Did David rape Bathsheba?

When a friend of his, Jonadab, enquired about the cause of his indisposition, he confided in him about his lustful thoughts. Jonadab had no sense of moral decency, and was so crafty as to suggest a deceitful means of Ammon's getting his sister alone into his bedroom and forcing her. Ammon foolishly followed his advice, not thinking of the probable consequences. The deceit he used reminds us of the deceit of David in trying to cover his own sin. in spite of the earnest pleading of Tamar not to force her, her warning him that this would bring disgrace upon his own head as well as covering with shame the one he thought he loved, he went through with his evil intentions. This too reminds us of David's virtually forcing Bathsheba, for he brought her to his own house and since he was king she no doubt thought she could not withstand him.

Evident idleness led to his shameful fall, for he rose from his bed in the evening while it was still light enough for him to see from his rooftop a woman bathing herself (v.2). Honest self-judgment should have turned his eyes and his thoughts away immediately, but he was allured by her beauty. Inquiring about her, he found she was another man's wife. Why did this fact not stop him? He already had seven wives. He knew the law of God, that an adulterer should be put to death (Deut.22:23-24), but took advantage of his own position as king to break over the law of God. The woman's husband, Uriah, was a soldier in Joab's army, therefore away from home, and David sent messengers to bring her to him. After their shameful guilt of adultery, she returned to her own home (v.4).

David may have hoped that this was the end of the matter, but God intervened in His righteous government. Bathsheba sent word to David that she had become pregnant (v.5). Alarmed at this, David conceived a subtle plan to keep his sin from being discovered. He sent orders to Joab to send Uriah back to Jerusalem. Uriah may have wondered what reason David had for bringing him back, for David only inquired how the battle was going, then told Uriah to go to his house and wash his feet, for a soldier's feet need special care. When Uriah left, David sent a present after him (v.8). Whether Uriah received it did not go there, but stayed overnight with others of David's servants in the servants' quarters.

On hearing this, David questioned Uriah as to why he did not go to his house when he had opportunity after some time of being away from home (v.10). Uriah's reply must have been a pointed lesson to David as to self restraint. He had decided that, since the ark and Israel were in temporary shelters, and that Joab and the army were camping in the open, engaged in serious combat for the sake of Israel, he was not going to relax and enjoy himself at home as though he was not a part of Israel defense: he would virtually remain "on guard."

David's Serious Moral Failure. 2 Samuel 11 & 12

David's grievous failure in his adulterous association with Bathsheba, followed by his shameful and treacherous behaviour towards her husband Uriah, present the blackest spot in David's life. His fall was the fall of Eve in the Garden of Eden. She saw; she coveted; she took. David saw the beautiful woman; he coveted her; he invited her into his house and seduced her. When Bathsheba eventually confided to David that she was pregnant he acted in the most despicable manner towards Uriah. He arranged for Uriah to come home hoping that his love for his wife would result in David's child being attributed to Uriah. This failed because Uriah was an upright and loyal soldier. David tried to get Uriah drunk that Uriah might go to Bathsheba. That failed too. David decided on extreme measures. When Uriah returned to the battle that was being waged, Joab, David's general, was ordered to place him where the fighting was most dangerous. Joab obeyed and as David hoped and anticipated Uriah was slain. David was an accessory to murder. David, when he received news of Uriah's death, took Bathsheba for his wife after her period of mourning for her husband had been completed. All was well. Uriah was dead and Bathsheba was David's wife. But was all well? David had cunningly and heartlessly achieved his evil purposes but he had forgotten one important consideration — God! What David had done was evil in the sight of Jehovah.

“And it came to pass … that David sent Joab, and his servants with him, and all Israel.” The lesson he had learned at the end of 2 Samuel 10 ought to have again set him at the head of his army. Such is the beginning, often so insignificant, of a fall. Once and again God reproves His servant; he fails and God restores him; he falls again and God allows him to follow his own path. David remains behind at Jerusalem; a little idleness detaches him from the interests of the war. A passer-by appears on the scene: this traveler is lust. The king's gaze is attracted by an object that seems desirable to him; his flesh is conquered; the authority at his disposition becomes servant to his desire; the evil is consummated; the Lord's anointed is an adulterer!

At the time when kings go forth to war, and there being war, David remains at Jerusalem. These things which Scripture puts together tell their own tale as so put together. David was seeking ease and engirding himself when circumstances called for activity and energy. What a contrast with the behavior of the Hittite soldier, whom for his faithfulness he presently condemns to death! "The ark and Israel and Judah dwell in booths; and my lord Joab and the servants of my lord camp in the open field: and shall I go to my house?" What a wound for the conscience from this Hittite sword! David is at his house, and on his couch, and then walking upon the roof of his house, when he is snared through his eyes. The woman he finds is a wife, and of one of his own heroic men now at the war for Israel and for him; but nothing stops him. He is a king, and everything yields to him with the facility which is the curse of power. She returns — purified, alas! — to her dishonored home.

But the consequences follow, and to escape them sin follows sin. He sends for Uriah, plays the deceiver, is balked by the devotedness and honesty that contrast so manifestly with his own conduct here, and at last, wrought into madness by the thought of his own shame and what may come of it, sends back the unsuspecting man with his own death-warrant in his hand, to be put into execution by the unscrupulous man he knows so well, and who is to serve him by it.

"It came to pass in an evening-tide that David rose from off his bed, and walked upon the roof of the king's house." It all tells of self-indulgence, idleness and indolence. And all this time Joab and his servants and all Israel were out fighting the King's battles. The sad story continues: "And from the roof he saw a woman washing herself, and the woman was very beautiful." Why, oh, why, did not David instantly turn his eyes away? The earlier indulgence of his lust had seared that tender conscience that is of such priceless value, and instead of turning away his eyes, he lusted after her, and was not satisfied until he had obtained the object of his lust.

Any of us might have easily done the same thing had we been in David's place. Most of us have not been sufficiently careful to keep our own conscience entirely tender and unsullied, or quick enough to turn our eyes from sights that stir our passions, to be able to throw stones at David.

2 Samuel 11 gives us the circumstances that occasioned this psalm. Led away of the lusts of his own heart, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, he falls into sin. It is a sad, an awful history; but, at the same tine, it is in result beautiful and blessed. Some have said, "Oh, if I could only be like David!" Well, come and look at him now, and learn the lesson God would teach us from him. It is not only that David sins in the matter of Bathsheba, but he uses his royal, God‑given power to cover up the sin. He stood before no earthly tribunal, but he has a reputation in the eyes of men, and this must be maintained at all cost. How true it is, "The way of transgressors is hard"! Lust conceives and brings forth sin; and he is hurried on by it, and by the thought of his own reputation too, to acid murder to it, in the vain hope of blotting it out. He succeeds; the power is in his hand - alas! the power God had entrusted him with, and this is the use to which he puts it.

And now he rests. Uriah dead by the enemy's hand and David's orders, Bathsheba becomes his wife, and David seeks to rest, to settle down in the state he had arranged for himself. But God is faithful, and now shows His faithfulness to him. He sends His servant to him, a special messenger from Himself, and through him he recounts in his hearing a simple record of what he had done. There is no excusing, there is no making it out worse. It is the simple record of the fact - this one ewe lamb thou hast taken. Ali, when God speaks, how brief, how simple, how heart-searching, how straightforward it is! The message came home to David's heart and conscience. One word from God and the work is clone. "Thou art the man" - the man, the one single offender before Him, no other such sinner on the face of the earth as David. All welled up in his heart and conscience - the abuse of the power God had given him, the position God in grace had placed him in turned to hide his sin from the sight of men. So far he had succeeded in hiding it up; but there it still was before God - scarlet before Him - and there was no hiding it up there.

And mark the fearful lengths to which David was carried in the commission of evil. Having sacrificed his character to indulge nature, he endeavours to make Uriah a cloak to screen him from the public eye. His reputation must be maintained at all cost. He tries kindness, but in vain; he makes the wronged and dishonoured Uriah drunk, but to no purpose; at last, he murders him by the sword of the children of Ammon. How dreadful!

The history of David and the wife of Uriah follows. David is no longer acting by faith in God's service. When the time comes at which kings go forth to war, he stays at home at his ease, and sends others in his place to fight Jehovah's battles. At ease and in indolence he falls readily into sin, as was the case when he sought for rest among the Philistines. He was no longer standing by faith.

The nearer David was to God, the more ineffectual were his attempts to conceal his sin. Given up to himself for the time in chastisement, he adds a second transgression to the first; he completes it, and enjoys its fruit, now that the removal of every obstacle gives a semblance of lawfulness to his course. What a sad history! What unworthiness! He forgets his position as king, and a king from God. Was it reigning in righteousness to take advantage of his royal power to oppress Uriah? He makes himself a slave to the wretched Joab by rendering him accessory to his crime. How degrading! How much happier was he, when, though hunted like a partridge in the mountains, he had a living faith and a good conscience! But who can shun the eye of God? Accordingly God, who knows and loves him, fails not to visit his sin.

This was a very great sin: David committed it in secret; God punishes it in the sight of all Israel. If David knew not how to glorify God, nor — while reigning in His name — to maintain a true testimony as to the nature of God's kingdom; if he had on the contrary falsified its character, God Himself will know how, in the sight of all men, to retrace its features through the chastisement He will send upon the man who has thus dishonoured Him, and who had taken away the only witness to His government which God had set up before men.

In rebuke or putting away, I do not get rest or feel I see the whole case until three things are clear. 1st, the root sin; 2nd, the occasion; 3rd, the overt display of sin. 1st, David knew how to climb, using God, from the sheepfold to the throne; but knew not aright God's relative position to himself; 2nd, at rest on the throne, not going out to war when the kings go out, he saw, in his idleness, Bathsheba; 3rd, though on God's throne he defiled himself and dishonoured God by adultery, corruption, and murder. Thus he learnt David's self, and afterwards God. (Ps. 32) So in Solomon's case, in Job's, in Peter's. This is important, because, until the root sin is judged, there is no real healing; and the overt sin is very unlike the root sin; not it at all, generally.