Bathsheba
is known only as a bathing beauty, as the voluptuous partner in King David’s famously tragic tryst. Like many silent women in the Bible, however, we have to work to recover her story (2 Samuel 11 & 12).
The king is strolling on his roof when he sees her, bathing. But this isn’t likely our modern notion of fully-naked-in-a-tub. It’s a ritual cleansing after her menstrual period, so we first meet Bathsheba as a devout Jew, keeping the prescriptions of Torah. The king sends his minions, who bring the married woman to him. By law, she cannot resist; a woman in this age was completely subject to the king’s will.
David “took her,” then took her to bed, then sent her home, where, again, she cleansed herself according to Leviticus 15. In a little while Bathsheba had to send word to the king. “I am pregnant,” the only three words (two in Hebrew) we hear from her.
You likely know the rest of the scandalous tale. David finds a clever way to kill her husband, Uriah. The baby is born. Seven days later, it dies. And so Bathsheba must bury first her husband and then her baby.
We might expect that Bathsheba would shrink into David’s harem and live out her days in shame. Instead, she and King David become a powerful royal and political force. As queen mother, she bears a son who lives, who becomes the future King Solomon. And at his coronation, Solomon sets up a seat for his mother at his right hand.
Sometimes our stories seem to go off script. Things happen beyond our control. People betray us. Too much grief, too much shame, too much false guilt. With faith, we can lift up our heads, offer our lives for God and the good and, like Bathsheba, go on living a remarkable life.
COMPANIONS ON THE WAY
Introduction
Stories of Turning
Week One
Stories of Wild Places
Week Two
Stories of Dogged Faith
Week Three
Stories of Mercy & Forgiveness
Week Four
Stories of Simplicity & Joy
Week Five
Stories of Prayer & Surrender
Week Six
Stories of Transforming Love
There was a lot about Bathsheba that I did not know. But I had made a lot of assumptions about her.
To your point, I also make assumptions about what will happen when things go “off script”, or that they will stay on script. Thank you for helping me to be mindful of my assumptions, so I can choose to have focus on God and Open ended faith.
Well, as to the ‘off script,’ I think we finally realize that the whole notion of the ‘script’ is false—you sort of have to make one for your life. If you don’t, you end up with no job, no roof over your head, no one to share your life with. So you have to live out the storyline you’ve been taught is yours. And it’s indispensable . . .until it veers off course and drags you into stuff you weren’t supposed to go through. That’s when you hope you can sense what’s happening and let go. Maybe just a bit.
In matters of sex, it’s the woman who’s nearly always to blame, so when I hear the name Bathsheba, I immediately think temptress. Thank you for this enlightening perspective and for setting Bathsheba up as one of the Bible’s great heros.
Yes, Bathsheba is one of those cardboard characters who isn’t that at all.