IIT UBF - University Bible Fellowship at IIT

Daily Bread

David and Bathsheba

Date: Sep. 23, 2024

Passage

2 Samuel 11:1-13 (ESV)

In the spring of the year, the time when kings go out to battle, David sent Joab, and his servants with him, and all Israel. And they ravaged the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David remained at Jerusalem.

It happened, late one afternoon, when David arose from his couch and was walking on the roof of the king’s house, that he saw from the roof a woman bathing; and the woman was very beautiful. And David sent and inquired about the woman. And one said, “Is not this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?” So David sent messengers and took her, and she came to him, and he lay with her. (Now she had been purifying herself from her uncleanness.) Then she returned to her house. And the woman conceived, and she sent and told David, “I am pregnant.”

So David sent word to Joab, “Send me Uriah the Hittite.” And Joab sent Uriah to David. When Uriah came to him, David asked how Joab was doing and how the people were doing and how the war was going. Then David said to Uriah, “Go down to your house and wash your feet.” And Uriah went out of the king’s house, and there followed him a present from the king. 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 When they told David, “Uriah did not go down to his house,” David said to Uriah, “Have you not come from a journey? Why did you not go down to your house?” 11 Uriah said to David, “The ark and Israel and Judah dwell in booths, and my lord Joab and the servants of my lord are camping in the open field. Shall I then go to my house, to eat and to 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, “Remain here today also, and tomorrow I will send you back.” So Uriah remained in Jerusalem that day and the next. 13 And David invited him, and he ate in his presence and drank, so that he made him drunk. And in the evening he went out to lie on his couch with the servants of his lord, but he did not go down to his house.

Daily Bread

Key Verse: 11:4

So David sent messengers and took her, and she came to him, and he lay with her. (Now she had been purifying herself from her uncleanness.) Then she returned to her house.

Even David, a man after God’s own heart, was not fully obedient to God (1Ki 15:5). As his encounter with Goliath propelled him upward, his encounter with Bathsheba led to his downfall: But God was faithful to David. In his story we see ourselves.

What led David to such action? There is the obvious temptation of her beauty (2b). But look at the repeated use of David’s authority in the verbs, particularly “David sent…” Instead of fighting the war, David sent Joab, while he remained. He sent for Bathsheba (4), sent for Uriah (6). When David began to think he was in control of his life, knowing what was best, sin had him.

But not all things were in his control. Bathsheba sent word she was pregnant (5). Her husband Uriah, one of David’s mighty men (23:39), was too loyal to God and to David to abide by David’s plot to cover the adultery. David was fully trapped in sin. The story is as old as the garden of Eden. As we begin to think we can be like God – sovereign over life – Satan has us. Objectively we might feign disgust: how could David do that? But as we honestly allow God’s word to speak to us, we realize none of us is without sin (Jn 8:7).

Prayer: Father, I cringe at this story, as it exposes too closely my own sin. Help me not to look away but allow your word to convict me of the truth.

One Word: Pride is the root of sin

Daily Bread

A Lioness and Her Cubs

Ezekiel 19:1-14

Key Verse: 19:2

and say:

  What was your mother? A lioness!
    Among lions she crouched;
  in the midst of young lions
    she reared her cubs.

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