Bathsheba A Mother Who Made A Difference Series

Everything you can say about mothers is true, no matter how good or how bad. But it is

surprising when you discover that one who you thought was so bad turns out to be so

good. Who would ever dream of holding up Bathsheba as an example of motherhood? Is

she not the hussy who seduced David into his greatest fall, and thereby became one of the

few Bible women to be welcomed to the Hollywood screen? She entered the stage of

history with nothing but a bath towel, and she walked off in the royal robes of a queen.

This is the stuff of soap operas, and Bathshebas was willing to play a nude scene, and so

she would have been popular in our day.

This is the image we have of this woman, and so it is hard to see past the scandal to

the facts. If a woman is raped it is her fault says the popular philosophy of our day. She

was asking for it they say, and we impose this view on the Bible. Bathsheba was taking a

bath where her body was exposed, and so she is presumed guilty of being a seducer.

Never did a bath create so much dirt. The waters are so muddied by the shocking event

of David’s affair that nobody bothers to look at the facts. Let me share them with you.

Bathsheba was never once rebuked or urged to repent, as was David.

Nathan the prophet who condemned David for the sin is always shown as having

the highest respect for Bathsheba.

Bathsheba was a victim of a power structure over which she had no control. It

was just like the case of Sarah being taken by the king into his harem. She and

Abraham had no control. David had 8 wives at the time of the affair, and yet he

took another man’s wife by force. The full weight of guilt for the whole scandal

lies on his head.

So the question is, does being raped make you a bad person or a bad mother? The

clear answer is, absolutely not. In contrast to the world, which Christians often follow,

who put down Bathsheba as one of the bad women of the Bible, God exalts this abused

woman and compensates for her awful tragedy by making her one of the most famous

mothers who ever lived. She bore 4 sons to David and one of them was the wisest king

who ever ruled Israel. King Solomon was possibly the wisest ruler who ever lived. You

can bad-mouth her all you like, but God used this mother to change history in ways that

no other mother has ever been used. God’s judgment is that being sexually assaulted

does not make a woman a bad mother.

She had more than her share of tragedy. She was assaulted by the king and then had

her husband murdered because she was unfortunate enough to get pregnant. The child

was taken shortly after birth, and so at a young age she had lost both a mate and a child.

As a more mature woman she suffered the danger of being killed by plots within the royal

family, and she got one of the family killed her self by trying to do him a favor. It made

David so angry that he had one of his own sons killed. Even without the sex scandal her

life could have been a soap opera. Being a good mother does not shield anyone from

suffering. In fact, it was the asset of her great beauty that started all her suffering that

we have recorded in Scripture. There is a price to pay for beauty, and it is often a very

high price, as her life illustrates.

She was a pretty woman, but a part from that asset the Bible does not reveal her to

be one endowed with any great gifts. She was a queen, but as far as the record goes, she

was just like any ordinary housewife. As one commentator pointed out, she never says a

word or takes an action by her own will. She is completely dominated by men, and has

not a liberated bone in her body. She is totally submissive within a system of male

domination. There is nothing about her that draws our attention to her except her

beauty. That is why she is a good example of motherhood. She was really quite

commonplace and unspectacular, and not the sort of mother who wins the mother of the

year award. She does not stimulate flowery poetry.

Bathsheba was surrounded by the luxury of royalty and the artistic gifts of David and

Solomon, who were two of the most creative men ever to live. But she was just ordinary

as far as the record goes, but she was greatly loved and honored by these two men. That