Genealogy of Jesus: David and Batsheba
OT Lesson: 2 Samuel 11:1-27 (CEB)
In the spring, when kings go off to war, David sent Joab, along with his servants and all the Israelites, and they destroyed the Ammonites, attacking the city of Rabbah. But David remained in Jerusalem.
One evening, David got up from his couch and was pacing back and forth on the roof of the palace. From the roof he saw a woman bathing; the woman was very beautiful. David sent someone and inquired about the woman. The report came back: “Isn’t this Eliam’s daughter Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?” So David sent messengers to take her. When she came to him, he had sex with her. (Now she had been purifying herself after her monthly period.) Then she returned home. The woman conceived and sent word to David.
“I’m pregnant,” she said.
Then David sent a message to Joab: “Send me Uriah the Hittite.” So Joab sent Uriah to David. When Uriah came to him, David asked about the welfare of Joab and the army and how the battle was going. Then David told Uriah, “Go down to your house and wash your feet.”
Uriah left the palace, and a gift from the king was sent after him. However, Uriah slept at the palace entrance with all his master’s servants. He didn’t go down to his own house. David was told, “Uriah didn’t go down to his own house,” so David asked Uriah, “Haven’t you just returned from a journey? Why didn’t you go home?”
“The chest and Israel and Judah are all living in tents,” Uriah told David. “And my master Joab and my master’s troops are camping in the open field. How could I go home and eat, drink, and have sex with my wife? I swear on your very life, I will not do that!”
Then David told Uriah, “Stay here one more day. Tomorrow I’ll send you back.” So Uriah stayed in Jerusalem that day. The next day David called for him, and he ate and drank, and David got him drunk. In the evening Uriah went out to sleep in the same place, alongside his master’s servants, but he did not go down to his own home.
The next morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it with Uriah. He wrote in the letter, “Place Uriah at the front of the fiercest battle, and then pull back from him so that he will be struck down and die.”
So as Joab was attacking the city, he put Uriah in the place where he knew there were strong warriors. When the city’s soldiers came out and attacked Joab, some of the people from David’s army fell. Uriah the Hittite was also killed. Joab sent a complete report of the battle to David.
“When you have finished reporting all the news of the battle to the king,” Joab instructed the messenger, “if the king gets angry and asks you, ‘Why did you go so close to the city to fight? didn’t you know they would shoot from the wall? Who killed Jerubbaal’s son Abimelech? didn’t a woman throw an upper millstone on top of him from the wall so that he died in Thebez? Why did you go so close to the wall?’ then say: ‘Your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead too.’”
So the messenger set off, and when he arrived he reported to David everything Joab sent him to say.
“The men overpowered us,” the messenger told David. “They came out against us in the open field, but we fought against them up to the entrance of the city gate. Archers shot down on your servants from the wall. Some of the king’s servants died. And your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead too.”
David said to the messenger, “Say this to Joab: ‘Don’t be upset about this because the sword is that way: taking the life of this person or that person. Continue attacking the city and destroy it!’ Encourage Joab!”
When Uriah’s wife heard that her husband Uriah was dead, she mourned for her husband. After the time of mourning was over, David sent for her and brought her back to his house. She became his wife and bore him a son.
But what David had done was evil in the Lord’s eyes.
NT Lesson: Matthew 1:6 (NRSV)
And Jesse the father of King David. And David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah,
Sermon
Introduction
Nearly Perfect King
Anyway, today’s topic is one of the three most important persons in the genealogy of Jesus, as Matthew stated that it is the genealogy of Jesus Christ, son of David, son of Abraham. David was actually nobody to begin with. When prophet Samuel visited Jesse’s house—the father of David and the grandson of Boaz and Ruth, young boy David was watching over the flock. Samuel wanted to see the sons, and they passed before him one by one from the eldest. Seven of them passed by. Samuel asked Jesse if there is any more son. Jesse’s respond was like, “No. That’s it… Oh wait, we have one more. But he’s nobody. Who wants to see him?”
But David became a king. Not just any king but God’s beloved king. He walked perfectly before the Lord. God was very happy with everything David did. Among all the things which David did, which one do you think God loved the most? That was the singing and praising. Just like David’s ancestor Judah became the chosen one of God through praise, David also became the chosen one through praise. We are already chosen. That means the praise is not an option for us but a must. We have to praise God individually as well as communally. The best way to praise God communally is to join the choir. If you want to praise God communally in one voice, ask Jennie.
When you graduate the seminary and get ordained, then you are called Reverend. So when I was in the last year of seminary, we called each other nearly reverend. And for the first year seminarians, we called them barely reverend. So when you see a seminarian, you can call them ‘Barely Rev.’ Now king David used to be a perfect king, well until now. Today’s OT lesson tells us the biggest mistake and sin of David. Because of this, he is not any more the perfect king, but maybe a nearly perfect king.
Sin of David
What king David did was so horrible. He first committed adultery with the wife of his servant general. When she got pregnant, he tried to framed the husband. When that framing job failed, he then simply murdered his faithful and loyal servant, and took the wife. So she became the legal wife of the king. But the genealogy of Jesus in the gospel of Matthew is very interesting. He wrote down the names of all the gentile women as I said before—Tamar, Rahab, and Ruth. But Matthew does not say the name of this Jewish woman but states that she is the wife of Uriah. Not telling the name is not the interesting part. It is interesting because Matthew does not recognise her as the lawful wife of King David, but Uriah. And thus Matthew is declaring that the ancestor of Messiah is the result of an adulterous affair. Again, this is the kind of information you must hide when you are promoting someone.
Even though Matthew does not tell us her name, we all know it—Batsheba (בַּת־ שֶׁבַע). Her name means the daughter of oath. She is the granddaughter of Ahithophel, who was the counsellor of David. This means that Batsheba was the granddaughter’s age of David. Like Ruth and Boaz, David was an old man and Batsheba was a very young woman, probably in her early twenties considering she had no previous child. I don’t know if it is some kind of rules that old men must like young girls. But it happens a lot in the Bible.
The Repent
Later God sent prophet Nathan to king David. At the words of the prophet, David repented immediately. That is one of the greatest things of David—admitting that he did wrong. That is not easy when you are successful and powerful. There are very many people who cannot admit and accept the fact that they were wrong, even when they are not so successful. David was a king, not just a king but the great king who conquered a lot and whose kingdom got much bigger. And this great king admitted his fault and knelt down immediately at the words of God.
This is very clear when we compare to his predecessor, king Saul from 1 Samuel 15. Saul did not obey God’s words. God sent prophet Samuel and pointed that out. King Saul denied at first, “Yes of course, I have obeyed. What are you talking about?” Then Samuel showed the proof, then Saul changed his words, ‘Well, yes. Technically I did not obey, but that was for God, not for myself.’ When Samuel rebuked Saul in front of the people and was about to leave, Saul stopped him, “Don’t do this in front of the people. You got to save my face. Honour me before the elders of my people and before Israel. Come back with me now.” King Saul, who was not that successful did not admit nor repent. He even threatened and forced the prophet of God to honour him to save his face. Saul was abandoned by God and David was forgiven.
Laziness
But today’s topic is not either repentance nor obedience. We already talked about them before. I want to talk about the fundamental reason why that great and perfect king David came to sin against God. And that is written at the first sentence of today’s OT lesson: “In the spring, when kings go off to war, David sent Joab, along with his servants and all the Israelites, and they destroyed the Ammonites, attacking the city of Rabbah. But David remained in Jerusalem.”
In the ancient world, everything was seasonal. There is time to sow. There is time to harvest. And there is time for war and there is time for peace. As you know, the third month of the year is called March from the ancient Rome. In Latin, it is Martius and it became March in English. It is March because it is time for the army to march to the battlefield to engage in war. And the name of March is from Mars, the Roman god of war. So it was the season of war, and engaging in war seasonally is one of the most important duties as a king. David was supposed to go out to the battlefield, leading his army, engaging in war.
But he did not. After became the king, he gained the comfortable lifestyle. He got lazier and lazier. Instead of going out to the war, he just sent his army and generals. He stayed home. The laziness itself is a sin but the thing is that the laziness always leads to greater sins. In Genesis, God warned Cain that the sin is crouching and lurking at the door. When we are diligent and busy enough, there is no time for the sin to creep up on us. Just to make sure, proper resting is not being lazy. When you work hard, you need to rest properly. We are lazy when we don’t do your jobs which we are supposed to do. David got lazy and failed to fulfil his duty and unable to do what he was supposed to do. Consequently he was exposed to the irresistible temptation which eventually dragged him to the dreadful and horrible sin against God.
Conclusion
As you know, tomorrow is the Halloween, the scary day, as well as the Reformation Day. John Calvin who laid the foundation of Presbyterianism, not only scared the Catholics off, he taught us many valuable lessons. One of them is diligence. Calvin taught us that we have to be very diligent to our calling. Yes, it is our calling, not just a job. If you are a teacher, that is your calling. You have to be very diligent at that. If you are a nurse, that is your calling. You have to be very diligent at that. Whatever we do, that is our calling, and we have to be very diligent at that, because we are Presbyterians.
We know even if we sin, God will surely forgive us when we repent. But friends, let us be diligent at our callings, fulfilling our duties, and doing our jobs. Then as we pray to God not to lead us into temptation, God will deliver us from evil by not giving us even a chance of temptation. And God will give us peace on earth as we live, and we will praise God forever and ever in heaven. Amen.
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