Difference between revisions of "Bathsheba" - New World Encyclopedia
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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 [[King Solomon|Solomon]]. Her father is identified by some scholars with Eliam mentioned in 2 Samuel 23:34 as the son of [[Ahithophel]]. | 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 [[King Solomon|Solomon]]. Her father is identified by some scholars with Eliam mentioned in 2 Samuel 23:34 as the son of [[Ahithophel]]. | ||
| − | 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. Bathsheba | + | 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. |
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| + | After completing her period of mourning for her husband, Bathsheba becomes David's wife. | ||
[[Image:Bathsheba solomon david.jpg|thumb|left|Bathsheba, Solomon, Nathan and [[Abishag]] tend to aging David, c. 1435]] | [[Image:Bathsheba solomon david.jpg|thumb|left|Bathsheba, Solomon, Nathan and [[Abishag]] tend to aging David, c. 1435]] | ||
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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. | 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. | ||
| − | David and Bathsheba's son, Solomon, | + | 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: |
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| + | <blockquote>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)</blockquote> | ||
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| + | ==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." | ||
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| + | 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. | ||
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| + | 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 == | == In rabbinical literature == | ||
Revision as of 18:53, 3 July 2007
Bathsheba (בת שבע) was the wife of Uriah the Hittite and later of David in the Hebrew Bible. She was the mother of Solomon. The name "Bathsheba" means seventh daughter or daughter of the oath.
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.
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.
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."
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
Sheba was the granddaughter of Ahithophel, David's famous counselor.
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 Qur'an and Islamic tradition
The only passage in the Qur'an which has been brought into connection with the story of Bath-sheba is sura xxxviii. 20-25:
- "And has the story of the antagonists come to you; when they climbed the wall of the upper chamber, when they came in to David? And when he feared them, they said, 'Fear not; we are two antagonists, one of us hath wronged the other, so judge justly between us. . . . This my brother had ninety-nine ewes and I had one. Then he said, "Give me control of her," and he overcame me in his plea.' David said, 'Verily he hath wronged thee by asking for thy ewe as an addition to his ewes, and verily most partners act injuriously the one to the other, except those who believe and work righteous works; and such are few.' And David supposed that we had tried him; so he sought pardon of his Lord and fell, worshiping, and repented. And we forgave him that fault, and he hath near approach unto us and beauty of ultimate abode."
From this passage one can judge only some similarities of Nathan's parable. The Muslim world has shown an indisposition, to a certain extent, to go further, and especially to ascribe sin to David. Baidawi would seem to favor that view, but other commentators reject it. Baidawi (in loc.) remarks, this passage signifies only that David desired something which belonged to another, and that God rebuked him by this parable. At the very most, Baidawi continues, he may have asked in marriage a woman who had been asked in marriage by another, or he may have desired that another should abandon his wife to him—a circumstance which was customary at that time. The Biblical story of Uriah is then regarded as a slander, filled with unnecessary violences and immorality, not the sort of thing that would happen to a man who is close to God.
The story is dissimilar to the Biblical one, with the following differences: 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. There is no story of a child that dies, and in the Qur'anic narrative there is no mention of Nathan or his part for Solomon's succession.
According to some sources of Islamic tradition, David marries Bath-sheba after the death of Uriah, and she becomes the mother of Solomon. To Muslims, the legendary Bath-sheba herself is a not a very known figure, being generally called simply the wife of Uriah. See Al-Tha'labi, "ḳiṣaṣ-anbiyya," pp. 243 et seq., ed. Cairo, 1298; and Ibn al-Athir, i. 95 et seq., ed. Cairo, 1301.
Critical view
Her name, which perhaps means "daughter of the oath," is in I Chronicles 3:5 spelled "Bath-shua," the form becomes merely a variant reading of "Bath-sheba." The passages in which Bath-sheba is mentioned are II Samuel 11:2-12:24, and I Kings 1, 2.—both of which are parts of the oldest stratum of the books of Samuel and Kings. It is part of that court history of David, written by someone who stood very near the events and who did not idealize David. The material contained in it is of higher historical value than that in the later strata of these books. Budde would connect it with the J document of the Hexateuch.
The only interpolations in it which concern the story of Bath-sheba are some verses in the early part of the twelfth chapter, that heighten the moral tone of Nathan's rebuke of David; according to Karl Budde ("S. B. O. T."), the interpolated portion is xii. 7, 8, and 10-12; according to Friedrich Schwally (Stade's "Zeitschrift," xii. 154 et seq.) and H. P. Smith ("Samuel," in "International Critical Commentary"), the whole of xii. 1-15a is an interpolation, and xii. 15b should be joined directly to xi. 27. This does not directly affect the narrative concerning Bath-sheba herself. Chronicles, which draws a kindly veil over David's faults, omits all reference to the way in which Bathsheba became David's wife, and gives only the names of her children.
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 (II Samuel 23:34), it has been conjectured that Bathsheba was a granddaughter of Ahithophel and that the latter's desertion of David at the time of Absalom's rebellion was in revenge for David's conduct toward Bath-sheba.
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