King David did something that wicked, something that displeased the Lord (2 Sam 11:27). We all know about it. He committed adultery, committed murder, and then took for himself a widow as wife. But have you ever stopped to consider the other participants in the narrative?
2Sam. 11:3 And David sent and inquired about the woman. And one said, “Is not this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?”
2Sam. 11:4 So David sent messengers and took her, and she came to him, and he lay with her. (Now she had been purifying herself from her uncleanness.) Then she returned to her house.
2Sam. 11:6 ¶ So David sent word to Joab, “Send me Uriah the Hittite.” And Joab sent Uriah to David.
2Sam. 11:10 When they told David, “Uriah did not go down to his house,” David said to Uriah, “Have you not come from a journey? Why did you not go down to your house?”
2Sam. 11:14 ¶ In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it by the hand of Uriah.
2Sam. 11:16 And as Joab was besieging the city, he assigned Uriah to the place where he knew there were valiant men.
2Sam. 11:18 Then Joab sent and told David all the news about the fighting.
Scripture is abundantly clear that David should have been out with his generals in battle, but wasn’t. But they kept quiet. David should not have arranged to meet Bathsheba, but did. We know what his intentions were because we know what happened, and we also see that his servants aided him in this. He then tried to deceive Uriah but failed. People understood the ploy going on, because they reported to David what would be of interest to him. And then there is Joab who commits the murder for David, and consider the audacity of the king to send the request by Uriah’s own hand!
If David were here, would he not weep at his sin? Could not his friends and helpers have spoken up? Where were the men of courage like Nathan to hold their king and people to accountability to God’s standard? What are we doing when we see a pattern of sin in another believer’s life? We all sin, and we all stubbornly oppose correction at times, but this difficulty in accepting does not dismiss the responsibility that we all have to each other as believers, as the church, as one in Christ. Let not the fear of man grow over you so as to overshadow the fear of displeasing our Lord, for very well the final verse of the chapter could have said that David’s kingdom displeased the Lord.
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