Day 55: 2 Samuel 11:1–5

One evening David got up from his bed and strolled around on the roof of the palace. From the roof he saw a woman bathing—a very beautiful woman (v. 2).

The study of David intrigues me for many reasons. He, of all the characters in the Old Testament, may best prefigure Christ and the gospel message. In chapters 7–10, we scaled the heights of David’s reign and the breadth of his character, but the qualities of God’s character only comprise one side of the gospel.

We are about to encounter the dark side—human sin.

David painfully proved the depths to which one can fall after reaching such heights. The contrast between these consecutive seasons of David’s life is staggering. Against God’s warning, David multiplied wives and grew dangerously accustomed to having all he wanted. We will soon discover the outcome of his eroding self-control.

Through many chapters of Scripture we’ve seen the qualities of David extolled. Now in two short verses we see him tumble headlong into the pit of sin. Join me as we step out on the roof of an ancient Hebrew home to catch a fresh breath of spring air.

After Hanun shamed the men David sent to bear his sympathies, the Ammonite king knew he was in trouble, so he formed an alliance with the Arameans (Syrians). In chapter 10, Joab only began the job of punishing Hanun. David’s general thoroughly defeated the Arameans, but then the season for warfare was past. Joab returned the army to Israel, pending the coming spring when he would resume the campaign against the Ammonites. In that context, hear the first words of chapter 11: “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” (v. 1). The first sign of trouble appears when David began to shirk his duty.

You probably know the story that follows. One night David couldn’t sleep. He went for a walk on the roof of the palace, and from there he saw a beautiful woman bathing. He sent a messenger to find out about her. The messenger told him two facts, either of which should have stopped him cold. He said her name was Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah the Hittite, one of David’s soldiers. David disregarded common decency. He sent for her. They committed adultery.

She went home. Time passed.

Soon she realized that she was pregnant.

Few things frighten me more than this testimony of David’s life. We too could be persons of character and integrity and, without apparent warning, destroy our ministries and ourselves through the choice to gratify our sudden lusts. Like David, a few short verses could record the story of our downfall.

As you consider this familiar story, don’t be drawn into their sin by romantic—and false—notions. We cannot afford to justify their behavior through sympathy. In our culture we justify immoral behavior with the excuse that two people were “in love.” Even if two people are emotionally entangled, don’t call self-gratification and breaking promises to God and others love. David and Bathsheba didn’t even have that flimsy excuse. They were not in love. They simply chose to act in a dishonorable and destructive way. We could speculate that he was intoxicated by her beauty mixed with an opportunity to display his power. She may have been enamored with his wealth and prestige.

But we cannot lend this scene the sympathies we are tempted to offer “victims” of passion in romance novels. This trashy romance we’re reading about today is down in the bottom of the barrel, down there with all the sticky stuff, where the stench is—the place we find ourselves when the line between wanting and getting erodes.

We may wish we could get everything we want—until we look at David and Bathsheba. The gap between wanting and getting is where we must flex the muscle of self-control to protect ourselves. David had risen to a position where his every wish was someone else’s command. He had ceased to hear a very important word—one without which integrity cannot be maintained. The word no.

David was probably like most of us. He could say no rather easily to some things, but he had great difficulty with others. The difficulty was obviously regulated by how badly he wanted what he shouldn’t have. In the midst of all his integrity in the other areas of his life, “David took more concubines and wives in Jerusalem” (2 Sam. 5:13). Obviously he lacked self-control in the area of sexual lust.

In Deuteronomy 17:17, God clearly stated the consequences of multiplying wives: the king “must not take many wives, or his heart will be led astray.” Just as God warned, David’s heart had gone astray. Suddenly the heart that had been so much like God’s had wandered to an abyss of no resemblance. David didn’t guard his heart, and it began to lie to him.

David, the man of God, the Lord’s anointed, the one who enjoyed God’s complete provision, took what did not belong to him and cast himself headlong into scandal. He believed his own cheating heart.