“At the time when kings go forth to battle… David tarried still at Jerusalem.” One idle evening on the palace roof, a glance becomes a summons, the summons becomes adultery, and the adultery becomes a problem — Bathsheba is pregnant, and her husband Uriah is a soldier at the front. When Uriah’s own loyalty foils the cover-up, David sends him back to the army carrying the letter that orders his death. But the thing that David had done displeased the LORD.
A study in 2 Samuel 11 · Arthur Baldwin · StandUp4Jesus.Org · 9 min read
David Tarried Still At Jerusalem
“And it came to pass, after the year was expired, at the time when kings go forth to battle, that David sent Joab… But David tarried still at Jerusalem. And it came to pass in an eveningtide, that David arose from off his bed, and walked upon the roof of the king’s house: and from the roof he saw a woman washing herself; and the woman was very beautiful to look upon.”
2 Samuel 11:1-2
The chapter’s first sin is small and grey: the king is not where kings belong. His army is besieging Rabbah; he is at home, rising from his bed at evening, restless and unoccupied. Ellen White traces the fall not to the roof but to the months before it — ease, flattery, and the slow neglect to rely on God wholly. The roof is where a long drift became visible.
“It was the spirit of self-confidence and self-exaltation that prepared the way for David’s fall… The work of the enemy is not abrupt; it is not, at the outset, sudden and startling; it is a secret undermining of the strongholds of principle.”
Ellen G. White · Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 717
David Sent Messengers, And Took Her
“And David sent and enquired after the woman. And one said, Is not this Bath-sheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite? And David sent messengers, and took her; and she came in unto him, and he lay with her… and she returned unto her house.”
2 Samuel 11:3-4
He is told plainly who she is — someone’s daughter, someone’s wife, and the “someone” is one of his own decorated soldiers (Uriah stands on the roll of David’s mighty men, 2 Samuel 23). The information that should have stopped him is the information he asks for. “Took her” is the verb; power made the sin easy, and the same power will now try to bury it.
Set Ye Uriah In The Forefront Of The Hottest Battle
“And it came to pass in the morning, that David wrote a letter to Joab, and sent it by the hand of Uriah. And he wrote in the letter, saying, Set ye Uriah in the forefront of the hottest battle, and retire ye from him, that he may be smitten, and die… and there fell some of the people of the servants of David; and Uriah the Hittite died also.”
2 Samuel 11:14-17
Uriah, home on leave, is so scrupulous he will not sleep in his own bed while the ark and the army are in tents — and that decency wrecks David’s plan to pin the pregnancy on him. So David escalates: a sealed letter to Joab, carried by the victim, ordering the army to pull back and leave Uriah to be killed. Other soldiers die alongside him to make it look like ordinary war. Joab, whose loyalty runs to the king rather than to God, obeys.
“Uriah was made the bearer of his own death warrant… Joab, already stained with the guilt of one wanton murder, did not hesitate to obey the king’s instructions, and Uriah fell by the sword of the children of Ammon.”
Ellen G. White · Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 719
The Thing That David Had Done Displeased The LORD
“Then David said unto the messenger, Thus shalt thou say unto Joab, Let not this thing displease thee, for the sword devoureth one as well as another… And when the mourning was past, David sent and fetched her to his house, and she became his wife, and bare him a son. But the thing that David had done displeased the LORD.”
2 Samuel 11:25-27
David’s message to Joab is chillingly casual — “the sword devoureth one as well as another” — the same shrug he will soon condemn in Nathan’s parable. He marries the widow, the baby is born, and for the better part of a year nothing happens; the king appears to have gotten away with it. Then the narrator adds the seven words the rest of the book turns on: “the thing that David had done displeased the LORD.” The account was never closed.
