The war with the Ammonites is not over. They had dishonored David's emissaries by shaving their beards. How dare they do that. The Arameans, the allies of the Ammonites, were defeated, but the Ammonites remain. In the spring time, Joab leads the army to lay siege to Rabbah, the capital city.
Many of David's warriors had left, but David stays behind in Jerusalem. One evening, he is walking on the palace rooftop when he sees a hot woman taking a bath. She is actually doing the post-moon blood purification ritual. Why it is in public view is not explained. She is Bathsheba and the wife of one of Uriah the Hittite. Uriah was one of the thirty-seven soldiers who formed the "Thirty" and was off the fighting the Ammonites.
All of David's victories and power let it go to his head. He sends for the woman, sleeps with her, and gets her pregnant. Uh oh. An unintended pregnancy. Soon there will be public proof of their affair. Plus, Uriah is off fighting the Ammonites so he will know that is not his child. That is, unless Uriah thinks it is his.
David sends for Uriah and tries to get him to sleep with his wife. But, following the longtime custom of David's military of no sex, Uriah sleeps with the palace guard. David tries again and gets Uriah drunk first. Uriah again sleeps with the palace guard and does go back to his wife.
The custom may go back at least to when fled Saul Nob because David ate the holy bread because he did not recently have sex. Side note - I think this custom still goes on to some extent. I think the NFL encourages its players too sleep alone the night before game day.
Back to Uriah, it seems like he did not even want to go to see his wife even to to say hi. Maybe if he did that, everyone would assume he had sex with her and he would be accused of violating the military tradition.
David is now desperate. He gets Uriah to carry a letter to Joab which instructs Joab to put Uriah in an area where the fighting is fiercest, and then to pull back and leave Uriah alone. This way will ensure Uriah dies. Joab does this and Uriah is killed. Bathsheba mourns the death of her husband and David takes her as his wife.
Phew - all is well now no one will suspect anything, right? Thats probably what David thought at this time, but God is not pleased.
God sends Nathan with a parable. A rich man with many sheep took the sole sheep of a poor man and gave it as food to the guests of the rich man. David is angered by this and demands the man should die as well as pay back 4 sheep to the one. The 4x sheep payback is actually part of the Mosaic code, but the death for the theft of the sheep was totally David's idea. David's background in being a shepherd may have made this parable a perfect fit.
Nathan explains that he is the rich man and the story symbolizes the Uriah incident. He goes on explain God's punishment - David's house will know civil war and David's wives will sleep with another man. What David did in private will be done publicly against him. David repents and Nathan says that he will not die because God has forgiven him. However, the child will die.
Why will the child die? I have been pondering this and it seems like there is a pattern where children die out of the consequences of their parents sin. We saw it numerous times in the conquest and here is another one. There is an upcoming disturbing story about Saul's remaining sons getting killed for Saul's sins.
David pleas to God to spare the life of the child. He mourns and abstains from eating. However, the child dies anyway.
Psalm 51 covers some of David's prayers during this time. I think it may have been some of the prayers he said while begging for the child's life. In the psalm, David makes the curious that the sacrifice God wants is a broken spirit, which I think David has reached at this point.
After the child dies, David and Bathsheba have another child - Solomon. Joab also captures the water supply of Rabbah. Joab offers David a chance to get credit for taking the city. David joins Joab, conquers the, city and enslaves the people.
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