David and Bathsheba

But David now fell into a very grievous sin, though he was otherwise by nature a righteous and religious man, and one who firmly kept the laws of our fathers. Late one evening, as he looked about him from the roof of his royal palace, where he used to walk at that hour, he saw a woman bathing in cold water in her own house. She was of extraordinary beauty, and in this surpassed all other women; her name was Bathsheba. He was overcome by the woman’s beauty and could not restrain his desire, but sent for her and lay with her. She became pregnant, and sent to the king asking him to find some way of hiding her sin; for by the laws of their fathers a woman who had been guilty of adultery was to be put to death. So the king sent for Joab’s armor-bearer from the siege, who was the woman’s husband; his name was Uriah. When he had come, the king asked him about the army and about the siege; and when he answered that all their affairs were going as they wished, the king took some portions of meat from his supper and gave them to him, and told him to go home to his wife and take his rest with her. Uriah did not do so, but slept near the king with the rest of the armor-bearers. When the king was told of this, he asked him why he did not go home to his house and to his wife after so long an absence, as all men naturally do when they come from a long journey. He replied that it was not right, while his fellow soldiers and the general of the army slept on the ground, in the camp and in an enemy’s country, that he should go and take his rest and enjoy himself with his wife. When he had answered so, the king told him to stay there that day, so that he might send him back to the general the next day. So the king invited Uriah to supper, and in a cunning and skillful way plied him with toasts at supper until he was drunk; yet he still slept at the king’s gates, with no inclination to go to his wife. At this the king was very angry with him, and wrote to Joab, commanding him to punish Uriah, for he told him that Uriah had offended him. He suggested to him the way he wanted him punished, so that it would not be discovered that he himself was the author of this punishment: he charged him to set Uriah opposite the part of the enemy’s army where the attack would be most dangerous, and where he might be deserted and be in the greatest peril; for he told him to order his fellow soldiers to pull back out of the fight. When he had written this to him and sealed the letter with his own seal, he gave it to Uriah to carry to Joab. When Joab received it and, on reading it, understood the king’s purpose, he set Uriah at the place where he knew the enemy would give them the most trouble, and gave him some of the best soldiers in the army as his companions. He said that he would also come to their help with the whole army, so that if possible they might break down some part of the wall and get into the city. And he urged him to be glad of the chance to expose himself to such great labors, and not to be displeased at it, since he was a brave soldier and had a great reputation for courage, both with the king and with his countrymen. And when Uriah eagerly took up the work he had been set to, Joab gave private orders to those who were to be his companions that when they saw the enemy make a sally, they should leave him. So when the Hebrews made an attack on the city, the Ammonites were afraid that the enemy might get ahead of them and climb into the city, and at the very place to which Uriah had been ordered. So they put their best soldiers in the front, suddenly opened their gates, and fell on the enemy with great force, rushing violently at them. When those who were with Uriah saw this, they all fell back, as Joab had directed them beforehand. But Uriah, ashamed to run away and leave his post, stood up to the enemy and took the force of their charge, and killed many of them; but he was surrounded and caught in the middle of them and was killed, and some of his companions were killed with him. [a]

When this was done, Joab sent messengers to the king and ordered them to tell him that he was doing what he could to take the city soon, but that in making an assault on the wall they had been forced to fall back with great loss; and he told them, if they saw that the king was angry at this, to add that Uriah had been killed too. When the king heard this from the messengers, he took it very badly, and said that they had done wrong in assaulting the wall, when they ought to have tried to take the city with mines and siege engines. They had before their eyes, he said, the example of Abimelech, the son of Gideon, who tried to take the tower in Thebez by force and was killed by a large stone thrown at him by an old woman; and though he was a man of great prowess, he died a shameful death because of the dangerous way he made his assault. They should remember this event and not come near the enemy’s wall; for the best way of making war successfully was to call to mind what had happened in former wars, and what good or bad success had attended them in similar dangers, so that they might imitate the one and avoid the other. But while the king was in this mood, the messenger told him that Uriah had been killed too; and at this he was pacified. So he told the messenger to go back to Joab and tell him that this misfortune was nothing but what is common among mankind, and that such is the nature of war, and such its chances, that sometimes the enemy has success in it and sometimes the other side. But he ordered him to keep on with his care of the siege, so that no accident might befall him in it afterward; they were to raise earthworks and use siege engines against the city, and when they had taken it, to overturn its very foundations and destroy all who were in it. So the messenger carried the king’s message as he had been charged, and hurried back to Joab. But Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah, when she was told of her husband’s death, mourned for him many days; and when her mourning was over, and the tears she had shed for Uriah were dried up, the king at once took her as his wife, and a son was born to him by her. [d]

God was not pleased with this marriage, but was angry with David because of it; and he appeared to Nathan the prophet in his sleep and complained of the king. Now Nathan was a tactful and prudent man. Considering that kings, when they fall into a passion, are guided more by that passion than by justice, he resolved to keep back the threats that had come from God, and spoke to him in a good-natured way, in the following manner. He asked the king to give him his opinion on this case: “There were two men living in the same city. One of them was rich, and the other poor. The rich man had a great many herds of pack animals, of sheep and of cattle; but the poor man had only one ewe lamb. He brought her up with his children and let her eat her food with them, and he had the same natural affection for her that anyone might have for a daughter. Now when a stranger came to visit the rich man, he would not deign to kill any of his own flocks to feast his friend from them; but he sent for the poor man’s lamb, took her away from him, made her ready for food, and feasted the stranger on her.” This story troubled the king greatly, and he declared to Nathan that the man who could dare to do such a thing was a wicked man, and that it was only just that he should restore the lamb fourfold and be punished with death for it as well. At this Nathan said at once that the king himself was the man who ought to suffer those punishments, and by his own sentence, and that it was he who had committed this great and horrible crime. He also revealed to him and laid before him the anger of God against him. God had made him king over the army of the Hebrews and lord of all the nations, many and great, around him; God had earlier delivered him out of the hands of Saul, and had given him such wives as he had justly and lawfully married; and now this God was despised by him and insulted by his impiety, since he had married, and now had, another man’s wife, and by exposing her husband to the enemy had in fact killed him. God would inflict punishments on him for these acts of wickedness: his own wives would be forced by one of his sons, and he himself would be plotted against by that same son; and though he had committed his wickedness in secret, the punishment he was to undergo would be inflicted on him publicly. “Moreover,” he said, “the child that was born to you of her will soon die.” When the king was troubled at these messages and thoroughly confounded, and said with tears and sorrow that he had sinned (for he was beyond dispute a pious man, and guilty of no sin at all in his whole life except in the matter of Uriah’s wife), God had compassion on him and was reconciled to him, and promised that he would preserve to him both his life and his kingdom; for he said that since he repented of what he had done, he was no longer displeased with him. So Nathan, when he had delivered this prophecy to the king, returned home. [f]

However, God sent a dangerous illness on the child born to David by the wife of Uriah. The king was troubled at it and took no food for seven days, though his servants almost forced him to take it; but he dressed himself in a black garment and fell down and lay on the ground in sackcloth, pleading with God for the child’s recovery, for he loved the child’s mother passionately. But when the child died on the seventh day, the king’s servants did not dare tell him of it. They supposed that when he knew it, he would accept food and other care of himself even less, because of his grief at the death of his son, since he had afflicted himself and grieved for him so greatly when the child was only sick. But when the king saw that his servants were in confusion and seemed affected, like people very anxious to hide something, he understood that the child was dead. When he had called one of his servants to him and found that it was so, he got up and washed himself, put on a white garment, and went into the tent of God. He also ordered them to set supper before him, which greatly surprised his relatives and servants, since he had done none of this while the child was sick, but did it all when he was dead. So, having first asked leave to put a question to him, they begged him to tell them the reason for this conduct of his. He called them ignorant people, and explained to them that while the child was alive he had hoped for its recovery, and so had done everything proper for him to do, thinking that by such means he might make God favorable to him; but that when the child was dead there was no longer any reason for grief, which was then to no purpose. When he had said this, they praised the king’s wisdom and understanding. He then went in to Bathsheba his wife, and she conceived and bore a son; and by the command of Nathan the prophet he called his name Solomon. [j]

Meanwhile Joab pressed the Ammonites hard in the siege, cutting off their water and depriving them of other means of living, until they were in the greatest want of food and drink; for they depended on only one small well of water, and they did not dare to drink from it too freely, in case the spring failed them altogether. So he wrote to the king and told him of this, and urged him to come himself to take the city, so that he might have the honor of the victory. On receiving Joab’s letter, the king welcomed his goodwill and loyalty, took his army with him, and came to destroy Rabbah. When he had taken it by force, he gave it to his soldiers to plunder; but he himself took the crown of the king of the Ammonites, which was made of about seventy-five pounds of gold and had in its middle a precious stone called a sardonyx; and David wore this crown on his own head ever after. He also found many other spoils in the city, splendid and of great price. But as for the men, he tortured them and then destroyed them; and when he had taken the other cities of the Ammonites by force, he treated them the same way. [k]