Bathsheba/ BatSheva

Her name means: “The Seventh Daughter” or “The Daughter of an Oath”

Her character: Her beauty made her victim to a king’s desire. Though it is difficult to discern her true character, she seems to have found the courage to endure tragedy, winning King David confidence and eventually securing the kingdom for her son Solomon.
Her sorrow: To have committed adultery with a godly man, who then murdered her husband. To have suffered the loss of one of her sons.
Her joy: To have given birth to five sons, one of whom became king of Israel after David’s death.
Key Scriptures: 2 Samuel 11:1-12:25

Her Story

Bathsheba squeezed the sponge, moving it rhythmically across her body as though to calm the restless cadence of her thoughts. Normally, she looked forward to the ritual bath but tonight the water soothed her skin without refreshing her spirit.

Spring was the season for armies and battles. Once the rains had ceased and the harvest had been gathered, men marched off to war, leaving their women behind. Though her husband, Uriyah the Hittite was a seasoned soldier, she still worried about him, wishing she could fall asleep in his arms. But he was camped with the rest of the king’s army beneath the open skies of Rabbah, an Ammonite fortress some forty miles northeast of Jerusalem.

The king rose from his bed, unable to sleep. Pacing across the palace roof, he gazed at the city below. Jerusalem seemed calm, a city at peace with itself though at war with its neighbors. Soon his soldiers would gather a great harvest of Ammonite captives, laborers for his expanding kingdom. Then, in the half-light, King David noticed the figure of a young woman bathing in the walled garden of a house below him. He leaned against the outer edge of the roof for a closer view. Wet hair curling languidly against skin soft as lamb’s wool. Breasts like rounded apples.

David sent messengers to get her, Bathsheba the daughter of Eliam and she came to him, and he went to bed with her (for she had been purified from her uncleanness). Then she returned to her house. The woman conceived; and she sent a message to David, “I am pregnant.”

Fearing discovery, the king ordered Uriah home from battle. But the soldier surprised him by refusing to spend the night with his wife: “The ark and Israel and Judah are staying in tents, and my lord’s men are camped in the open fields. How could I go to my house to eat and drink and lie with my wife? As surely as you live, I will not do such a thing!” So David convinced Uriah to spend another day in Jerusalem, managing to get him drunk. Surely the wine would overcome his scruples. But it didn’t. So David played his last card, entrusting Bathsheba’s husband with a letter to Yoab, commander of the army. It read: “Put Uriah in the front line where the fighting is fiercest. Then withdraw from him so he will be struck down and die.”

So Uriah died by treachery, and David claimed Bathsheba as his wife, her child as his own. But Yehovah saw what David had done as evil.

One day, the prophet Nathan approached David, saying: “There were two men in a certain town, one rich and the other poor. The rich man had a large number of sheep and cattle, but the poor man had nothing except one little ewe lamb he had bought. He raised it, and it grew up with him and his children. It shared his food, drank from his cup, and even slept in his arms. It was like a daughter to him.  “Now a traveler came to the rich man, but the rich man refrained from taking one of his own sheep or cattle to prepare a meal for the traveler who had come to him. Instead, he took the ewe lamb that belonged to the poor man and prepared it for the one who had come to him.”

David exploded with anger against the man and said to Nathan: “As Yah lives, the man who did this deserves to die! He must pay for that lamb four times over, because he did such a thing and had no pity.” Then Nathan said to King David, “You are the man!

Here is what Yehovah, the God of Israel, says: ‘I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you from the hand of Saul. I gave your master’s house to you, and your master’s wives into your arms. I gave you the House of Israel and Judah. And if all this had been too little, I would have given you even more. Why did you despise the word of theYah by doing what is evil in his eyes? You struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and took his wife to be your own. Now, therefore, the sword will never depart from your house.’ ”

David’s lust for Bathsheba marked the beginning of his long decline. Though God forgave him, he still suffered the consequences of his wrongdoing. His sin was a whirlpool that dragged others into its swirling path. And despite David’s prayer and pleading, Yah God allowed this son David had conceived with Bathsheba to die from an illness.

Though the story gives us little insight into her true character, it is hardly likely that Bathsheba was in a position to refuse the king. In Nathan’s parable, in fact, she is depicted as an innocent lamb. Why, then, have so many people painted her as a seductress? Perhaps Bathsheba’s innocence is too painful to face. That a good person can suffer such tragedies, especially at the hands of a godly person, appalls us. Worse yet, Yah God punishes both David and Bathsheba by taking their son. Though Bathsheba may not have understood the reasons for her suffering, Yah God gave her favor with King David, making her both a powerful Queen and the mother of David’s successor, Solomon, who became famous for his great wisdom.

Her Promise

The story of David and Bathsheba outlines in graphic detail the horror of sin and where it leads. David’s first step toward sin leads to adultery, lying, deceit, murder, and, finally, the death of a son. The link between sin and restoration comes when David REPENTS of his sin and Nathan says the Lord Yah has taken it away (2 Samuel 12:13). How much guilt is Bathsheba’s isn’t clear; however, when Yah God tells them through the prophet Nathan that he loves their son Solomon and wants him to be called Ydidyah [loved by Yah God], the restoration is Bathsheba’s as well as David’s. If Yah God could forgive this terrible sin of David, don’t you think he could forgive your sin, whatever it may be?