Thursday, January 22, 2026

DAVID & BATHESHEBA (Santamaria)

DAVID & BATHSHEBA

FOREWORD
THE SERIOUSNESS OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN DAVID & BATHSHEBA
HOW WAS THE LAW OF MOSES APPLIED TO THE AFFAIR?
- What actually happens in the narrative
WHY WOULD GOD USE THE UNION BETWEEN DAID AND BATHSHEBA TO BRING FORTH THE MESSIAH
HOW WOULD DAVID'S MURDER OF BATHSHEBA'S HUSBAND WORK IN THE PLAN
WHAT DID BEEBE AND TROTT THINK OF THIS?
- Trott’s way of saying it (and it fits your question almost perfectly)
- What does that mean for “How does Uriah’s murder work in the plan?”

FOREWORD

This is a description of David’s agony after the rebuke of his sin concerning Uriah:

David’s repentance isn’t portrayed as a neat apology. It’s portrayed as a collapse—a man crushed under the weight of what he’s done, with his body and mind reacting like they’ve been dragged into court by God Himself.

In Psalm 32, he describes the time before confession as internal torture:

Silence becomes sickness. “When I kept silence, my bones waxed old… day and night thy hand was heavy upon me” (Ps. 32:3–4). He doesn’t say, “I felt bad.” He says it ate him from the inside—like guilt turned his skeleton to dust.
God feels close, but as pressure, not comfort. “Thy hand was heavy upon me.” It’s the sense that heaven isn’t far away—it’s leaning on your chest. No hiding, no distraction, no sleep that really rests.

Psalm 51 shows what the agony feels like after he’s exposed—when repentance finally speaks:

A broken man asks to be washed, not excused. “Wash me thoroughly… purge me… and I shall be clean” (Ps. 51:2, 7). The language is visceral—stain, filth, cleansing—like he can’t get the blood off his hands.
The sin keeps replaying. “My sin is ever before me” (Ps. 51:3). That’s the mental loop: you can’t out-run the memory. It’s there when you wake up; it’s there when the room goes quiet.
The worst pain is theological. “Against thee, thee only, have I sinned” (Ps. 51:4). Not because Uriah and Bathsheba don’t matter—David knows they do—but because repentance finally sees the deepest horror: you didn’t merely break a rule; you defied the God who gave you breath.
He feels disintegrated. “Create in me a clean heart… renew a right spirit within me” (Ps. 51:10). That request implies the opposite: my heart isn’t clean; my spirit isn’t right; I’m bent. Repentance is realizing you don’t just need a second chance—you need a new interior.
He fears being cast off. “Cast me not away from thy presence… take not thy holy spirit from me” (Ps. 51:11). That’s not melodrama; it’s dread—like the lights might go out forever.
He’s spiritually mute until God restores him. “Open thou my lips; and my mouth shall show forth thy praise” (Ps. 51:15). Guilt shuts the mouth. Joy can’t be faked back into existence.
The core posture is shattered humility. “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart” (Ps. 51:17). Repentance is not self-improvement. It’s self-abhorrence meeting mercy.

And then there’s 2 Samuel 12, which gives the ignition point: Nathan’s “Thou art the man.” David’s reply is bare—no speeches, no defenses: “I have sinned against the LORD” (2 Sam. 12:13). That brevity is part of the agony. When the truth finally lands, you stop negotiating. You just fall.

So the agony of David’s repentance is: God’s hand heavy, his conscience loud, his body tired, his mind replaying the sin, his spirit broken, his mouth shut—until mercy speaks and cleansing begins.

Guillermo Santamaria

THE SERIOUSNESS OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN DAVID & BATHSHEBA

The David–Bathsheba relationship is not presented in Scripture as a “romance.” It’s a moral trainwreck wrapped in royal power—and the Bible is unusually blunt about what made it exceptional.

1) It begins with a power imbalance, not courtship

David is the king; Bathsheba is a subject. The text emphasizes David’s authority to send and have people brought to him (2 Sam. 11:3–4). That “sending” is a repeated drumbeat—royal power moving pieces.

2) It happens while David is shirking his proper role

The narrative opens with a quiet accusation: it’s the season when kings go to war, but David stays home (2 Sam. 11:1). That’s not filler; it frames the sin as part of a larger moral drift—comfort, idleness, entitlement.

3) The sin is layered and escalating, not a single bad decision

It’s not just adultery. The story stacks actions like falling dominoes:

adultery (2 Sam. 11:4)
deception/cover-up attempts (11:6–13)
abuse of military command to arrange death (11:14–17)
taking Uriah’s wife after his death (11:26–27)

The narrative ends the chapter with a verdict: “the thing David had done displeased the LORD” (11:27). Exceptionally direct.

4) The relationship is entangled with the betrayal of a faithful man

Uriah is portrayed as loyal, disciplined, and ethically “cleaner” than the king—refusing comfort while comrades are in the field (2 Sam. 11:11). That contrast is deliberate: David falls beneath Uriah’s moral level.

5) It produces a public justice moment: Nathan’s confrontation

This is one of Scripture’s most famous prophetic confrontations (2 Sam. 12:1–14). David—usually the narrator’s hero—gets prosecuted by parable. The line “You are the man!” is an executioner’s switchblade: short, sharp, final.

6) David’s response is one of the clearest repentance models in the Bible

David confesses without spin: “I have sinned against the LORD” (2 Sam. 12:13). Psalm 51 is traditionally tied to this episode (superscription), and it’s exceptional for how it frames sin as against God even when it devastates humans (Ps. 51:4), and for how it pleads for inner renewal, not image repair (Ps. 51:10–12). Psalm 32 also fits the “confession → relief” pattern (Ps. 32:3–5).

7) God’s forgiveness is real, but the consequences are severe and generational

Nathan explicitly distinguishes pardon from fallout: “The LORD also has put away your sin; you shall not die. Nevertheless…” (2 Sam. 12:13–14). Then come cascading sorrows in David’s house (often traced through 2 Sam. 13–18): sexual sin, violence, rebellion—an ugly echo chamber.

8) Their first child dies—an unusually hard theological knot

The death of the child (2 Sam. 12:15–23) is one of the Bible’s starkest passages on judgment, grief, and divine sovereignty. David fasts, pleads, then—after the child dies—worships. That pattern is both bewildering and instructive: the text forces you to grapple with God as Judge, not a therapy assistant.

9) Bathsheba later becomes politically significant, not merely “the woman in the scandal”

In 1 Kings 1–2, Bathsheba is central in the succession crisis and Solomon’s enthronement (1 Kgs. 1:11–31). She appears again in royal court dynamics (1 Kgs. 2:13–25). So the story doesn’t freeze her as a cameo; she becomes an actor in Israel’s monarchy.

10) The relationship sits at a bizarre intersection of sin and covenant history

Out of this wreck comes Solomon (2 Sam. 12:24–25), and Matthew later includes Bathsheba (“the wife of Uriah”) in Jesus’ genealogy (Matt. 1:6). Scripture refuses to sanitize the scandal—and also refuses to pretend grace can’t write straight with crooked lines.

In one sentence: what’s exceptional is that the Bible presents this relationship as a case study in royal abuse, escalating cover-up, prophetic indictment, real repentance, severe consequences, and surprising mercy—without ever calling it admirable.

If you keep reading the narrative “with your eyes open,” you start seeing the repeated verbs—sent, took, brought—and you realize the story is partly about how power can deform desire into entitlement, and entitlement into destruction. The text is doing moral psychology before we had the phrase.

HOW WAS THE LAW OF MOSES APPLIED TO THE AFFAIR?

Under the Law of Moses, if Bathsheba was an equal, consenting partner in adultery, then yes—the law would have applied to her, and the penalty was death for both parties:

Leviticus 20:10 – adulterer and adulteress put to death
Deuteronomy 22:22 – same principle

But in 2 Samuel 11–12, that’s not what happens in the story.

What actually happens in the narrative

No court, no elders, no public trial, no stoning.

David is king; he “sent… and took her” (2 Sam. 11:4). Whatever else is going on, royal power is steering the whole situation. The Mosaic penalties aren’t executed by anyone.

Nathan tells David, “You shall not die.” (2 Sam. 12:13)

That line is huge because, under Torah, David should die for adultery and bloodguilt. Nathan’s oracle signals that the legal death sentence is not carried out—yet consequences still come (2 Sam. 12:10–14).

Bathsheba does suffer consequences, but not the Torah court penalty.

The child dies (2 Sam. 12:15–23), and her life is dragged into the fallout of David’s house. That’s covenant-discipline / providential judgment, not a courtroom application of Leviticus.

The key hinge: was it consensual or coerced?

Torah treats rape/coercion differently from adultery:

Deuteronomy 22:25–27 – if a woman is forced, she is not culpable; the attacker bears the penalty.

The text doesn’t give Bathsheba’s internal perspective, and it doesn’t describe “outcry” (a detail Deut 22 uses in a different case). But the narrative does spotlight David’s initiative and authority—“sent,” “took,” “brought”—which makes coercion plausible even if not explicitly stated.

So, biblically speaking:

If she freely consented → the Mosaic law’s adultery penalty would apply to her in principle, but it was not applied in Israel’s legal process in this episode.
If she was coerced → Torah would treat her as innocent of the crime, and the guilt would fall on David.

One more nerdy detail people miss

2 Samuel 11:4 notes she was purifying from her uncleanness—a menstruation/purity marker (cf. Lev. 15). Narratively, that functions like a timestamp: it removes ambiguity about paternity (the pregnancy is from David) and keeps the focus on David’s guilt.

Bottom line: The Torah standard would implicate Bathsheba only if she was a willing adulteress; but the story shows no legal enforcement of the Mosaic penalties against her (or David). Instead, God addresses the matter through prophetic indictment, divine pardon of David from death, and severe covenant consequences (2 Sam. 12).

WHY WOULD GOD USE THE UNION BETWEEN DAID AND BATHSHEBA TO BRING FORTH THE MESSIAH

Because God’s goal wasn’t to curate a spotless family scrapbook, he was building a covenant line that would convey one message: salvation is a gift of grace, not a matter of pedigree.

A few biblical threads tie it together:

God had already bound the Messiah to David’s house.

Long before the Bathsheba disaster finishes unfolding, God promises David an enduring dynasty and a coming son whose kingdom will be established (2 Samuel 7). Whatever David does next, the Messiah is going to be “Son of David” (later: Isaiah 11:1; Jeremiah 23:5; Luke 1:32–33).

The Bible refuses to pretend the line is morally clean—on purpose.

Matthew’s genealogy doesn’t just include Bathsheba; it spotlights the scandal by calling her “the wife of Uriah” (Matthew 1:6). That’s like Matthew putting a neon sign over David’s sin: We’re not airbrushing this.

And Bathsheba isn’t the only “messy” inclusion. Matthew also names Tamar, Rahab, Ruth—women connected to sexual scandal, outsider status, or social shame (Matthew 1:3–5). The pattern isn’t accidental. It’s theological.

God is showing that human evil can’t derail divine purpose—without excusing the evil.

David is fully guilty (2 Samuel 11–12). The sword in his house is real (2 Sam. 12:10). Yet God’s covenant doesn’t collapse. Later Scripture says plainly that God can govern even the worst human acts without being their moral author (Acts 2:23; Acts 4:27–28). Translation: humans mean evil; God means sovereign redemption.

It kills boasting at the root.

If the messianic line were squeaky-clean, we’d all be tempted to believe the story is “God saves the respectable.” Instead, God bakes into the ancestry a public reminder: the King we need comes from a line that proves we all need mercy.

It previews what Jesus came to do.

Jesus doesn’t enter history as a reward for humanity’s virtue. He enters as a rescue into humanity’s wreckage—sin, shame, betrayal, broken power dynamics, and complicated families—because that’s the world he came to redeem (Mark 2:17).

So the answer isn’t: “God picked that union because it was good.” It’s: God kept his promise through David, while exposing sin as sin, and making the Messiah’s very ancestry a sermon that grace outruns disgrace.

HOW WOULD DAVID'S MURDER OF BATHSHEBA'S HUSBAND WORK IN THE PLAN

David’s murder of Uriah doesn’t “work” in God’s plan the way a cog “works” in a machine—like God needed the murder. Scripture treats it as real evil, truly David’s, and explicitly displeasing to the LORD (2 Sam. 11:27). So the first rule is: God overrules sin; God doesn’t endorse sin.

So how can it still sit inside “the plan” without turning God into a monster?

The Bible’s own pattern: one act, two intentions

Joseph says to his brothers: “You meant evil… God meant it for good” (Gen. 50:20). Same event, two levels of intention.

The New Testament uses that logic at maximum volume with the crucifixion: Jesus is murdered by lawless hands, yet it happens according to God’s “definite plan and foreknowledge” (Acts 2:23; cf. Acts 4:27–28). God’s sovereign purpose is real, and human guilt is real—simultaneously.

That’s the category David/Uriah fits: David intended wickedness; God intended righteous ends through judgment and mercy.

2) God folds the crime into a public moral revelation

Uriah’s death drags everything into the open. Nathan’s confrontation (2 Sam. 12) becomes one of Scripture’s clearest exposures of:

how power corrupts,

how sin escalates (lust → cover-up → blood),

and how God judges kings, too.

And David’s repentance (tied traditionally to Psalm 51) becomes a permanent, canonical witness: not a PR recovery, but a wrecked man pleading for a clean heart.

3) The murder triggers covenant consequences that reshape the whole monarchy story

Nathan’s oracle isn’t just “you’re forgiven.” It’s also “the sword will not depart from your house” (2 Sam. 12:10–12). The disasters that follow (Amnon, Absalom, etc.) aren’t random plot twists—they’re the biblical argument that even the best human king is not the King. Israel needs a “Son of David” who won’t do David-things.

In other words, the ugliness becomes part of the story that intensifies messianic longing.

4) And yes—historically, it’s part of the chain by which Solomon comes

Uriah’s death leads to Bathsheba becoming David’s wife, and later Solomon is born (2 Sam. 12:24–25), and the messianic line runs through that royal house (Matt. 1:6). Matthew even keeps the scandal visible by saying “David… by the wife of Uriah” (Matt. 1:6)—as if to say: God’s grace is not embarrassed by your family tree.

The clean, hard conclusion

Uriah’s murder “works” in the plan the way a shipwreck “works” in a rescue story: it’s not the goal, it’s the catastrophe God is powerful enough to judge, expose, and then overrule—without calling it good.

That’s why Scripture can say, without flinching:

God is not tempted by evil and tempts no one (James 1:13),
David is guilty,

and God’s covenant purpose still stands.

WHAT DID BEEBE AND TROTT THINK OF THIS?

Beebe and Trott were Absoluters on providence/predestination, and they’d read the David–Bathsheba–Uriah episode through a very specific lens:

God’s predestination/government includes even “the vilest” human acts, but in a way that does not make God the fountain/source of sin, and does not remove human guilt.

Trott’s way of saying it (and it fits your question almost perfectly)

Trott explicitly argues that God’s predestination can determine that sinful acts “shall result in the accomplishment of His own glorious purposes,” while still leaving the sinner acting voluntarily and therefore guilty. (The Baptist Particular)

He’s careful about the mechanism: he describes God’s government here as a “pre-determination to permit” depraved acts to occur, and to order their results and circumstances, not a predestination that compels men to commit them. (The Baptist Particular)

So applied to David: Trott would say David’s murder of Uriah can be within God’s providential ordering (God “permitting” and directing outcomes), without God forcing David’s hand or excusing David’s guilt.

Beebe’s way of saying it (even more blunt)

Beebe tackles the “author of sin” objection head-on. He defines “author of sin” as “the fountain or source of sin” and says that idea is “remote from the truth”: God is perfectly holy, and men are not driven into wickedness by an “impulse directly from him.” Rather, their fallen natures incline them to evil; God may permit them to have their way, and they remain accountable. (Sovereign Redeemer Books)

Then Beebe uses the exact kind of analogies that map onto David’s case:

Joseph’s brothers: they acted wickedly and voluntarily, yet God had a purpose in it. (Sovereign Redeemer Books)
Christ’s crucifixion: the Jews/Romans were guilty, yet they only accomplished what God’s purpose had determined—and Beebe insists it was not “divine influence” that made them do it. (Sovereign Redeemer Books)

What does that mean for “How does Uriah’s murder work in the plan?”

Beebe and Trott would basically say:

It “works” only in the sense that God can govern and overrule even vile sins toward his righteous ends (Trott calls these acts “links” in the chain of providence). (The Baptist Particular)
It does not “work” as a moral good, or as something God authored as sin. The sin is David’s; the ordering of history is God’s. (The Baptist Particular)
David remains fully blameworthy, and (as the biblical narrative itself shows) God’s providence does not cancel chastisement and consequences.

That’s the Old School “steel beam” they’re standing on: God’s sovereignty is total; God’s holiness is intact; man’s guilt is real; providence is not permission without purpose, but neither is it compulsion. (The Baptist Particular)

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