Returning Evil For Good

Proverbs 17:13

13 Whoso rewardeth evil for good, evil shall not depart from his house.

We all know people who have returned evil to us for good we did to them. I want to talk to you today about how the Lord repays someone who does that; Someone who returns evil for good.

Uriah the Hittite was one of King David’s mighty men. He was an honorable man. So honorable, in fact, that when the other soldiers could not be home lying with their wives, he refused to go lie with his, even though the King bid him do so. Now we know this story, and we know the reason King David wanted Uriah to go home and lie with Bathsheba was because he himself, King David, had gotten her with child in Uriah’s absence.

King David was a wonderful king, the most highly anointed king up to Jesus spoken of in the Bible. But he had a weakness for beautiful women, and he especially had a weakness for Bathsheba, when he saw her, because he got into idolatry over her. He wanted her so much, he was willing to break the commandments of God to have her, and he did.

Wikipedia states: “The Talmud states two opinions as to who Uriah was. 1) He was a convert to Judaism.[citation needed] 2) He lived amongst Hittites and so is known as a Hittite despite his being born Jewish. (Kiddushin 76b) Either way, he was not actually part of the Hittite nation since he would have been forbidden to marry Bathsheba had he been a Gentile.”

I found this online in my research about David’s mighties, as the mighty men were called, of which Uriah was one:

“David's mighty men were a group of his best thirty-seven fighters (later expanded to around eighty). Although the lists of his mighty men (2 Samuel 23:8-39 & 1 Chronicles 11:10-47) are given after David has become king, many of them may have been the loyal followers who stayed with him when he was fleeing King Saul. At the very least, they fought with him. Uriah's closeness to David is illustrated by how closely he lived to the palace, and his position as one of the mighty men at the front battle lines allowed David to formulate and carry out his plot.”

I always found it incredibly sad that Uriah the Hittite, Bathsheba’s husband, was very devoted to his king. He would have done anything for King David. And he was such an honorable man. He only ever did good to King David.

2 Sam 11: 8-9

8 And David said to Uriah, Go down to thy house, and wash thy feet. And Uriah departed out of the king's house, and there followed him a mess of meat from the king.

9 But Uriah slept at the door of the king's house with all the servants of his lord, and went not down to his house.

11 And Uriah said unto David, The ark, and Israel, and Judah, abide in tents; and my lord Joab, and the servants of my lord, are encamped in the open fields; shall I then go into mine house, to eat and to drink, and to lie with my wife? as thou livest, and as thy soul liveth, I will not do this thing.

13 And when David had called him, he did eat and drink before him; and he made him drunk: and at even he went out to lie on his bed with the servants of his lord, but went not down to his house.

Wikipedia says It was common for warriors in preparation for battle to abstain from sex, as a practice of discipline.

One of the other things I find incredibly sad about this story is that poor, loyal Uriah actually delivered his own death warrant, never suspecting a thing:

14 And it came to pass in the morning, that David wrote a letter to Joab, and sent it by the hand of Uriah.

15 And he wrote in the letter, saying, Set ye Uriah in the forefront of the hottest battle, and retire ye from him, that he may be smitten, and die.

So King David, I don’t think out of malice in his case, but because he was trying so desperately to hide his sin, had Uriah the Hittite killed with the sword of the enemy. And of course we think we would never do that. You would never do that, would you? Or would we?

The Swords of others are not the only weapons we assassinate others with. We use the tongues of others to ruin their reputations whenever we gossip, we use the power of others to hire and fire whenever we talk about someone’s work ethic¬, We use their social power to accept or reject any time we influence someone about another’s character…. We use many weapons to return evil for good, but we shouldn’t.