Bathsheba

Bathsheba attends her dying child, while David fasts and prays in repentance.

Bathsheba (בת שבע) was a wife of King David and the mother of King Solomon. She was also the former wife of Uriah the Hittite one of David's famous military captains. Her name, given as "Bathshua" in the Book of Chronicles, means either seventh daughter or daughter of the oath. Her story is found primarily in 2 Samuel 11 and 1 Kings 1-2.

Bathsheba conceived a son out of wedlock with David after the kign spied her bathing on her rooftop, summoned her to his palace, and slept with her. David then had her Uriah murdered after failing to create a credible cover for his sin. The son David and Bathsheba's union died soon after he was born, but Bathsheba soon conceived a second son, who would become the future King Solomon. In David's old age, she became an important figure in the royal politics of succession, helping Solomon to the throne, and later, perhaps unwittingly, providing evidence that Solomon's rivial, Adonojiah, planned treason.

In Christian tradition, Bathsheba is one of four Old Testament women listed as an ancestor of of Jesus.

Biblical data

Bathsheba was the daughter of Eliam (2 Samuel 11:3; but of Ammiel according to I Chronicles 3:5), who became the wife of Uriah the Hittite, and afterward of David, by whom she became the mother of Solomon. Her father is identified by some scholars with Eliam mentioned in 2 Samuel 23:34 as the son of Ahithophel.

File:Davids-temptation.jpg

Bathsheba bathes as David looks down at her.

The story of David's seduction of Bathsheba, told in 2 Samuel 11 is omitted in Chronicles. The king has stayed in Jerusalem while his army battles the Moabites at Ramah. As David walks on the roof of his house, he sees Bathsheba taking a bath on a rooftop below. He immediately desires her. Although she his the wife of one of his famous captains, Uriah the Hittite, David summons her then commits adultery with her. She later informs him that she is pregnanat. In an effort to cover up his sin, David summons Uriah from the army in the hopes that Uriah would sleep with Bathsheba, and thus the child could be passed off as Uriah's. However, Uriah, unwilling to violate the ancient tradtion applying to warriors in active service, declines David's offer to take his ease at home. Rather than go home to his own bed, he prefers to remain with the palace troops. After repeated efforts to get Uriah to sleep with Bathsheba, dispatched his captian back to the front with sealed orders to his general, Joab, that Uriah should be abandoned during a heated battle, and left to the hands of the enemy. Joab faithfully performs this treacherous deed, and Uriah dies as a result.

After completing her period of mourning for her husband, Bathsheba becomes David's wife.

File:Bathsheba solomon david.jpg

Bathsheba, Solomon, Nathan and Abishag tend to aging David, c. 1435

The prophet Nathan then comes to David and tells him a parable of a rich man who took away the one little ewe lamb of his poor neighbor (2 Samuel 12:1-6). The king is outrages by this rich man's unrighteous act and declares that the man should be put to death. The prophet, applying the case analogously to David's action with regard to Bathsheba, famously declares: "You are that man." The king at once confessed his sin and expressed sincere repentance. However, Bathsheba's child is punished for David's sin with a severe illness and dies after only a few days of life.

This part of Bathsheba's story concludes David comforting her over the death of he son and even the prophet Nathan seeming to bless their union now that the price of their sin has been paid:

Then David comforted his wife Bathsheba, and he went to her and lay with her. She gave birth to a son, and they named him Solomon. The Lord loved him; and because the Lord loved him, he sent word through Nathan the prophet to name him Jedidiah. (2 Sam. 11:24-25)

Bathsheba as kingmaker

Bathsheba does not appear again in the narrative until David's old age, when she figures prominently in the question of who will succeed the king on the throne of Israel. David's elder son, Adonijah, makes a bid to ururp the kingship while David still lives. Nathan, now Bathsheba's ally, informs her of the plot and conspires with her to ensure that Solomon will become king. Bathsheba enters the king's presence, tells him of Adonijah's actions, and reminds him of a promise he apparently made that Solomon would reign after him. "My lord the king," she implores him, "the eyes of all Israel are on you, to learn from you who will sit on the throne of my lord the king after him. 21 Otherwise, as soon as my lord the king is laid to rest with his fathers, I and my son Solomon will be treated as criminals."

File:Bathsheba-and-adonijah.jpg

Bathsheba receives Adonijah's request to marry David's concubine, Abishag.

Nathan confirms Bathsheba's report, and David immediately determines to have Solomon anointed and enthroned the same day. Beneficiaries in this counter-coup, beside Bathsheba and Nathan, are the priest Zadok and the military captain Benaiah son of Jehoiada. On the wrong side of events are Adonijah, the priest Abiathar and David's long-time general Joab, the very man who had assisted David in the murder of Bathsheba's first husband.

After David's death, Solomon carries out his father's deathbed command and has Benaiah assassinate Joab. The handsome Adonijah, however wins a temporary reprieve, "if he proves worthy." Bathsheba again figures into the story at this point as Adonijah request her to ask Solomon to give him David's young concubine, Abishag, as his wife. Bathsheba approaches Solomon with the request, which he interprets as treasonous. He uses the occasion as a basis to justify the execution of Adonijah.

In rabbinical literature

The Midrash portrays the influence of Satan bringing about the sinful relation of David and Bathsheba as follows: Bathsheba was on the roof of her house, perhaps behind a screen of wickerwork. Satan is depicted as coming in the disguise of a bird. David, shoots at it, strikes the screen, splitting it; thus Bath-sheba is revealed in her beauty to David (Sanhedrin 107a). Bathsheba may have been providentially destined from the Creation to become in due time the legitimate wife of David, but this relation was prematurely precipitated by David's impetuous act.

Christianity

In the Gospel of Matthew (1:6) she is listed as an ancestor of Jesus.

In Islamic tradition

David is considered a prophet in the Islamic tradition, and thus Islam does not ascribe sin to him. Thus, in the Qur'an, there is no story of sin with Bath-sheba before the death of Uriah, nor is there the episode of the return of Uriah and his sleeping in the king's house. The child that dies that dies is not mention nor is there any mention of Nathan or his part for Solomon's succession. While Christians and Jews may consider these ommissions suspect, it is well to remember that if one were to read the story of David in the Books of Kings and Chronicles rather than 2 Samuel, one the story of David's sin with Bathsheba would be very hard indeed to discern.

Critical view

Bathsheba by Karl Brullov

Bathsheba's name, which perhaps means "daughter of the oath," is in 1 Chronicles 3:5 spelled "Bath-shua." The passages in which Bath-sheba is mentioned are 2 Samuel 11:2-12:24, and I Kings 1, 2 both of which are believed to be from the oldest stratum of the books of Samuel and Kings. This is particularly noteworthy in that the story of David's sin with Bathsheba is completely omitted from the account of Chronicles, which likewise omits Nathan's condemnation of David, the David of Bathsheba's child, and other episodes embarrassing to both Daivd and Solomon.

The father of Bath-sheba was Eliam (spelled "Ammiel" in I Chronicles 3:5). As this was also the name of a son of Ahithophel, one of David's heroes and counselors, it has been conjectured that Bathsheba was a granddaughter of Ahithophel. Some suggest that the desertion of David at the time of Absalom's rebellion was related to David's conduct toward Bath-sheba.

David's conduct toward one of his earlier wives, Abigail, may also be instructive in relation to Bathsheba. Abigail was the wife of Nabal the Calebite, who had offended David's men by refusing to offer them tribute. David was about to take revenege of Nabal's entire clan when Abigail approached him with gifts and convinced him not to sin by bloodying his hands, assuring David that God would bless him richly in the future. David accepted Abigail's advice, and she soon became his wife when Nabal died at Yahweh's hand instead of David's. This story may suggest that an alternative course existed for David and Bathsheba by which Bathsheba could have become his wife without David's first committing adultery with her or murdering her husband.

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