Old Testament · History

2 Samuel chapter 11

At the — the time when kings march out to war — David sent Joab, along with his officers and the entire Israelite army. They the Ammonites and laid siege to Rabbah. But David stayed behind in Jerusalem.One evening David got up from his bed and walked around on the of the palace. From the roof he saw a woman bathing. The woman was .David sent someone to find out about her. The report came back: “That’s Bathsheba daughter of Eliam, the wife of .”David . She came to him, and he slept with her — she had just completed her . Then she went back home.The woman became pregnant. She sent word to David: “.”David word to Joab: “Send me Uriah the Hittite.” So Joab sent Uriah to David.When Uriah came to him, David asked how Joab was doing, how the troops were doing, and how the war was going.Then David said to Uriah, “Go down to your house and .” Uriah left the palace, and a was sent after him.But Uriah slept at the entrance of the palace with all his master’s servants. He did not go down to his house.When David was told, “Uriah didn’t go home,” David said to Uriah, “You just got back from a journey — why didn’t you go home?”Uriah said to David, “The , and Israel, and Judah are sitting in , and my commander Joab and my master’s men are camped in the open field. How could I go to my house to eat and drink and ? As surely as you live — I will not do this.”David said to Uriah, “Stay here one more day. Tomorrow I’ll send you back.” So Uriah stayed in Jerusalem that day and the next.David invited him to eat and drink with him, and . But that evening Uriah went out and slept on his mat with his master’s servants. He did not go home.In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab and .In the letter he wrote: “Put Uriah at the front where the fighting is fiercest. Then so he gets struck down and killed.”So while Joab was besieging the city, he assigned Uriah to a position where he knew the strongest defenders were.The men of the city came out and fought against Joab. Some of David’s soldiers fell. Uriah the Hittite was .Joab sent David a full report of the battle.He instructed the messenger: “When you’ve finished giving the king the full battle report,if the king’s anger flares up and he says to you, ‘Why did you get so close to the city to fight? Didn’t you know they’d shoot from the wall?Who struck down ? Didn’t a woman drop an upper millstone on him from the wall so that he died at Thebez? Why did you get so close to the wall?’ — then tell him, ‘Your servant Uriah the Hittite is also dead.’”The messenger went. When he arrived, he told David everything Joab had sent him to say.The messenger said to David, “The men overpowered us and came out against us in the open field, but we drove them back to the entrance of the gate.Then the archers shot at your servants from the wall. Some of the king’s men died. .”David told the messenger, “Say this to Joab: ‘Don’t let this upset you — . Press your attack against the city harder and destroy it.’ .”When heard that her husband was dead, she for him.When the mourning period was over, David . She became his wife and bore him a son. But what David had done was .