2 Samuel 11 – Study
For those who may wish to ‘study’ this chapter, the following simple resources are provided for you. Each passage has a four-Part approach to help you take in and think further about what you have read.
Passage: 2 Sam 11:1-17
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 One evening David got up from his bed and walked around on the roof of the palace. From the roof he saw a woman washing. The woman was very beautiful, 3 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.’ 4 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. 5 The woman conceived and sent word to David, saying, ‘I am pregnant.’
6 So David sent this word to Joab: ‘Send me Uriah the Hittite.’ And Joab sent him to David. 7 When Uriah came to him, David asked him how Joab was, how the soldiers were and how the war was going. 8 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. 9 But Uriah slept at the entrance to the palace with all his master’s servants and did not go down to his house.
10 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?’
11 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!’
12 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. 13 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.
14 In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it with Uriah. 15 In it he wrote, ‘Put Uriah out in front where the fighting is fiercest. Then withdraw from him so that he will be struck down and die.’
16 So while Joab had the city under siege, he put Uriah at a place where he knew the strongest defenders were. 17 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.
A. Find Out:
- What was happening and where was David? v.1
- What did David do? v.2-4
- With what result? v.5
- How did David try to cover it up? v.6-8
- Why didn’t it work? v.9-13
- 6o what did David do with what consequence? v.14-17
B. Think:
- What was David’s first sin?
- How did he try to cover it up?
- What was his second sin?
C. Comment:
We now come to one of the lowest points of David’s life. The lesson must be that even a “man after God’s own heart” can sin. Before we cast the first stone may we remember that we also have the same tendency. It may not appear as bad as David’s sins but it is merely a matter of degree. May we grieve over David rather than condemn.
Spring came, a time when it was possible to go out and deal with the enemy. David’s first mistake was that he didn’t go and carry on doing what he had done before – lead his men. While he is at home, by chance he observes from his roof a woman nearby bathing. His next mistake was that he carried on looking. That was followed by allowing a growing wrong desire to come. He thought about it and allowed it to dominate him. His next mistake was to act on it.
The consequence of that, first of all, was that Bathsheba became pregnant. The second effect was that David sought to be deceitful and cover it up by having her husband come up and apparently seem to be the father – but that didn’t work. So the third effect was that he then sought to remove the husband and have him destroyed. Sin always has consequences! One wrong leads to another. The sinful act is followed by deception and further sinful acts to cover up.
D. Application:
- Resist temptation. Don’t look, don’t dwell, don’t sin.
- If you sin, confess it immediately else it will breed more sins.