Then There’s Trouble
Broken Crown, Unshakable Kingdom • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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1 Some time later, the king of the Ammonites died, and his son Hanun (khaw-noon) became king in his place. 2 Then David said, “I’ll show kindness to Hanun (khaw-noon) son of Nahash (naw-khawsh), just as his father showed kindness to me.” So David sent his emissaries to console Hanun (khaw-noon) concerning his father. However, when they arrived in the land of the Ammonites, 3 the Ammonite leaders said to Hanun (khaw-noon) their lord, “Just because David has sent men with condolences for you, do you really believe he’s showing respect for your father? Instead, hasn’t David sent his emissaries in order to scout out the city, spy on it, and demolish it?”
This narrative is serving as a link between the previous and David’s impending troubles by providing a historical context for the events of chapters 11 and 12.
In both narratives David is expressing compassion and generosity toward individuals whose royal forebears has recently died.
The first is showing David’s desire to bless the sons of the covenant, exemplified by Mephibosheth.
The second is showing David’s desire to bless those outside the covenant circle, exemplified by Hanun (khaw-noon).
Out of proper respect for the passing of a head of state, David sent a delegation to express his sympathy to Hanun (khaw-noon) and in the process confirm the continuance of favorable relations between the nations.
His intentions were either misunderstood or cunningly twisted by the “military leaders” - these influential men convinced the new Ammonite king that David sent the diplomatic entourage with ulterior, hostile motives.
Their proposal - David sent the men to spy on them by scouting the city for potential destruction.
4 So Hanun (khaw-noon) took David’s emissaries, shaved off half their beards, cut their clothes in half at the hips, and sent them away. 5 When this was reported to David, he sent someone to meet them, since they were deeply humiliated. The king said, “Stay in Jericho until your beards grow back; then return.”
Except for the performance of certain religious rituals or to express profound emotional distress, Israelite men always wore beards and to remove a beard forcibly was to force him to violate the Torah and to show contempt for him personally - it was a great humiliation.
The same is true of cutting the extremities of a garment - it caused the garment to unacceptable by Torah standards - tantamount to desecrating the law itself.
What the Ammonites did went beyond just cutting tassels off - it left the men exposed from the waist down - humiliating them in public view.
David took care of his men first by instructing them to stay in Jericho until the beards grew back, keeping them from further humiliation by having to see their families or present themselves in the royal court in their disgraced appearance.
Then David turned his attention to the Ammonites….
We will skip to the end but an overview… Joab took forces and eventually found themselves trapped between the Ammonites and the Aramean armies - Joab split their forces and sent Abishai to flank the enemy and attack the most prominent threat first - it worked, briefly - the enemy regrouped….
17 When this was reported to David, he gathered all Israel, crossed the Jordan, and went to Helam. Then the Arameans lined up to engage David in battle and fought against him. 18 But the Arameans fled before Israel, and David killed seven hundred of their charioteers and forty thousand foot soldiers. He also struck down Shobach commander of their army, who died there.19 When all the kings who were Hadadezer’s subjects saw that they had been defeated by Israel, they made peace with Israel and became their subjects. After this, the Arameans were afraid to ever help the Ammonites again.
Victory!
Up to this point David has been portrayed as the ideal servant of the Lord - obedient to every point of the law and zealous in his execution of each command.
Because of his faithfulness God has blessed David and all of Israel … then there’s trouble.
1 In the spring when kings march out to war, David sent Joab with his officers and all Israel. They destroyed the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah, but David remained in Jerusalem. 2 One evening David got up from his bed and strolled around on the roof of the palace. From the roof he saw a woman bathing—a very beautiful woman. 3 So David sent someone to inquire about her, and he said, “Isn’t this Bathsheba, daughter of Eliam and wife of Uriah the Hethite?”
David met the Ammonite rebellion but he had not eliminated the threat of continued challenges.
The following spring David sent Joab to Rabbah Ammon a second time - this was the anniversary date of the humiliation of the Israelite envoy sent to convey condolences for Nahash’s death, leaving no doubt about the reason for the attack on Rabbah.
The second reason - late spring was the ideal time to conduct foreign military campaigns - the weather was better and food was available in the fields.
The first part of verse one - “when king march out to war” - on one hand the writer could be indicating the David should have been with his men as they began their military campaign - on the other hand the author could just be indicating that spring is the time kings launched military campaigns regardless of their presence.
We know in the previous chapter David did not immediately go to the battle but sent Joab - we will also see later that David’s men “encouraged” him to never go to the battlefield again.
Here is my opinion - while David was not neglecting his duty by staying in Jerusalem but I believe he got comfortable and was no longer maintaining personal military readiness (compare with Uriah).
One evening David went for a walk around the roof which would have been a great place to relax and enjoy the cook evening breezes. David’s house was probably located on the highest ground and from the roof he would have had a great view.
David, surveying the city, notices a woman bathing. Not only did he notice her, he noticed how beautiful she was.
Ok so here is how this goes…David was not mentally where he was supposed to be. This led to him “wandering”. Then he saw and looked which leads him to inquire…
The king was informed the Bathsheba was the daughter of one of his best fighters, Eliam - this also made her granddaughter of one of his most trusted counselors, Ahithophel - but most importantly she was the wife of one of his inner circle of honored soldiers - Uriah.
Being properly informed of WHO Bathsheba was, for him to pursue her was already committing adultery in his heart - but he wasn’t done…
4 David sent messengers to get her, and when she came to him, he slept with her. Now she had just been purifying herself from her uncleanness. Afterward, she returned home. 5 The woman conceived and sent word to inform David, “I am pregnant.” 6 David sent orders to Joab: “Send me Uriah the Hethite.” So Joab sent Uriah to David. 7 When Uriah came to him, David asked how Joab and the troops were doing and how the war was going. 8 Then he said to Uriah, “Go down to your house and wash your feet.” So Uriah left the palace, and a gift from the king followed him. 9 But Uriah slept at the door of the palace with all his master’s servants; he did not go down to his house. 10 When it was reported to David, “Uriah didn’t go home,” David questioned Uriah, “Haven’t you just come from a journey? Why didn’t you go home?” 11 Uriah answered David, “The ark, Israel, and Judah are dwelling in tents, and my master Joab and his soldiers are camping in the open field. How can I enter my house to eat and drink and sleep with my wife? As surely as you live and by your life, I will not do this!”
David send messengers to get her.
We are not sure why she came - maybe she was naive, maybe it was the fact that as king denying his request would not have been advisable, or maybe she liked the idea of being with the king - the author does not explain Bathsheba’s motive for her actions which only goes to reinforce that the story if about David’s actions not hers.
The passage says David slept with her and we know what that means - David has already committed adultery and it is possible he commits a form of rape, while not the physical overpowering version the fact that he was in such a powerful position Bathsheba may have felt pressured into acquiescing to his demand which is tantamount to rape.
She was not taking a bath for mere enjoyment but as part of post menstrual purification which occurs during the time where she would be most susceptible to becoming pregnant - and guess what….
Bathsheba gets pregnant and now the king’s sin is about to become public.
Just like Adam and Eve’s response to their sin - David tried to cover up his actions - which always leads to bigger problems.
He brought Uriah home and told him to go be with his wife.
Uriah, being and honorable man, did not obey the kings order.
Military service was a form of service to the Lord and it required the Lord’s blessing for success. In order to maximize the probability of receiving that blessing David seems to have required soldiers to keep themselves in a state of ritual purity - which meant refraining from all sexual contact. It Uriah had followed the kings order it would have left him temporarily unfit for military service and thus unfit for service to the Lord.
This is the mindset and attitude David should have had while the men he commanded were off at war - By not focusing on the right things, sin is “crouching at the door” Genesis 4:7 “7 If you do what is right, won’t you be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it.””
12 “Stay here today also,” David said to Uriah, “and tomorrow I will send you back.” So Uriah stayed in Jerusalem that day and the next. 13 Then David invited Uriah to eat and drink with him, and David got him drunk. He went out in the evening to lie down on his cot with his master’s servants, but he did not go home. 14 The next morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it with Uriah. 15 In the letter he wrote: Put Uriah at the front of the fiercest fighting, then withdraw from him so that he is struck down and dies. 16 When Joab was besieging the city, he put Uriah in the place where he knew the best enemy soldiers were. 17 Then the men of the city came out and attacked Joab, and some of the men from David’s soldiers fell in battle; Uriah the Hethite also died.
Well if at first you don’t succeed… David’s first attempt did not work so he doubles down and orders Uriah to stay another day.
David invited Uriah to eat with him which included drinking - David got him drunk hoping that in his stupor he was yield to his baser instincts - he did not.
Two separate attempts have failed and now David is faced with a choice - admit that he committed a capital offense (adultery was grounds for death) or ordering the death on one of his most valuable soldiers. Either way - someone had to die and David decided it would not be him.
David wrote a letter ordering Joab to put Uriah in the worst part of the battle and leave him unsupported basically.
To add insult to injury - Uriah was the one who carried the letter that sentenced him to death back with him to give to Joab.
Joab complied and when they attacked the city Uriah was right in the thick of it and along with other soldier, died in battle,
18 Joab sent someone to report to David all the details of the battle. 19 He commanded the messenger, “When you’ve finished telling the king all the details of the battle—20 if the king’s anger gets stirred up and he asks you, ‘Why did you get so close to the city to fight? Didn’t you realize they would shoot from the top of the wall? 21 At Thebez, who struck Abimelech son of Jerubbesheth? Didn’t a woman drop an upper millstone on him from the top of the wall so that he died? Why did you get so close to the wall?’—then say, ‘Your servant Uriah the Hethite is dead also.’ ” 22 Then the messenger left. When he arrived, he reported to David all that Joab had sent him to tell. 23 The messenger reported to David, “The men gained the advantage over us and came out against us in the field, but we counterattacked right up to the entrance of the city gate. 24 However, the archers shot down on your servants from the top of the wall, and some of the king’s servants died. Your servant Uriah the Hethite is also dead.” 25 David told the messenger, “Say this to Joab: ‘Don’t let this matter upset you because the sword devours all alike. Intensify your fight against the city and demolish it.’ Encourage him.”
Joab sent a messenger to give the king all the details from the battle.
It is unclear if Joan is in on the conspiracy or he fears some reprisal from the king but he firmly commands the messenger to make sure David knows Uriah is dead.
The passage reads as if the king would get angry hearing the details from the battle because what Joab did might not have been seen as unintelligent battle planning.
The messenger did as he was told but he didn’t wait for the king to get angry, he told him right away that Uriah was killed in action.
Ironically, David’s response was pastoral in tone as he instructed the messenger to encourage Joab - David waxed philosophical as he quoted from an ancient proverb to remind Joab that war’s unpredictable appetite sometimes consumes a nation’s best men
Uriah’s death was lamentable, but it must not cause the general to lose sight of the larger objective - he told Joab to press the attack and destroy the city.
26 When Uriah’s wife heard that her husband, Uriah, had died, she mourned for him. 27 When the time of mourning ended, David had her brought to his house. She became his wife and bore him a son. However, the Lord considered what David had done to be evil.
Bathsheba heard about her husbands death and spent the appropriate time mourning him - possibly about a month.
After the mourning period David brought her into the house.
Uriah was a Hittite, a foreigner who had no kinsmen living in Isreal so David would have assumed the role of surrogate kinsman-redeemer and as such he would have assumed the lifelong responsibility of caring for the needs of Uriah’s widow and was obligated to father a child in order to raise up an offspring to preserve the family lone of the deceased.
This pretext would have made David’s actions toward Bathsheba follwoing Uriah’s death seem truly noble and would have accounted nicely for the birth of a son.
It had worked - David covered his sin, taken care of a roadblock and made himself look like a hero…. except for one thing - God.
God saw it all and judged David’s actions as evil.
1 So the Lord sent Nathan to David. When he arrived, he said to him: There were two men in a certain city, one rich and the other poor. 2 The rich man had very large flocks and herds, 3 but the poor man had nothing except one small ewe lamb that he had bought. He raised her, and she grew up with him and with his children. From his meager food she would eat, from his cup she would drink, and in his arms she would sleep. She was like a daughter to him. 4 Now a traveler came to the rich man, but the rich man could not bring himself to take one of his own sheep or cattle to prepare for the traveler who had come to him. Instead, he took the poor man’s lamb and prepared it for his guest. 5 David was infuriated with the man and said to Nathan, “As the Lord lives, the man who did this deserves to die! 6 Because he has done this thing and shown no pity, he must pay four lambs for that lamb.”
Enter Nathan, the Lord’s spokesman.
He tells a wonderful story of a rich man who had everything and a poor man who had only one thing which he cherished and loved very much.
The rich man wanted something and decided what he had wasn’t enough so he took the poor man’s property…
David heard the story and was enraged with this fictitious rich - so enraged he declared him should die and before he does should pay 4 times the restitution.
7 Nathan replied to David, “You are the man! This is what the Lord God of Israel says: ‘I anointed you king over Israel, and I rescued you from Saul. 8 I gave your master’s house to you and your master’s wives into your arms, and I gave you the house of Israel and Judah, and if that was not enough, I would have given you even more. 9 Why then have you despised the Lord’s command by doing what I consider evil? You struck down Uriah the Hethite with the sword and took his wife as your own wife—you murdered him with the Ammonite’s sword. 10 Now therefore, the sword will never leave your house because you despised me and took the wife of Uriah the Hethite to be your own wife.’ 11 “This is what the Lord says, ‘I am going to bring disaster on you from your own family: I will take your wives and give them to another before your very eyes, and he will sleep with them in broad daylight. 12 You acted in secret, but I will do this before all Israel and in broad daylight.’ ”
Nathan reveals the true identity of the man - it was David!
He had everything he could want, if he wanted more God would have given it to him.
Instead he sinned and did evil in the eyes of the Lord.
The judgment - the “sword would not depart from David’s house” - death would enter David’s life.
Did David pronounce the punishment on himself by declaring the lamb be paid back 4-fold? All of David’s ons would experience premature death - and unnamed son, Amnon, Absalom and Adonijah.
Just to be clear the Lord makes sure the king know why this is happening - “because you despised ME and took the wife of Uriah to be your own wife”
Another round of judgement - David’s sexual sins against another would give rise to sexual sins committed by another against David.
What was done in secret, God would make known to all…
13 David responded to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord.” Then Nathan replied to David, “And the Lord has taken away your sin; you will not die. 14 However, because you treated the Lord with such contempt in this matter, the son born to you will die.” 15 Then Nathan went home. The Lord struck the baby that Uriah’s wife had borne to David, and he became deathly ill. 16 David pleaded with God for the boy. He fasted, went home, and spent the night lying on the ground. 17 The elders of his house stood beside him to get him up from the ground, but he was unwilling and would not eat anything with them.
In a remarkable display of humility and contrition, David confessed his guilt - “I have sinned against the Lord”.
David’s confession came with immediacy, without denial and without excuse - the Lord’s forgiveness was equally direct and unrestrained. It was also without cost: forgiveness was granted the king without requiring him first to make animal sacrifices or give great gifts to the Lord.
Nathan informs the king that “the Lord has taken away your sin” and the usual punishment of death would not be his to bear.
David would not die but there would still be consequences resulting from his sin.
The first consequence would be thee death of his newborn son.
David pleaded for the child because he was the father plus he had profound confidence in God’s mercy.
David prayed (pleading), fasted, lay on the floor - he forsook all the comforts of his life to both make amends for his sin and demonstrate to God that the child’s recovery was more important to him than food, comfort or pride.
18 On the seventh day the baby died. But David’s servants were afraid to tell him the baby was dead. They said, “Look, while the baby was alive, we spoke to him, and he wouldn’t listen to us. So how can we tell him the baby is dead? He may do something desperate.” 19 When David saw that his servants were whispering to each other, he guessed that the baby was dead. So he asked his servants, “Is the baby dead?” “He is dead,” they replied. 20 Then David got up from the ground. He washed, anointed himself, changed his clothes, went to the Lord’s house, and worshiped. Then he went home and requested something to eat. So they served him food, and he ate.
The child died on the 7th day - on the 8th day is when a son would receive circumcision - the son was conceived as a result of David’s contempt for the Lord so it was painfully fitting the child should be permanently excluded from Israel’s covenant community.
It is also why the child may have never received a name which was usually done at the time of circumcision.
David’s initial response was so drastic his servant were afraid to tell him the child died for fear he may do something worse.
He drug it out of them and they were surprised by his response - he got up, cleaned up, went to church and worshiped God, and then went home and asked for food.
21 His servants asked him, “Why have you done this? While the baby was alive, you fasted and wept, but when he died, you got up and ate food.” 22 He answered, “While the baby was alive, I fasted and wept because I thought, ‘Who knows? The Lord may be gracious to me and let him live.’ 23 But now that he is dead, why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I’ll go to him, but he will never return to me.” 24 Then David comforted his wife Bathsheba; he went to her and slept with her. She gave birth to a son and named him Solomon. The Lord loved him, 25 and he sent a message through the prophet Nathan, who named him Jedidiah, because of the Lord.
The servants asked, why the change of attitude?
David held out hope as long a the child lived that God might let him live - but that is not what happened.
David is not callous - look at the faith he has - more grieving would not change things but he know he will see the child again one day.
Verse 24 is not written in specific time - he didn’t go in a comfort Bathsheba and at the same time sleep with her - there was most likely an extended time of mourning and after that time.
From sin, tragedy and repentance came a blessing - Solomon, the heir to the throne of David.
The Lord sent word through Nathan that all was well and that the Lord loved/will bless the new baby - the Lord calls him Jedidiah which means - friend of Jehovah or beloved of Jehovah.
