We hope this week's devotional will encourage you in your spiritual walk. You are welcome to share this and include it in your church newsletters if you wish; we just ask that you please give credit to NTC and the author. Thank you!
Scripture Reading: 2 Samuel 11:1-15 (NRSV)
11 In the spring of the year, the time when kings go out to battle, David sent Joab with his officers and all Israel with him; they ravaged the Ammonites, and besieged Rabbah. But David remained at Jerusalem. 2 It happened, late one afternoon, when David rose from his couch and was walking about on the roof of the king’s house, that he saw from the roof a woman bathing; the woman was very beautiful. 3 David sent someone to inquire about the woman. It was reported, “This is Bathsheba daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite.” 4 So David sent messengers to get her, and she came to him, and he lay with her. (Now she was purifying herself after her period.) Then she returned to her house. 5 The woman conceived; and she sent and told David, “I am pregnant.”
6 So David sent word to Joab, “Send me Uriah the Hittite.” And Joab sent Uriah to David. 7 When Uriah came to him, David asked how Joab and the people fared, and how the war was going. 8 Then David said to Uriah, “Go down to your house, and wash your feet.” Uriah went out of the king’s house, and there followed him a present from the king. 9 But Uriah slept at the entrance of the king’s house with all the servants of his lord, and did not go down to his house. 10 When they told David, “Uriah did not go down to his house,” David said to Uriah, “You have just come from a journey. Why did you not go down to your house?” 11 Uriah said to David, “The ark and Israel and Judah remain in booths; and my lord Joab and the servants of my lord are camping in the open field; shall I then go to my house, to eat and to drink, and to lie with my wife? As you live, and as your soul lives, I will not do such a thing.” 12 Then David said to Uriah, “Remain here today also, and tomorrow I will send you back.” So Uriah remained in Jerusalem that day. On the next day, 13 David invited him to eat and drink in his presence and made him drunk; and in the evening he went out to lie on his couch with the servants of his lord, but he did not go down to his house.
14 In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab, and sent it by the hand of Uriah. 15 In the letter he wrote, “Set Uriah in the forefront of the hardest fighting, and then draw back from him, so that he may be struck down and die.”
Devotional Thought: One sin led to another…..
After the winter interlude, wars had recommenced. The Israelites were successful in battle. But King David wasn’t leading his army – he was in Jerusalem with time on his hands. Why he was home isn’t stated, but his failure to lead his army led to a series of sinful actions, each compounding the original sin. In his idleness, David looked over the city. Through God’s goodness, he was master of all he surveyed. But he misinterpreted being master to having possession of his subjects – imposing his will to fulfil his personal desires. (There is no suggestion that Bathsheba was complicit in the adultery – this is coercive control by a powerful king over a powerless subject.)
In David’s actions, he specifically broke three commandments. First, he coveted Uriah’s wife, Bathsheba. Secondly, he committed adultery. And when everything went badly, David arranged the murder of Uriah. But David’s sin was not just against people – his actions did not honour God. He failed the shema: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.” (Deuteronomy 6:5). David’s sin started small but grew to affect many people.
The counterpoint to David’s sin in this passage is the conduct of Uriah. Here the non-Israelite is the honourable one. Despite being offered the chance to be with his wife, he chose solidarity with the army. Holiness was shown, not by God’s chosen one, but by an outsider. Despite David avoids his sin being exposed, this incident has become one of the most well-known aspects of David’s life. And because of this sin, we also know about the man Uriah and the way he lived his life.
Prayer:
O God, help us to avoid the temptation to sin. Help us to discern thoughts that come from you from those that reflect our own selfish desires. Help us to make choices that honour you and others in all that we do. Forgive us when we make choices that are not honourable and empower us to go on in your love and grace. Amen.
Rev Pam Reed
NTC Registrar