2 SAMUEL 11: 6-27 [The Life of David]
MASTER MANIPULATORS
[Revelation 21:8]
Forty-two years ago (June 17, 1972), hotel personnel noticed that a stairwell door lock had been taped in the open position. Three police officers responded to find five unauthorized individuals inside the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee. Burglars had broken in to readjust some of the bugging equipment installed in an earlier break-in in May. Documents of the Democratic National Committee had been photographed in the first break-in.
No one really seemed able to explain just what these burglars expected to gain from their crime. Whatever it was, if there had been an honest confession of all that was done and what they were attempting to do, it may have been taken as a minor crime of political intrigue with minimal impact. It was the attempt to cover up the crime which led to massive repercussions. Richard Nixon, the President of the United States, was forced to resign amid talk of impeachment. A number of his closest associates were indicted, convicted, and sentenced to prison terms.
Throughout history, many attempts have been made to cover up incompetence, immorality, and even crimes. In the Bible, cover-ups appear very early. Adam and Eve sought to cover their nakedness and to hide from God, not realizing their efforts betrayed their sin and guilt. Our lesson from 2 Samuel 11 is one of the great cover-up attempts of all time, and like so many, it too fails disastrously.
Our previous message attempted to explain David's sin with Bathsheba. This sin was due to David's lust and arrogance. David had no desire for Bathsheba to become his wife, or even to carry on an adulterous affair with her. He sought one night's pleasure, and she went home. That was that, or so it seemed. But then David received word from Bathsheba that this one night resulted in Bathsheba's pregnancy. Our text takes up here with the account of David's desperate attempt to cover up his sin with Bathsheba. As we all know, it didn't work, and it made matters so much worse. Let's look at David's attempt to manipulate others in order to hide his sin (CIT). Far to many today still manipulate others in an attempt to get their way or to hide their sin. "O, what a tangled web we weave when we practice to deceive." [Sir Walter Scott]
David's problem was that he didn't know how to stop what he started. So he begins to stack one sin upon another, certain that each one will somehow wipe out visibility of the previous sin. Instead, his sins only multiply. More and more people become aware of his sin, and a cover up becomes impossible. Many lessons can be learned from this tragic episode of David's life, which if heeded, will keep us from duplicating them in our own lives. May the Spirit of God open our ears and our hearts to listen and learn from David's attempt to cover up his sin with Bathsheba. [Bob Deffinbaugh: A Study of 1 Samuel. Bible.org]
I. MANIPULATORS PRETEND, 6-7.
II. MANIPULATORS PROFESS, 8-13.
III. MANIPULATORS PANIC, 14-17.
IV. MANIPULATORS PLANS, 18-25.
V. MANIPULATORS PUNISHED, 26-28.
When word came to David that Bathsheba was pregnant, rather than coming to his senses and facing up to his sins, he began to make plans to hide his wrongdoing. The crisis brought by the pregnancy required some kind of suitable resolution, so David determined to "legitimize" the impending birth by bringing Uriah back from the Ammonite campaign, thus making it possible for him to enjoy the intimacies of marriage. He sent a message to Joab instructing that Uriah be sent to the palace, where he inquired of him about Joab, the people, and the battle.
Verse 7, "When Uriah came to him, David asked concerning the welfare of Joab and the people and the state of the war."
David orchestrated this homecoming to appear as though it serves one purpose, while it actually served David's purpose of concealing his own sin. So David pretended in was interested the General, the military and the progress of the war. But the real reason for getting Uriah back was to make it possible for him to enjoy the intimacies of marriage. Thus it would be possible to attribute the paternity of the child to him. How sad it is to read of David's hypocrisy.
It seems likely that David and Uriah know each other, to some degree at least. Uriah is listed among the 30 mighty warriors of David (2 Samuel 23:39; 1 Chronicles 11:41). Some of the "mighty men" came to David early, while he was hiding from Saul in the cave of Adullam (1 Samuel 22:1-2), and we suspect that among them were Joab, Abishai, and Asahel, the three brothers who were mighty men (see 2 Samuel 23:18, 24; 1 Chronicles 11:26). Others joined David at Ziklag (1 Chronicles 12:1ff.), and still other great warriors joined David at Hebron (1 Chronicles 12:38-40). We do not know when and where Uriah joined with David, but since his military career ends in 2 Samuel 12, his military feats must have been done earlier. It is very likely that David and Uriah would know each other from fighting together, and perhaps even from fleeing Saul together.
II. MANIPULATORS PROFESS (to Honor), 8-13.
David suggested that Uriah go home and wash his feet in verse 8. [I'm sure Bathsheba was ready to take care of the rest]. "Then David said to Uriah, "Go down to your house, and wash your feet. And Uriah went out of the king's house, and a present from the king was sent out after him."
To encourage compliance with his wish, David sent a gift, probably something for the home, after Uriah. But the subterfuge did not work, for the noble Hittite refused to go home and be with his wife. Uriah's devotion to God and to his country took precedence over his own personal desires. [ I'm inclined to understand that at least some of these servants in verse 9, if not all of them, are the king's bodyguards (1 Kings 14:27-28)].
When David found out he brought him back and ask him about why he didn't go home since he was so close (v. 10)? How could he, Uriah argued, be allowed the comforts of home and a conjugal visit while his friends in combat were deprived of them? David is so insistent Uriah has to put this matter emphatically in verse 11. "By your life, and the life of your soul, I will not do this thing."
[Uriah first points out to David that his terminology is inaccurate. David speaks of Uriah returning from a journey (verse 10). The truth is that Uriah has been called from the field of battle. He is not a traveling salesman, home from a road trip; he is a soldier, away from his post. In heart and soul, Uriah is still with his fellow-soldiers. He really wants to be back in the field of battle, and not in Jerusalem. He will return as soon as David releases him (see verse 12). Until that time, he will think and act like the soldier he is. As much as possible, he will live the way his fellow-soldiers are living on the field of battle.]
Since his first scheme was not working, David decided he was going to need to convince Uriah in another way so David buddied up to him. What do buddies do? They get drunk together. But this wasn't friendship. It was David resorting to another scheme to induce Uriah to go home to his wife.
We find David's next manipulation in verses 12 & 13. ‘Then David said to Uriah, "Stay here today also, and tomorrow I will let you go." So Uriah remained in Jerusalem that day and the next. [13] "Now David called him, and he ate and drank before him, and he made him drunk; and in the evening he went out to lie on his bed with his lord's servants, but he did not go down to his house."
Uriah is presented as a faithful and pious soldier who had more respect for the law of God when he was drunk than his king did when he was sober. David's efforts to manipulate his own subject is a sad scene. Even after David plied him with wine, Uriah's sense of loyalty to his comrades prevailed over his desire for his wife. So David's deceptive plot of a pretense for coming home and professing to be his buddy didn't work.
Cover-ups begin early in our history. Adam and Eve tried to cover-up with leaves, but their efforts only betrayed their guilt. This attempted cover-up by manipulation, like so many others, fails completely.
[How David has fallen from the man he once was. Years earlier David was adamant about the fact that those on a mission for the king should keep themselves from sexual intercourse (1 Samuel 21:1-5). Now, years later, David is amazed that a man on a mission for the king is willing to abstain from sexual intercourse with his wife. Worse yet, David sets out to convince -- even to compel -- Uriah to go to do so, even though it will cause him to violate his conscience. This is not "causing a weaker brother to stumble;" this is cutting off a stronger brother's legs at the knee. Uriah is an example of the commitment expected of every soldier, and of David in particular -- at least the David of the past. Uriah is now acting like the David we knew from earlier days. Uriah is the "David" that David should be. [Deffinbaugh, Bible.org]
III. MANIPULATORS PANIC (when it doesn't go their way), 14-17.
David is getting desperate. When Uriah refused to sleep with his wife, David panicked. He then thought he had to go even much further into sin.
Once David began his effort to cover up his sin, each step lead him deeper and deeper into sin. First he lusted, then he committed adultery, then deceit, and finally murder. Our day has had its share of highly placed people who made matters worse as they sought to cover up their wrongdoing. To show how calloused David had become and how noble Uriah was, David sent a letter which plotted the Hittite's death by Uriah himself in verses 14 &15.
"Now in the morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it by the hand of Uriah.
[15] He had written in the letter, saying, "Place Uriah in the front line of the fiercest battle and withdraw from him, so that he may be struck down and die."
The web of deceit and deception woven must bring more people into the conspiracy. The plan he suggested was to put Uriah in the front of an intense battle, then withdraw so he would be killed. While Joab had no qualms about accomplishing David's goal, he amended his plan as having too great a risk both for Joab and David. It would have been too obvious to everyone and would have made many of those who fought under Joab's command doubt his commitment to them. So Joab led an attack against a part of the city where he knew the resistance would be great. In the process of that battle he lost several men, including Uriah (vv. 16–17). "So it was as Joab kept watch on the city, that he put Uriah at the place where he knew there were valiant men. [17] The men of the city went out and fought against Joab, and some of the people among David's servants fell; and Uriah the Hittite also died."
David's faithful servant Uriah has been put to death as though he were the enemy. But not only is Uriah put to death, but a number of other Israelite warriors die with him. They have to be sacrificed to conceal the murder of Uriah. Uriah's death has to be viewed as one of a group of men, rather than merely one man. Without a doubt, this is the moral and spiritual low-water mark of David's life.
IV. MANIPULATORS PLANS (PLACE OTHERS IN DANGER), 18-25.
Mission accomplished: Uriah is dead. Joab has carried out David's instructions to the letter. But Joab knew that he needed to let the king know that his objective had been accomplished without revealing to anyone else that the two of them had murdered Uriah in such a way that it looked like just another casualty of war.
He also knew that when David heard the report of the battle that he would immediately recognize that Joab had taken unnecessary risks and would object. For the mission is a suicide mission from the outset, and it does not take a genius to see it for what it is. Joab has to assemble a group of mighty men, like Uriah, and including Uriah, to wage an attack on the city. This attack is not at the enemy's weakest point, as we would expect, but at the strongest point. This attack provokes a counter-attack by the Ammonites against Uriah and those with him. When the Israelite army draws back from their own men, they leave them defenseless, and the obvious result is a slaughter. How can one possibly report this fiasco in a way that doesn't make Joab look like a fool (at best), or a murderer (at worst)? So the messenger was told that after David raised his objections he was to reveal to him that "your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead also" (vv. 18–21). Since Joab had altered the plan, David might not have recognized the battle as one that his own desire to be rid of Uriah had caused, but he reacted exactly as Joab had anticipated.
The news of Uriah's death calmed him and in the message that he sent back to Joab, David covered their treachery with pious words, "the sword devours one as well as another" (v. 25).
Uriah, a great warrior and a man of godly character, has just died, and David does not express one word of grief, one expression of sorrow, not one word of tribute. Uriah dies, and David is unmoved. This is not the David of a few chapters earlier. This is a hardened, callused David, callused by his own sin.
V. MANIPULATORS PUNISHED (IN GOD'S TIME), 26-28.
Two verses end the chapter but not the story. When Bathsheba heard of Uriah's death in verse 26, "she mourned for her husband".
Verse 26 makes it sound as though she learns of Uriah's death after the fact, through normal channels. After all, would David really want his new wife to know he murdered her husband? David acts without Bathsheba's help. We still are not given any indication of her feelings, since the words may be a reference to the prescribed ritual of mourning for the dead. It could have been as little as a week. We are, however, told of her becoming David's wife and bearing him a son.
David though had broken at least three of the Ten Commandments that God had given Israel for relating to God and to fellow men. He had coveted another man's wife, committed adultery, and murdered. Yet who can judge the judge, who can question the actions of the king? The answer comes in the final verse of the chapter in words that suggest that no one stands above the law of God. What seemed to David a final ending to what would have been a very sticky situation is but the beginning of problems because "the thing that David had done displeased the Lord" (v. 27). [Chafin, Kenneth. The Preacher's Commentary Series, Vol 8: 1, 2 Samuel. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Inc, 1989, S. 277.] and set events in motion that would trouble David till his death.
[David was trying to legitimize his sin. By making Uriah a casualty of war, he makes Bathsheba a widow. He can now marry this woman and raise the child as his own, which of course it is.]
One of the tragic aspects of our story is that the sequence of sin in David's life does not end with his adulterous union with Bathsheba. It leads to a deceptive plot to make her husband Uriah appear to be the father of David's child with Bathsheba and culminates in David's murder of Uriah and his marriage to Uriah's wife, Bathsheba.
Sin has a sneaky way of compounding itself. Before you know it, you're more deeply involved in it than you ever thought you would be. That is why it is absolutely essential to not give in at that first point of temptation. You cannot control the course of your destiny once you allow yourself to begin to flirt with sin. It will capture you. It will ensnare you. And ultimately it will destroy you. David once killed giants. Now this giant is killing him.
CONCLUSION
Our text has many applications and implications for today. Let me suggest a few as I conclude this lesson. First, when we seek to conceal our sin, things only get worse. Thus, the best course of action is to confess our sins and to forsake them. Proverbs 28:13, "He who conceals his transgressions will not prosper, But he who confesses and forsakes them will find compassion."
How much better it would have been for David simply to have confessed his sin with Bathsheba and found forgiveness then, but he tries to cover up his sin, and it only makes matters worse.
Man has been seeking to cover up his sins ever since the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve thought they could cover their sins by hiding their nakedness, and if not this, by hiding themselves from God. But God lovingly sought them out, not only to rebuke them and to pronounce curses upon them, but to give them the promise of forgiveness. It was God who provided a covering for their sins. The sacrificial death, burial, and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ is God's provision for covering our sins. Have you experienced it, my friend? If not, why not confess your sin now and receive God's gift of forgiveness in the person and work of Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary?
Second, sin snowballs. Sin is not stagnant; it is not static. Sin grows. Look at the progression of sin in our text. David's sin starts when he ceases to act like a soldier and becomes a late sleeper. David's sin grows from adultery to murder. His sin begins very privately, but as the story progresses, more and more people become aware of it, and worse yet, more and more people become participants in it. His sin first acted out by his taking another man's wife, and then taking her husband's life, and along with his life, the lives of a number of men who must die with him to make his death credible. David's sin blossoms so that it transforms a true and loyal friend (Uriah) to his enemy, and his enemies, the Ammonites, in some senses, into his allies.
Third, Uriah is a reminder to us that God does not always deliver the righteous from the hand of the wicked immediately, or even in this lifetime. Daniel's three friends told the king that their God was able to deliver them. They did not presume that He would, or that He must. And God did deliver them. I think Christians look upon this deliverance as the rule, rather than the exception. But when Uriah faithfully serves his king (David), he loses his life. God is not obliged to "bail us out of trouble" or to keep us from trials and tribulations just because we trust in Him. Sometimes it is the will of God for men who trust fully in Him to suffer adversity from which God may not deliver them. Spirituality is no guarantee that we will not suffer in this life. In fact, spiritual intimacy with God is often the result of our sufferings (see Matthew 5). [Bob Deffinbaugh: A Study of 1 Samuel. Bible.org]
In the Old Testament, as in the New, God sometimes delivers His people from the hands of wicked men, but often He does not. Their "deliverance" comes with the coming of the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ. Uriah, like all of the Old Testament saints of old, died without receiving his full reward, and that is because God wanted him to wait. Uriah, like many saints, was not delivered from the hands of the wicked. This is pointed out in Hebrews 11:13-16, 37-40 also.
