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December 10

2 Samuel 11:2-5 

² One evening David got up from his bed and walked around on the roof of the palace. From the roof he saw a woman bathing. The woman was very beautiful, ³ and David sent someone to find out about her. The man said, “She is Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah the Hittite.” ⁴ Then David sent messengers to get her. She came to him, and he slept with her. (Now she was purifying herself from her monthly uncleanness.) Then she went back home. ⁵ The woman conceived and sent word to David, saying, “I am pregnant.”

Bathsheba often gets a reputation as an immoral woman,  but in truth,  she was a woman with few choices.  The wife and daughter of powerful men in David’s court,  neither of them or anyone else was around to provide protection when she caught David’s eye and he seduced her.  She didn’t have the right to say “No”.  Who would have said “No”. to the king in those days?  

The consequences of David’s actions were to reverberate in so many ways.  David caused her husband Uriah to be killed, leaving her widowed and pregnant.  He then married her himself and bore a son Solomon,  who proved to be more honourable and wise than his father when the time came.  Solomon,  born to Bathsheba, was legitimised as from the line of the House of David and a great grandfather many times over of Jesus.

It wasn’t a good situation for Bathsheba to find herself in.  It is tempting to think that it is a story confined to the history books,  but sadly still today there are women who are powerless,  under the influence of powerful men,  totally dependent on those who rule their lives and make their decisions for them.  For many,  the inability to make their own choices leads to lifelong regrets and emotional scars.  In this tale,  perhaps we can glimpse the truth that even from the darkest situations,  good can come.