BATH-SHEBA
II SAM. 11:3 12:24 I KINGS 1:11, 15, 16, 28, 31 2:13, 18, 19 I CHRON. 3:5 |
Wife of Uriah, one of David’s faithful generals. David, desiring her for his own, orders that she be brought to him. Child is born of this adulterous union; dies after Bath-sheba’s husband is ordered into front of battle by David and killed. David then takes Bath-sheba for his wife. Four sons, including Solomon, are born to them. She intercedes for her son’s succession to throne. |
MOTHER OF SOLOMON
COMMENTATORS differ in their opinions about Bath-sheba. Some, like Frank S. Mead in his Who’s Who in the Bible, describe her character as a “dirty, apologetic gray.” Others, especially the older commentators, depict her as a woman more “sinned against than sinning.”
Regardless of these conflicting opinions, several much quoted verses in the Bible center around her life. It was after the death of the child of their adulterous union that David spoke the often quoted funeral text, “I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me” (II Sam. 12:23). Nathan, the prophet, immediately denounced David in a parable, pressing home his accusation with the words “Thou art the man” (II Sam. 12:1-7). The historical note introducing the 51st Psalm calls this David’s prayer for remission of sins after Nathan had denounced him for his sin with Bath-sheba. Clearly we hear his words ring out: “Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me” (Ps. 51:2-3).
Jewish tradition has it that Bath-sheba recited the 31st Proverb on chastity, temperance, and the qualities of a good wife, to her son Solomon at his first marriage. Some sources, especially the Jewish again, point out that this might have been written by Solomon in memory of his mother. Other sources take the view that the Book of Proverbs probably comes from the post-Exilic period about five centuries later than the Solomonic era of 960-922 B.C.
With all of this material to assist us in addition to that which presents itself in the opening of her Bible biography (II Sam. 11:2), we can search deeply into the character of Bath-sheba. Her husband Uriah, one of King David’s most trusted generals, was fighting the Ammonitish war. It is probable that Bath-sheba was a bride. We know she was “very beautiful to look upon” (II Sam. 11:2). We also know she came from a God-fearing family, for her father’s name was Eliam (Ammiel), which in Hebrew means “God is gracious.”
The setting of the opening scene of her story, the roof-top of Bath-sheba’s home, and the time, eventide, suggest a romantic novel. Bath-sheba was bathing, as was the custom in this era of about ten centuries before Christ, on the roof of her Jerusalem home. David’s new palace on the eastern ridge commanded a view of her house. He had gone out on his roof-top for a walk in the cool night air, always more refreshing on a Jerusalem evening than the air inside closed walls.
As King David promenaded on his palace roof, he saw the woman washing herself. Artists have pictured Bath-sheba as having luxuriant golden tresses that fell over shapely shoulders, also as having exquisite features and skin. Probably King David had become accustomed to indulging his fancy freely in the matter of attractive women and he was immediately attracted to Bath-sheba.
Following this opening scene, we have the frank statement of fact, “David sent messengers, and took her; and she came in unto him, and he lay with her; for she was purified from her uncleanness: and she returned unto her house” (II Sam. 11:4). According to the laws, Bath-sheba could not have resisted had she desired, for a woman in these ancient times was completely subject to a king’s will. If he desired her, he could have her. Consequently her part in the story is neither praiseworthy nor blameworthy. Even Sarah, some centuries before, because of her beauty had been taken into the harems of two kings, Abimelech and Pharaoh.
The Bible narrators give us no indication of Bath-sheba’s thoughts or feelings in the matter. “I am with child” (II Sam. 11:5) was the message she sent to David; and she left him to deal with the situation.
In order to avoid a court scandal, he acted quickly and treacherously toward Bath-sheba’s husband Uriah, a man valiant and strong. First King David called Uriah to Jerusalem and insisted that he go down to his wife, but Uriah slept in his barracks with his men. Still the conscience-stricken David, eager to throw the burden on Bath-sheba’s husband, tried a second time to prevail upon Uriah to go to his wife. But the conscientious, deeply consecrated soldier told David that the ark and Israel and Judah abided in tents and that his commander-in-chief, Joab, and David’s servants were encamped in the open field. Probably Bath-sheba’s husband had respect for the law which forbade intercourse to warriors who had been consecrated for battle (I Sam. 21:4). Another time David sought a way out of his predicament by making Uriah drunk, but still he would not go down to his wife. Finally, David ordered what practically amounted to Uriah’s murder. He treacherously wrote out the order that Bath-sheba’s husband be placed in the forefront of the hottest battle. And Uriah, listed as one of the “mighty men,” died in battle at David’s order.
The crime was David’s, but what about the penalty for the crime? Was that not Bath-sheba’s? “She mourned for her husband” (II Sam. 11:26), we are told. Her grief may have been routine. Again, her grief may have been more poignant because of her own transgressions, for she was already with child, David’s child.
Though we have no other expression of her feelings, we do have a vivid record of how David felt after he had gone in to Bath-sheba. We can almost hear him cry out, as he prays for the remission of his sins, “Hide thy face from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me” (Ps. 51:9-10). When their child, born out of wedlock, died, David spoke his famous lament mentioned above: “I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me.”
II Samuel 11:27 tells how, when the mourning was passed, David brought Bath-sheba to his palace and made her his wife. She bore him a son, Solomon, whose name means “the peaceful,” an indication that he was probably born after David’s wars had ended. In addition to Solomon, Bath-sheba had three other sons by David, Shimea, Shobab, and Nathan, but it is as the mother of Solomon that she takes her honored place among the famous women of the Bible. In the genealogy of Jesus (Matt. 1:6), she is mentioned as the former wife of Uriah and mother of Solomon by David.
Once introduced into the palace, Bath-sheba quickly gained a commanding influence at court. During the years of Solomon’s youth there is no record of her. But when King David was old and dying, she carried out the most important mission of her life. She intervened to have her son Solomon succeed his father as king of Israel. The Abingdon Bible Commentary refers to this visit as “guileful intervention” on Bath-sheba’s part. On the other hand, the same commentary grants that she must have been a “remarkable” woman. “She was David’s favorite wife,” continues this account, “who kept her ascendancy over him long after her youthful charms had vanished.”
Evidently Bath-sheba became a strong force in the court party that wanted to make her son, Solomon, king at the time when Adonijah, David’s son by Haggith, was plotting to become king. Absalom, David’s third son by Maacah, had been killed by General Joab who shot three darts at him while his hair entangled him in a tree. The fact that the prophet Nathan, who had once denounced David, now conspired with Bath-sheba to have Solomon made king seems to be evidence enough that she had won great respect.
Bath-sheba’s plea before the aged King David for their son Solomon, running through I Kings 1:17-21, shows wisdom, finesse, courtesy, and vision. Touched by Bath-sheba’s entreaty for their son, King David said to her, “As the Lord liveth, that hath redeemed my soul out of all distress,…assuredly Solomon thy son shall reign after me, and he shall sit upon my throne in my stead” (I Kings 1:29, 30). Soon their son was on his way, riding on David’s own mule to Gihon Spring in the valley below Jerusalem to be anointed king over Israel by Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet.
Only an intelligent, respected woman, in whom the aged king had great confidence, could have won so great a victory. Only a righteous woman, it would seem, could have been sought out by the prophet Nathan. And only a much loved mother could have been so warmly greeted as was Bath-sheba when she went to her son after he became king. When she came before him, he accorded her the place of honor as queen mother on his right side, a place of power and authority.
Because of her influence with her son, Adonijah later appealed to her for Abishag, King David’s young concubine. Bath-sheba went to the king with Adonijah’s request. Not knowing what his mother’s request would be, King Solomon said, “Ask on, my mother: for I will not say thee nay” (I Kings 2:20). He did say nay, however, and even ordered Adonijah’s death, for he was wiser than his mother and knew that it was an ancient Semitic custom that the man who inherited the women of the dead king was his successor. Though Bath-sheba failed in her petition, she demonstrated that she was a kind woman, one to whom her son, now holding the scepter, turned with pleasure and with honor.
We know that the stormy scenes of her young womanhood had all passed. Though she had lost the child born of adultery, it had been her pleasure to educate for the kingdom another son, to see him anointed king, and then to sit by him when he began to rule.
Not only is Bath-sheba mentioned in I Chronicles 3:5 under the name of Bath-shua, the mother of four of David’s sons, but she is accorded in Matthew 1:6 a special place in the genealogy of Jesus. Though there is a question about whether the Book of Proverbs was written by her son, it bears a striking relationship to her life, opening as it does with many dark pictures of a woman as man’s seductress, but closing happily with the picture of the ideal woman who is a trusted companion and devoted mother.
Bath-sheba lives on, even today some twenty-nine centuries later, as the honored and serene mother of Israel’s wisest king, as a wife possessing a noble calmness and gentle dignity, and as a woman of queenly carriage as well as one who was “very beautiful to look upon.”
TWO MOTHERS of SOLOMON’S TIME
I KINGS 3:16-28 |
A child is born to each of two harlots dwelling in same house. One child dies in night when mother overlays it; she claims living child. They appeal to Solomon, who shows great wisdom in settling the argument. |
“GIVE HER THE LIVING CHILD”
AFTER King Solomon had stood before the Ark of the Covenant at Jerusalem and had had a great feast for all his servants, there came before him two strange women. They were harlots, who dwelt in the same house. King Solomon, who presided over Israel with pomp and power, received these women as would a judge presiding over a court of justice.
Each had given birth to a son. One child had been born three days before the other. Like most infants of such a tender age, they looked much alike. The mothers probably appeared before Solomon dressed in the simple apparel of women of the servant class.
Quite in keeping with maternal love the real mother rushed excitedly before King Solomon and spoke in this manner: “And it came to pass the third day after that I was delivered, that this woman was delivered also: and we were together; there was no stranger with us in the house, save we two in the house” (I Kings 3:18).
Lowering her voice, she said poignantly, “And this woman’s child died in the night; because she overlaid it” (I Kings 3:19). Excitement returning, she hastened to add, “And she arose at midnight, and took my son from beside me, while thine handmaid slept, and laid it in her bosom, and laid her dead child in my bosom” (I Kings 3:20).
We can almost hear the anxious voice of this mother speaking and we can easily visualize the eager expression that came across her face as she continued her story: “And when I rose in the morning to give my child suck, behold, it was dead: but when I had considered it in the morning, behold, it was not my son, which I did bear” (I Kings 3:21).
These touching words bespoke a real mother’s love. Her instinct told her that the dead child was not her own. But now the other harlot interrupted the conversation to tell King Solomon her version of the story. “Nay; but the living is my son,” she shouted, “and the dead is thy son” (I Kings 3:22).
King Solomon stood looking on, probably recalling that only a short time before he had asked God to give him an understanding heart to discern between good and bad (I Kings 3:9). And he did not forget that God had promised such spiritual discernment. Now with two harlots claiming the living baby, he needed it.
What fright must have come into the heart of the real mother. What boldness was yet there in the heart of the mother whose child was dead because she had overlaid it in the night.
A less wise person might have dismissed the case for want of real evidence, but Solomon, in his wisdom, devised a clever trick. He commanded an attendant to bring him a sword, and he held the sword in his hand. Surely there must have come across the face of the real mother an expression of fear and anxiety. Though she knew not what Solomon intended to do, as she watched him brandish the sword she must have thought of her child with even greater tenderness. Then she heard these fatal words from King Solomon’s lips: “Divide the living child in two, and give half to the one, and half to the other” (I Kings 3:25). The real mother hastened to say, “O my lord, give her the living child, and in no wise slay it.” But the other said, “Let it be neither mine nor thine, but divide it” (I Kings 3:26).
King Solomon now knew which was the real mother. The two mothers, by their very words, had revealed their identity.
We can imagine how grateful the real mother was as she reached for her child and held it again in her arms. We can see her tears turning to smiles, and know that the heaviness that had enveloped her heart was now replaced by joy.
The fame of King Solomon’s wisdom, because of the verdict he had rendered in the case of the two mothers, now spread over Israel. Though the story is short, requiring only fourteen Bible verses for the narration, it has become the most frequently quoted example of Solomon’s judicious judgment, and one of the Bible’s most stirring examples of mother love put to a trying test.