Bible Commentaries

David sends Joab against the Ammonites, who besieges the city of Rabbah, 2 Samuel 11:1. He sees Bath-sheba, the wife of Uriah, bathing; is enamoured of her; sends for and takes her to his bed, 2 Samuel 11:2-4. She conceives, and informs David, 2 Samuel 11:5. David sends to Joab, and orders him to send to him Uriah, 2 Samuel 11:6. He arrives; and David having inquired the state of the army, dismisses him, desiring him to go to his own house, 2 Samuel 11:7, 2 Samuel 11:8. Uriah sleeps at the door of the king's house, 2 Samuel 11:9. The next day the king urges him to go to his house; but he refuses to go, and gives the most pious and loyal reasons for his refusal, 2 Samuel 11:10-11. David after two days sends him back to the army, with a letter to Joab, desiring him to place Uriah in the front of the battle, that he may be slain, 2 Samuel 11:12-15. He does so; and Uriah falls, 2 Samuel 11:16, 2 Samuel 11:17. Joab communicates this news in an artful message to David, 2 Samuel 11:18-25. David sends for Bath-sheba and takes her to wife, and she bears him a son, 2 Samuel 11:26, 2 Samuel 11:27.

When kings go forth - This was about a year after the war with the Syrians spoken of before, and about the spring of the year, as the most proper season for military operations. Calmet thinks they made two campaigns, one in autumn and the other in spring; the winter being in many respects inconvenient, and the summer too hot.

In an evening-tide - David arose - He had been reposing on the roof of his house, to enjoy the breeze, as the noonday was too hot for the performance of business. This is still a constant custom on the flat-roofed houses in the East.

He saw a woman washing herself - How could any woman of delicacy expose herself where she could be so fully and openly viewed? Did she not know that she was at least in view of the king's terrace? Was there no design in all this? Et fugit ad salices, et se cupit ante videri. In a Bengal town pools of water are to be seen everywhere, and women may be seen morning and evening bathing in them, and carrying water home. Thus David might have seen Bath-sheba, and no blame attach to her.

2 Samuel 11:4 shows us that this washing was at the termination of a particular period.

The daughter of Eliam - Called, 1 Chronicles 3:5, Ammiel; a word of the same meaning, The people of my God, The God of my people. This name expressed the covenant - I will be your God; We will be thy people.

And she came in unto him - We hear nothing of her reluctance, and there is no evidence that she was taken by force.

And the woman conceived - A proof of the observation on 2 Samuel 11:4; as that is the time in which women are most apt to conceive.

Go down to thy house, and wash thy feet - Uriah had come off a journey, and needed this refreshment; but David's design was that he should go and lie with his wife, that the child now conceived should pass for his, the honor of Bath-sheba be screened, and his own crime concealed. At this time he had no design of the murder of Uriah, nor of taking Bath-sheba to wife.

A mess of meat from the king - All this was artfully contrived.

Slept at the door - That is, in one of the apartments or niches in the court of the king's house. But in Bengal servants and others generally sleep on the verandahs or porches in face of their master's house.