Two Weeks on the Old Testament
Reading #7: 2 Samuel 11- David and Bathsheba
1 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.
2 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,
3 and David sent someone to find out about her. The man said,
"Isn't this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and the wife of
Uriah the Hittite?"
4 Then David sent messengers to get her. She came to him, and he
slept with her. (She had purified herself from her uncleanness.)
Then she went back home.
5 The woman conceived and sent word to David, saying, "I am
pregnant."
6 So David sent this word to Joab: "Send me Uriah the
Hittite." And Joab sent him to David.
7 When Uriah came to him, David asked him how Joab was, how the
soldiers were and how the war was going.
8 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.
9 But Uriah slept at the entrance to the palace with all his
master's servants and did not go down to his house.
10 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?"
11 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!"
12 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.
13 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.
14 In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it with
Uriah.
15 In it he wrote, "Put Uriah in the front line where the
fighting is fiercest. Then withdraw from him so he will be struck
down and die."
16 So while Joab had the city under siege, he put Uriah at a
place where he knew the strongest defenders were.
17 When the men of the city came out and fought against Joab,
some of the men in David's army fell; moreover, Uriah the Hittite
died.
18 Joab sent David a full account of the battle.
19 He instructed the messenger: "When you have finished
giving the king this account of the battle,
20 the king's anger may flare up, and he may ask you, `Why did
you get so close to the city to fight? Didn't you know they would
shoot arrows from the wall?
21 Who killed Abimelech son of Jerub-Besheth? Didn't a woman
throw an upper millstone on him from the wall, so that he died in
Thebez? Why did you get so close to the wall?' If he asks you
this, then say to him, `Also, your servant Uriah the Hittite is
dead.'"
22 The messenger set out, and when he arrived he told David
everything Joab had sent him to say.
23 The messenger said to David, "The men overpowered us and
came out against us in the open, but we drove them back to the
entrance to the city gate.
24 Then the archers shot arrows at your servants from the wall,
and some of the king's men died. Moreover, your servant Uriah the
Hittite is dead."
25 David told the messenger, "Say this to Joab: `Don't let
this upset you; the sword devours one as well as another. Press
the attack against the city and destroy it.' Say this to
encourage Joab."
26 When Uriah's wife heard that her husband was dead, she mourned
for him.
27 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.