probably among many soldiers who died in many battles. But just because Uriah died doesn’t mean that he doesn’t matter. And if the only thing we remember about Uriah is that he died and then we move on to the rest of David’s story then we miss the fact that in a lot of ways Uriah has much more to teach us about how to live than David’s often troubled lifestyle does.
In today’s troubled world where there’s so much concern about refugees and immigrants, it might be worth noting that Uriah was “Uriah the Hittite.” He was an immigrant who had come to Israel and made a commitment to God, to the nation, to his king and to his fellow Israelites. He became an outstanding citizen and an outstanding man. He had an integrity that made him an object of respect, and he had a transparent faith that must have served as an example to all who knew him, and he had a loyalty to those around him. I mean, without being too crude, let’s be honest here – David brought him back from a war for the sole purpose of giving him time with his wife, thinking that he wouldn’t be able to resist such an opportunity. But Uriah refused. And the story tells us that David “… asked Uriah, ‘Haven’t you just come from a military campaign? Why didn’t you go home?’ Uriah said to David, ‘The ark and Israel and Judah are staying in tents, and my commander Joab and my lord’s men are camped in the open country. How could I go to my house to eat and drink and make love to my wife? As surely as you live, I will not do such a thing!’” And the next night – growing more desperate - David got him drunk. “But in the evening Uriah went out to sleep on his mat among his master’s servants; he did not go home.” That was how devoted he was to his fellow soldiers. If they couldn’t go home to their wives, he wouldn’t go home to his.
I’ve been talking a lot this month about the need for people to serve as examples to others, and the cost involved in being an example who stands for faith, for God and who lives with loyalty and integrity – the very qualities that Uriah displayed in abundance. But, again, there was a price to be paid for these qualities. David gave up on his plan to get himself off the hook for Bathsheba’s pregnancy because he couldn’t get Uriah to play his part. So, “in the morning David wrote a letter to Joab” - Uriah’s commander - “and sent it with Uriah. In it he wrote, ‘Put Uriah out in front where the fighting is fiercest. Then withdraw from him so he will be struck down and die.’” For lack of a better way to put it, David had Uriah murdered – a desperate act from a desperate man who wanted to escape the consequences of his own actions.
It’s a scenario we still see played out in today’s world over and over again: those with power trying to evade their responsibility for their own actions, and being willing to use and abuse others in order to do it. Uriah was a man of neither power nor prestige. But he was a man of both integrity and faith. And we need people of integrity and faith in the world today – we need them desperately. We need a few Uriah’s in the halls of power. And if we read the story of David and Bathsheba and become fixated on David or fall into the trap of thinking this is some sort of love story, we miss perhaps what Ronald Peters calls the “most important [aspect] of this rather sad tale: the significance and the importance of the man Uriah” - the man no one remembers in the story everyone knows.
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