The Great Fall

2 Samuel 11:1-27

Good morning! Today we continue our series on King David. I want to start by reviewing where we’ve been the last month or so. Back in Chapter 7, we saw that because of the Lord, things were beginning to go quite well for King David and for the kingdom. David, living in a fine palace had had built, thought about how the ark and other priestly objects were in a tabernacle, a tent, and he thought it was inappropriate. David decided to build a fine Temple for the Lord, and he told a prophet of the Lord about this. God responded to the prophet, who explained to David that God did not want him to do this; someone who would come after David would be the one to do this.

We talked about how on a physical level this was accomplished through David’s son Solomon, but in a much broader way it was fulfilled and is being fulfilled by Jesus, as believers are God’s ultimate Tabernacle; as one of the most amazing miracles and blessings of all, God’s Holy Spirit resides in us!

Now when we talked about these passages, I brought up the honor-shame implications of the situation. God was serving in the role of Patron, patron over Israel and over David personally, and the proper role of a “client” in an honor-shame patronage relationship is not to try to out-give the patron, as that is actually a kind of attack, an attempt to make yourself the patron, to make yourself more honorable than the person you claim to follow. God responded to David’s misguided plan by promising even more amazing blessings to David and his family. David responded in the appropriate way, by giving up his plan to build a Temple for the Lord and by simply responding in praise and worship.

And we saw that God kept His promises and David continued to establish and expand the boundaries and reputation of Israel. The ancient promises given to Abraham were finally coming true! If it were not for some concerning incidents in David’s past along with God’s decision that someone else after David would have the higher honor of building a Temple for the Lord, we might think that David is the fulfillment of all the promises given earlier for a messiah, a leader who would be not only a tremendous blessing to Israel, but to the entire world, and not only for a specific time, but forever.

I think it is worth pointing out some additional honor-shame implications of where we are in the story of David. If you recall, Saul was the first king of Israel, and it did not go well with Saul. Remember that in Saul, God gave the people what they wanted, someone tall and good looking, someone who, based on externals, seemed to fit the part of a king. God warned the people that it would not go well for them if they went with a king like that the other nations had, but the people refused to listen.

When Saul failed miserably at following God and at leading the people, whose honor was affected negatively? Well, certainly Saul’s own honor standing was destroyed, but so was, by association, the honor of whoever “chose” him. Who chose him? Not God, who warned against the whole thing. As a result, God’s honor status did not decrease but in fact was elevated. God did not have to say “I told you so,” but the message was broadcast loud and clear without words. It was the people of Israel who chose this future, and so the shame of Saul went back to Israel.

But what about David? David was chosen by God. God did not choose David like the other nations chose their kings. David was last in his family’s line, meaning at the position of lowest honor. He was just a kid at the time, and he was doing a dishonorable job, a lowly job, taking care of sheep. He was about as far from a stereotypical “prince” as you could get.

And so God really put His honor on the line by choosing such an unconventional pick as David. And as was typical in honor-shame relationships, the patron’s honor was tied to the honor of his client, in this case, David. As David continued to lead well and have a heart dedicated to the Lord, he brought honor to God. But if He were to fall into dishonor, God’s own Name would be dishonored.

And this brings us to today’s passage, in my opinion one of the most depressing in all of Scripture. As we go through this familiar passage, I am going to ask a single question again and again: What should David have done? This is a good question for us also to ask when we have found that we ourselves have slipped into sin. Even better is to ask the related question “What should I be doing?” at the moment of temptation, before we fall.

Let’s start the passage, beginning with 2 Samuel 11:1.

In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war, David sent Joab out with the king’s men and the whole Israelite army. They destroyed the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David remained in Jerusalem. – 2 Samuel 11:1

What should David have done? The God-breathed, God-inspired author of this passage clearly thinks he knows the answer: David should have gone off to war, with his army, as other kings, good kings, tend to do. Was David needed for the mission to have success? The answer is no; they were successful. But – and this is important – David should have gone anyway, not for mission success, but for “David success.”

We should do what God calls us to do, not only if we are needed for success. The truth is that God never “needs” us, not in the way we might think. God can make stones and rocks worship Him, and make trees clap their hands. We are invited to serve with God not because we are needed, but because we need it. We need to serve the Lord because it keeps our hearts tender and loyal to Him.

David stayed home because he was more interested in partaking of the finest food, enjoying hot fireplaces, and resting in warm fluffy beds than he was interested in dealing with the hardships of living in tents, planning battles, eating gruel, and sleeping on rocks. Who wants to do that, when you have truly capable leaders who can do these things while you can stay at home in your comfy castle and watch Netflix?

One evening David got up from his bed and walked around on the roof of the palace. From the roof he saw a woman bathing. The woman was very beautiful, and David sent someone to find out about her. The man said, “She is Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah the Hittite.” – 2 Samuel 11:2-3

What should David have done? He should have averted his eyes. He should have gone back to bed, to his own wives. He should have been content with what he had with who he had. He should have paid more attention to becoming a better husband and father.

He should have spent more time in God’s Word, putting it before him all the time, so that it influenced his actions. Perhaps then he would have remembered and heeded the following verses from Deuteronomy:

When you enter the land the Lord your God is giving you and have taken possession of it and settled in it, and you say, “Let us set a king over us like all the nations around us,” be sure to appoint over you a king the Lord your God chooses. He must be from among your fellow Israelites. Do not place a foreigner over you, one who is not an Israelite. The king, moreover, must not acquire great numbers of horses for himself or make the people return to Egypt to get more of them, for the Lord has told you, “You are not to go back that way again.” He must not take many wives, or his heart will be led astray. He must not accumulate large amounts of silver and gold. – Deuteronomy 17:14-17

We could go back and forth over the degree to which David did not obey other parts of this passage, but let’s be clear: by inquiring about this woman, David was falling into the very trap that is described in this passage. How far astray his heart will be led is truly shocking, as we will soon see.

Then David sent messengers to get her. She came to him, and he slept with her. (Now she was purifying herself from her monthly uncleanness.) Then she went back home. The woman conceived and sent word to David, saying, “I am pregnant.” – 2 Samuel 11:4-5

What should David have done? Once he learned that she was married, he should have left her alone forever. If he had trouble getting her out of his mind, he should have confessed his lust to the Lord. He should have remembered that two of the Ten Commandments dealt with these very issues:

You shall not commit adultery. – Exodus 20:14

You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor. – Exodus 20:17

By pursuing her, he is sinning against God. But he is also sinning against Bathsheba, and he is sinning against Uriah. He should have remembered how seriously God took the sin of adultery, as Scripture gave the following punishment:

If a man commits adultery with another man’s wife—with the wife of his neighbor—both the adulterer and the adulteress are to be put to death. – Leviticus 20:10

As king, David probably thought himself above the law. There is also evidence that punishments such this were not routinely enforced at the time of David.

Lots of people commit adultery and get away with it. Even when sometimes a child is conceived and the father is the adulterer, people can get away with it – although keeping such secrets is a lot less certain in our modern age of DNA tests.

But this sin cannot be hidden. Bathsheba’s husband is out on the front, the place where David should have been. If he had been there, he would not have gotten into this disastrous mess. When Uriah comes home after the battles are all over, it will become obvious to him and to everyone that Bathsheba has been unfaithful. And if those severe adultery laws were ever used, this would have been a time that they would be used, because the proof of her infidelity would be so absolute, so certain.   

 

So David sent this word to Joab: “Send me Uriah the Hittite.” And Joab sent him to David. When Uriah came to him, David asked him how Joab was, how the soldiers were and how the war was going. Then David said to Uriah, “Go down to your house and wash your feet.” So Uriah left the palace, and a gift from the king was sent after him. But Uriah slept at the entrance to the palace with all his master’s servants and did not go down to his house. – 2 Samuel 11:6-9

What should David have done? He should have confessed. He should have protected Bathsheba if possible. If her unfaithfulness was in any way a result of David pressuring her (which is likely – who would feel comfortable saying no to a king?), David should have taken full responsibility and said that she had no choice. This would almost certainly have preserved her life and quite possibly would have restored her relationship with her husband.

Would David get to remain king? That was a question David should have brought to the prophets of God, and he should have confessed his sin to God, understanding that if God stripped him of the kingdom, it was entirely appropriate that He would have done so. If God did not remove him as king, then he should have truly recommitted himself to serving as king in the way that God had specified.

For example, he should have followed the instructions to kings in Deuteronomy 17:

When he takes the throne of his kingdom, he is to write for himself on a scroll a copy of this law, taken from that of the Levitical priests. It is to be with him, and he is to read it all the days of his life so that he may learn to revere the Lord his God and follow carefully all the words of this law and these decrees and not consider himself better than his fellow Israelites and turn from the law to the right or to the left.  – Deuteronomy 17:18-20a

But what did David do instead? He hatched a plot to hide the fact that he was the father of the child. He pulled Uriah from the front lines so that he could go home and sleep with his wife. But despite David’s manipulations and hints, Uriah did not do as David wanted.

David was told, “Uriah did not go home.” So he asked Uriah, “Haven’t you just come from a military campaign? Why didn’t you go home?” Uriah said to David, “The ark and Israel and Judah are staying in tents, and my commander Joab and my lord’s men are camped in the open country. How could I go to my house to eat and drink and make love to my wife? As surely as you live, I will not do such a thing!” – 2 Samuel 11:10-11

What should David have done? Confessed. Placed himself at the mercy of Uriah. Gone to the priests and confessed. Gone to the people of Israel and confessed.

But David instead tries to keep his sinful plan alive. Uriah, unaware of any of this, truly heaps burning coals on David by his revealing his goodness and selflessness before David. Why should he get to be with his wife when the other men our out risking their lives?

Yeah, David! That’s a good question! Why are you not out there with them too? How could you be hanging out at your palace at a time like this? I bet at this point David wished that he had indeed gone out there with them so that this nightmare would have never happened. Uriah seems utterly unaware that by simply being true to his good principles and sharing them he is heaping condemnation upon condemnation on David.

As an aside, I think it is worth pointing out that God has done this again and again through history. He may even do this through you. We need to understand that one reason Christians are so often persecuted is because their very goodness, empowered by the Lord, heaps condemnation on those who live in sin.

As John explained,

Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God. – John 3:20-21

Returning to the David account, the events of this passage are so terrible, the consequences so important, that we tend to take it with utter solemnity. But the reality is that there is a lot of humor in this passage, humor of a type that is still often used today. Everything David tries to do has the opposite effect of what is intended. By talking to Uriah to try to get him to go home to his wife, Uriah has now vowed to the king that he will never do such a thing! It is a dark, tragic kind of comedy, but it is comedy, nonetheless. 

God is sovereign. None of these backfiring events are happening by chance. God is determined to bring into the light David’s sin, and he is going to make it as painful for David as possible. God is doing this to David because He loves him and does not want to leave David in a place far from God’s heart, as he is now.

It is somewhat terrifying but important to understand that God may do this with us as well. It is better to come voluntarily into the Light at once than to be dragged there, kicking and screaming.  

Then David said to him, “Stay here one more day, and tomorrow I will send you back.” So Uriah remained in Jerusalem that day and the next. At David’s invitation, he ate and drank with him, and David made him drunk. But in the evening Uriah went out to sleep on his mat among his master’s servants; he did not go home. – 2 Samuel 11:12-13

Now David is getting Uriah drunk so that he hopefully forgets his noble convictions and goes back to his wife. But again, this fails. Notice that at each step, David goes further and further into sin, further and further away from God.

In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it with Uriah. In it he wrote, “Put Uriah out in front where the fighting is fiercest. Then withdraw from him so he will be struck down and die.” So while Joab had the city under siege, he put Uriah at a place where he knew the strongest defenders were. When the men of the city came out and fought against Joab, some of the men in David’s army fell; moreover, Uriah the Hittite died. – 2 Samuel 11:14-17

And now we reach the pinnacle of evil: murder by battle. David’s transparency with Joab is truly shocking. He could have just said to put Uriah out where the fighting was fiercest and hoped that he would be killed just due to the dangers of war. But no, he actually instructs Joab to leave his man behind. In addition to murder, David is guilty of commanding Joab to murder for him.

David’s circle of people impacted by his sin is growing and growing. Not only Joab is added to the list, but also certainly some of Joab’s men who witnessed this action of Joab to leave Uriah behind. The motto to leave no man behind goes back at least to Roman times: Nemo resideo. This has been one of the most highly held principles of the US military. Here we not only have a violation of this principle, but the exact opposite! Uriah is purposely left behind to die. Imagine all the press and court martials that would result if this was discovered in the US military today.

How has this “man after God’s own heart” fallen so far? I am hard pressed to say that this is any less evil than anything that Saul had done. Notice that these actions were taken step by step. First the sin, and then ever worse sins to cover up the sin.

At this point there is no reason to keep asking what David should have done. Just about anything but the path he took would have been better.

Joab sent David a full account of the battle. He instructed the messenger: “When you have finished giving the king this account of the battle, the king’s anger may flare up, and he may ask you, ‘Why did you get so close to the city to fight? Didn’t you know they would shoot arrows from the wall? Who killed Abimelek son of Jerub-Besheth? Didn’t a woman drop an upper millstone on him from the wall, so that he died in Thebez? Why did you get so close to the wall?’ If he asks you this, then say to him, ‘Moreover, your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead.’” – 2 Samuel 11:18-21

From this passage we realize a bit more about David – he is hot tempered. We have seen this much earlier, all the way back to the situation with Nabal and Abigail back in I Samuel 25, long before he assumed the kingship. It is good that David cares that his troops be led well so that there are no unnecessary casualties, but the idea of bringing someone’s complete past back up against them is a sure sign of an abusive personality. God does not bring up our entire past against us, and we should neither do it against others.

But Joab, now also a victim of David, is shrewd. He knows to bring up Uriah because David will remember what he told Joab to do and also feel some fear because this random messenger brings up Uriah’s name. Did Joab tell people about what he was instructed to do? Or did he not? By bringing up Uriah indirectly in this way, Joab is able to demonstrate to David that he now has power against David. David is going to need to treat Joab extremely well from now on, or Joab just might tell everything!

The messenger set out, and when he arrived he told David everything Joab had sent him to say. The messenger said to David, “The men overpowered us and came out against us in the open, but we drove them back to the entrance of the city gate. Then the archers shot arrows at your servants from the wall, and some of the king’s men died. Moreover, your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead.” – 2 Samuel 11:22-24

David told the messenger, “Say this to Joab: ‘Don’t let this upset you; the sword devours one as well as another. Press the attack against the city and destroy it.’ Say this to encourage Joab.” – 2 Samuel 11:25

I can just imagine David turning as pale as a sheet when the messenger brings up Uriah. You can just imagine David’s anger welling up at the news of how multiple soldiers died in the battle but then suddenly changing to fear when Uriah is mentioned.

David covers his fear, forgetting his anger, and suddenly seems amazingly sympathetic with Joab. He gives his command to march forward, acting as if nothing at all unusual is going on, all the while wondering what Joab has shared with anyone else.

When Uriah’s wife heard that her husband was dead, she mourned for him. After the time of mourning was over, David had her brought to his house, and she became his wife and bore him a son. But the thing David had done displeased the Lord. – 2 Samuel 11:26-27

We are told very little from Bathsheba’s perspective. We don’t know how complicit she was in the affair. But we see here a sign that she genuinely loved Uriah, who after all showed himself in his actions with David to be a noble and good person. Did she know that David had her husband killed? We don’t know, but I suspect that there might have been times that maybe she wondered a little about it. After she married David, she certainly began to see not only the good but also the bad and the ugly sides of David.

From David’s perspective, he had fought a war of his own, a war against the truth coming out, and by outward appearances he had won. Unfortunately, we live in a world in which evil actions are often successfully hidden, and as with David, achieving this success leads to many people injured or worse as collateral damage.

David no doubt tried to push all of this out of his mind. After all, he now had what he had wanted, the woman he had desired what must have seemed like ages ago. But at what price? David had done tremendous damage to his soul, to his relationship with God; indeed, to his relationships with everyone.

And going back to our topics at the beginning of this message, where does all this put God and His honor? In contrast to Saul, David was God’s real choice for king. God’s own honor and reputation was on the line with what kind of person and king David would be. If God operated the way most of the world operates, He would be upset about the sin, but happy that David had managed to successfully cover it up. God’s reputation was apparently intact as long as the truth never came out. Would it come out? The only risk was Joab, but as long as David kept him happy, he would stay silent.

But this is not how God works. God does not build His honor upon lies. I would suggest that God does not care about His honor in the way that people do. As Exhibit A I would point to Jesus, who God chose to have die the death of the lowest criminal for the sins of man. The cross was scandalous not just for Jesus but for God the Father as well. And they are three in one. To tarnish the reputation of one is to do it to all.

Like the story of the prodigal son so ably illustrates, God loves us more than He cares about His reputation. And ultimately, at the end of the age, everyone will agree that God’s honor and glory are unlimited, infinite, because He chose love over everything else.

As for David, at this point in the story God still loves him. The final verse says that the Lord was displeased. The word can also be translated, especial in 1 and 2 Samuel, as grieved. The same word describes how Hannah felt after being shamed about not having a son. The Lord was grieved because David, like Adam before him, had utterly broken his relationship with God.

God was not going to let this situation remain.  The only path forward was to confront David with his sin so that David could properly repent and be forgiven. This is true for us today as well. If there is something you are holding back from God, God is grieved and desires that you come to Him and “reason together.” The consequences for keeping something from Him include a stunted, distant relationship with Him, and nothing, nothing is worth this.

The fall of David did not destroy God’s honor. Instead, it served to magnify even higher the honor of Jesus, who like David, was tempted to sin, but unlike him, never sinned at all. David did not get to build the ultimate Temple of God, the Living Temple, because he was unworthy and unequal to the task.

Only Jesus is worthy. Only Jesus is able. Only Jesus could bring honor to God from beginning to end. As the multitudes sing in the Book of Revelation,

“You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, because You were slain, and with Your blood You purchased for God persons from every tribe and language and people and nation. You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God, and they will reign on the earth.” – Revelation 5:9-10