And an Unlikely Candidate.
Usually you don't hear King David's escapades with Bathsheeba discussed very favorably -its usually a sermon on repentance. Like, what a dirtbag to take the wife of Uriah and send him to his death in battle to cover for his sins. Thank God David repented, mourned in sack-cloth and ashes and asked God's forgiveness for his wild adultery. I always wondered why God found such a guy someone he would want in the lineage of Jesus. What sort of ancestor is this to brag about? Why was King David so great that Jesus had to come from a Davidic line? Was Bathsheeba that great looking he would risk losing the respect of his entire kingdom?
But I got a clue to more of the story when an overlooked piece of translation was disclosed today - there is a phrase "wash your feet" which is embedded in the story. It is a euphemism for marital conjugal relations. (Now reread the story)
After the dirty deed, David learns Bathsheeba is pregnant so summons Uriah and tells him to go home and 'wash your feet.' He protests- how can I do that when my men are dying on the front line and need me? He refuses to go tend to his wife, he cares more about work and honor at that point. He was a war hero- he was more into impressing the boss- even when his boss knew his wife was beside herself and needed a man around because she was pregnant and alone. David thinks to himself- 'This isn't going to work.' He isn't going home!
David has a few choices here after Uriah doesn't obey him (which would have allowed him and everyone to think that his wife was pregnant with his-Uriah's child). David has to think fast- what are his choices? He can do nothing and the adultery of Bathsheeba will be discovered. Remember that at this time, as is currently the case in a few Muslim countries Adultery was such a serious crime that it warranted stoning. Remember how Jesus addressed the men who caught a woman in the act of adultery? They were about to stone her to death. We forget that this happened - for real. David would have had to know that if he did nothing sooner or later Bathsheeba, and his unborn child in her would have been dead soon enough.
So he decided to set Uriah up to die instead. God didn't strike dead David for this. He didn't kill off Bathsheeba- they become forebearers of Jesus in fact. God does punish David as the child conceived in adultery does not live.
What is the moral? What does this say? David isn't as much a dirtbag as the lust-tale at first glance suggests? It suggests that God might understand a man with a heart that wanted to take care of a scandalize-able woman and her unborn child. Who does that remind you of?
Mary, the mother of Jesus was pregnant without knowing a man- she was in a small town where it would have been noticed that she was pregnant and not exactly married - unless Joseph stepped up to the plate and saved her from what would have been viewed as stone-able scandal in the eyes of the culture at the time.
God has a heart for women, he desires that they not be scandalized, not ridiculed or marginalized, not be abandoned or left alone especially when in need because they carry the potential of life within them.
Just look at how he told the men ready to stone someone to death to back off a woman who might be the same Mary Magdalene who became his loyal apostle.
King David went to extremes to save a woman- and save her literally from certain eventual death.
It might have angered David that Uriah didn't have enough regard for his wife to even check in on her to see that all was well when the King his boss was telling him to go home with haste.
While you may think that there is no excuse for David's behavior in bedding the object of his unbridled lust, God may be looking at his heart in a different way. David knew how to Honor a Woman. Save her from Scandal and Distress. And those are the very qualities he also found in Joseph the step-father of Jesus.
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