David and Bathsheba

Chapters 11 and 12 of Second Samuel mark the turning point of the entire book. Everything before chapter 11 narrates David's rise, consolidation, and the high-water mark of his reign: the covenant in chapter 7, the military victories of chapters 8-10, and the extended period of security and success they represent. Everything after chapter 12 narrates the long, painful working-out of consequences that begin here. The narrator signals the significance of the pivot with an understated observation at the opening of chapter 11 that carries more weight than its few words suggest: it was the time of year when kings go to war. But David stayed in Jerusalem.

The Account in Chapter 11

The narrative of chapters 11 is told from David's perspective, and the effect is chilling. David sees a woman bathing. She is described as very beautiful. He inquires about her and is told that she is Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah the Hittite. David sent messengers to get her; she came to him, and he lay with her. She then went back to her house. The text records Bathsheba's perspective at one point only: when she discovers she is pregnant, she sends word to David - two Hebrew words, harah anochi, I am pregnant.

The power asymmetry in this account cannot be overstated. Bathsheba is a subject summoned by a king. There is no record of her consent, no account of her desire, no speech attributed to her. She appears in the account as the object of David's desire and then as the source of his problem. Whether the encounter is understood as rape, coercion, or some form of consent obtained under conditions that make consent meaningless, the text does not present it as an equal encounter between willing participants.

What follows is David's attempt to manage the consequences. He recalls Uriah from the battlefield, hoping that Uriah will go home to Bathsheba and provide cover for the pregnancy. Uriah refuses - twice - citing his loyalty to his fellow soldiers who are camped in the field. His scrupulousness is in devastating contrast to David's manipulations. David then sends Uriah back to the battlefield carrying his own death warrant: a letter to Joab instructing him to place Uriah where the fighting is heaviest and then withdraw from him. Joab complies. Uriah dies. Bathsheba mourns. Then David sends for her and makes her his wife. And the narrator adds the only direct moral evaluation in the chapter: "But the thing that David had done was evil in the Lord's sight."

Nathan's Parable

Chapter 12 begins with Nathan the prophet coming to David. Nathan does not confront David directly. He tells a story: a rich man with many flocks and a poor man with one ewe lamb, a lamb that was like a daughter to him, that he had raised and that ate at his table and lay in his arms. A traveler comes to the rich man, and rather than taking from his own abundant flocks, he takes the poor man's one lamb and prepares it for the traveler.

David's response is immediate and furious: the man who did this deserves to die, and he shall restore the lamb fourfold because he did this thing and because he had no pity. Nathan's response - "You are the man" - is one of the most dramatic moments in all biblical narrative. The words are four syllables in Hebrew. Ata ha-ish. They land with the force of the story David has just convicted himself with.

Nathan's subsequent indictment is detailed and specific. He recounts what God had given David - the house of Saul, his wives, the kingdom of Israel and Judah - and asks why David despised the commandment of God and did what is evil in his sight. He names the two crimes: you struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and you have taken his wife to be your wife. He then announces the consequences: the sword will not depart from David's house; evil will rise up against him from within his own house; what he did secretly will be done openly against him.

David's Acknowledgment and Its Aftermath

David's response to Nathan's indictment is brief: "I have sinned against the Lord." Nathan acknowledges that the Lord has put away David's sin and that David will not die. But the child that Bathsheba has borne will die. The child's illness and death, narrated in the rest of chapter 12, are accompanied by David's intense but ultimately unavailing prayer and fasting, and then by his acceptance of the outcome once it has occurred - an acceptance that confounds his servants but that David explains with the clear-eyed theological realism that characterizes him at his best: while the child was alive he could seek God's mercy; now that the child is dead, fasting serves no purpose.

The chapter ends with the birth of Solomon to Bathsheba and the note that the Lord loved the child. The narrator also records that David called him Jedidiah - beloved of the Lord - "because of the Lord," though the name Solomon is the one that sticks. The ending is not triumphant. It is the kind of ending that is possible after serious damage has been done and survived: life continues, even new life, but the damage does not disappear. The sword that Nathan promised will not depart from David's house has only just been drawn.