And the wife of Urijah heard that Urijah her husband was dead, and she mourned for her husband.
Uriah is dead, his widow mourns him, and then David marries her. On the surface the king's secret is safe — until the chapter's last line names the one witness he had left out of his plans.
Bathsheba's grief was real, and she was not in on the plot. One writer walks through the sequence plainly.
Of course Bathsheba did not know that David had planned her husband's death. She did mourn for her husband for a certain time (v.26). When the days of mourning were over, David sent for her and took her as his eighth wife, and she bore a son. But we are assured that what David had done was evil in the sight of the Lord. This could not go unpunished.
A second commentator notes that Scripture records it all, out in the open.
There it is in the light, and always to be in the light, published in the book of inspiration and handed down from generation to generation. All who will may read it, and the people of God certainly will, as long as the word of God shall last. Yes, down to the seven days of mourning of the wife for the husband her sin had put to death.
The marriage looks like a tidy ending, and David treated it as one.
The Lord must maintain His holiness, however He may deal with the sinner... News came that his evil scheme about Uriah had worked. David said, "Say this to Joab: Do not let this matter displease you, for the sword devours one as well as another." So he thought to hush up the whole business. He imagined, wrongly, that once Uriah was out of the way, all would be well.
The chapter does not end with the wedding. It ends with a short clause that overturns everything David had arranged.
The story, instead of ending, is only beginning at this point. At the end of this chapter, so full of corruption and shame, we find a little expression. It is the only thing David had not thought of, and the only one he ought to have remembered: "But the thing that David had done was evil in the sight of Jehovah."
(The ESV renders the same clause, "But the thing that David had done displeased the LORD.")
Another writer traces the root back to what David had stopped remembering about God.
Notice, "You have despised Me." David had tried to hide his sin from public view by putting Uriah out of the way. He forgot the all-seeing eye of the Lord, and he forgot too the honour of His holy name. Had he remembered the Lord at the moment when his own desire was speaking inside him, he would not have fallen into the trap. The sense of God's presence is the great protection from evil. Yet how often the presence of another person moves us more than the presence of God.
One of David's psalms lets us hear what his silence cost him.
David had kept silent, not confessing his sin to God; but God laid an almost unbearable burden on his heart. How could his conscience rest when he had been guilty of adultery and murder? Being king, he could slip out of this stigma before the people, but he could not avoid having to do with God.
The last word on this marriage is not judgement.
Yet what grace shines out in this, as in every scene of David's remarkable career. Bathsheba becomes the mother of Solomon. He sat on the throne of Israel in its most glorious period. He also stands in that privileged line through which Christ came as a man!... The darkest scene in David's life becomes, under the hand of God, the means of the richest blessing — divine grace reflected on a dark background.
Pardon, though, did not cancel the consequences.
Grace may pardon the individual, but the results of sin will certainly appear. This is true even when the sinner enjoys the deepest and sweetest experiences of divine love and restoring grace while under the rod... David still had to listen to the solemn sentence: "Now therefore the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised Me and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife."
- Covered — Bathsheba mourned, the wedding followed, and the scandal looked buried. She never knew David had arranged her husband's death.
- Calm — David thought that with Uriah gone the matter was closed, and he tried to hush the whole thing up.
- Uncovered — the chapter's last line names the witness he left out: what he had done was evil in the sight of the Lord.
- Cost — he kept silent, and God laid a heavy burden on his heart. A king can escape public shame, but he cannot escape God.
- Grace — under God's hand, the darkest scene in David's life became the channel of the richest blessing. Yet the sword never left his house.
And when the mourning was past, David sent and fetched her to his house, and she became his wife, and bore him a son. But the thing that David had done was evil in the sight of Jehovah.
Second Samuel 11 ends with every loose end tied up. Bathsheba has mourned, David has married her, and she has borne him a son. No one in Jerusalem is asking questions. But the last line of the chapter says how it all looked to God, and that one line undoes the whole arrangement.
The chapter's last sentence is short, and it lands after a long stretch of scheming. It names the one thing David left out of his calculations.
The story does not end here. It is only beginning. This chapter is full of corruption and shame, and at the end of it we find one short sentence. It is the only thing David had not thought of, and the one thing he should have remembered: "But the thing that David had done was evil in the sight of Jehovah."
(The ESV reads "displeased the LORD" here; the writer quoted an older translation, "was evil in the sight of Jehovah.")
David arranged the whole affair so that no human eye could trace it back to him. That precaution shaped how God would answer it.
This was a very great sin: David committed it in secret; God punishes it in the sight of all Israel. If David did not know how to glorify God, and — while reigning in His name — did not keep a true testimony to the nature of God's kingdom; if instead he falsified its character, then God Himself will know what to do. In the sight of all men He will trace the kingdom's true features again. He will do it through the chastisement He sends on the man who has dishonoured Him — the man who had taken away the only witness to His government that God had set up before men.
Verse 27 records a legal, respectable outcome. Bathsheba's mourning ends, and she enters the palace as David's wife. But respectability gave no cover.
Of course Bathsheba did not know that David had planned her husband's death. She did mourn for her husband for a certain time (v.26). When the days of mourning were over, David sent for her and took her as his eighth wife, and she bore a son. But we are assured that what David had done was evil in the sight of the Lord. This could not go unpunished.
There is no outburst here, no thunder, no immediate sentence — only a statement of how the matter stood with God. That restraint is itself the point, and it is not the end of the story.
Scripture has a striking way of putting things. After David had carried out his sin, we read: "the thing that David had done displeased the LORD." There is no long account of God's anger. Yet this one line tells us His mind about the sin of His servant. But if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive them; and so we find it here. "I have sinned against the LORD," says David. "The LORD has put away your sin," answers the prophet (2 Sam. 12).
God gives His verdict at the end of chapter 11, but Nathan the prophet does not arrive until chapter 12. That gap was not God losing interest.
David did not confess his sin to God at once. Psalm 32:3-4 shows that the Lord waited some time before He sent the prophet Nathan to him. It was likely over nine months, for Bathsheba had borne a son by then. God was giving David the chance to confess his sin freely. In that time, as David says, "day and night" God's hand was heavy on him. How could his conscience have any rest?
Forgiveness came, but it did not cancel the consequences.
David's sin has been very great; but we can still see in him the precious work of the Spirit. Uriah's simple faithfulness put him to shame, and he cannot escape the hand of God! David is pardoned, for he confesses his sin. But in His government God shows Himself to be inflexible. He spares the king — who deserved death — yet He tells him that the sword shall never depart from his house.
- Seen. David managed every human witness and forgot the one Witness who mattered. The sin he did in secret, God punished in the sight of all Israel.
- Verdict. One short line gives God's mind, and it is enough to overturn a marriage that looked proper in every way.
- Silence. For months God waited, His hand heavy on David's conscience, giving him room to speak first before He sent Nathan.
- Pardon. David said, "I have sinned against the LORD," and the answer came at once: the LORD has put away your sin.
- Government. Forgiveness restored the man, but it did not remove the consequences. The sword would not depart from his house.