The Story We Know

It was her time of purification. Her monthly rite of remaining in right relationship with her God and her community. Bathsheba entered the waters unaware his prying eyes could see her from his vantage point on his roof. A roof that was supposed to be empty, as the owner was supposed to be off fighting the war he started. He was supposed to be off fighting beside her husband and her father: his sword in hand, eyes scanning the battlefield, instead of here, like this.

Bathsheba later learned that he hadn’t even recognized her, seeing only her curves from a distance, an object he wanted to possess. He did not see the woman. He did not see the granddaughter of his most trusted adviser, daughter of his longtime officer, wife of his loyal comrade in arms. When he called for her, Bathsheba had no power to refuse. This was no romance. There was no real consent. This was not adultery. After, she was discarded: sent back to her home, defiled.

When Bathsheba realized that she was with child, what did she want from him? For him to see what his lust had wrought? For him to send for Uriah, her husband? For him to confess his sin before God and the people? For him to beg forgiveness? To pay for an abortionist? To pray for a miscarriage? Did she even know what she wanted?

How did Bathsheba find the strength to return to that palace? How did she gain entry? How many ears had to carry her shame, no his shame, before word reached the king? A guard who told a servant, who told a functionary, who told an attendant? How did Bathsheba return home, being denied entrance, hoping her words reached his royal ears? Royal eyes that did not look on her again until after her husband was murdered.

From Her Silence

How often do we hear this story without his name ever being invoked? How often do we encounter this story and only hear Bathsheba’s?

Commentators tend to focus on him. For example, one explains how “David’s world is transformed” by this episode with Bathsheba (The New Interpreter’s Bible Commentary, 560). HIS world is transformed?! At least this is better than the many (many) commentaries that seek to blame Bathsheba, in part or in full, usually by asking accusatory questions:

• Why was she bathing naked on the roof?

  • First of all, normal people tend to bathe naked, moron. Second, it doesn’t say Bathsheba was on a roof, it says he could see her from his roof. The text is focused on his vaulted vantage point, not her location. So run through the lyrics of “Crash” by DMB and adjust your patriarchal reading of the text.

• Why did she go when he called? She should have stayed home like a good girl.

  • One, she’s a woman, not a girl. Two, when the king summons you, you appear regardless of your gender. Period. End of discussion. Third, the text gives us no indication that she had any knowledge of why she was being summoned. Her grandfather, father, and husband all work for the king. Did it ever cross you mind that she thought she was about to find out one or all of them were dead?
    

• She was asking for it. Probably flirted with him in the past. If she didn’t want him, she could have said no, and…

  • A: Did your parents have any children that lived? B: Don’t breed. C. Stop breathing.

People who blame Bathsheba conveniently forget that both Nathan and God condemned David, not Bathsheba. That in the prophet’s parable, Bathsheba is cast as the little lamb taken, killed, and devoured by an unfit, unjust rich man. A lamb that was loved like a daughter and prized above all else.

The ramblings of victim-blaming idiots is allowed to continue largely because we hear so little from Bathsheba’s own lips. Her only words in 2 Samuel are her pregnancy announcement. Her textual silence is frustrating, but common in the Bible. We’re not allowed to access the inner-life and emotion of a woman in the narrative, even though she is the center of the action. There is so much that we do not know.

But, for a moment, attempt to place yourself in Bathsheba’s shoes, or remember when you wore them:

• When he called her, what was she thinking on the way to the palace? That she had been widowed or orphaned, that her husband or father lay dead on the battlefield?

• What did she think when she realizes his intent, what did she say? How similar were her words to those his own daughter would utter a few years later?

• That night, as she washes him off of her, out of her (vs 4), does she think of the purification of that morning (vs 1), how her holiness did not protect her from his evil?

• What did she think when

  • When she realizes she is pregnant by her rapist…

  • When Uriah suddenly returns home, but will not have sex with her (Does he know? Does he blame me?) …

  • When news of Uriah’s death arrives at her heart…

  • When she is summoned to the palace by him a second time…

  • When, pregnant and alone, she is given room with the other wives/concubines with whom she has no relationships…

  • When her child dies…

  • The other nights he comes in her chambers… 

  • When she must bear other children for him…

Her Peace and Wholeness

When the Bible talks about the sin in this story, Bathsheba is almost never referenced. The sin is spoken of as being against God, against Uriah, against Eliam household, even as against the child Bathsheba lost. All those male figures are regularly discussed as victims of his actions, but for centuries some have not only not seen Bathsheba’s suffering, or heard her voice, but have gone to length to blame her for his actions (she was on her roof to seduce him, she wanted to get pregnant, she was gold-digging, she had it coming…).

So it is instructive that the story does not end with Bathsheba’s nakedness, her rape, or her being brought into his house.

Bathsheba has other children, one of them, against all odds, grows up to be king. This young man was especially loved. The prophet Nathan had a special place in his heart for him, giving him the divine-including name “Jedidiah,” “loved by YHWH.”

Bathsheba named him Solomon.

As with most things Hebrew, Solomon’s name can be translated a number of ways when its root shalom (“peace,” ”completeness,” “wholeness,” “recompense”) is taken into consideration.

Most scholars agree that his name means “his replacement” or “God made good the/his loss.” An appropriate name given all various deaths which preceded his birth. The argument arises over which “him” is being referenced: Bathsheba’s dead child or Uriah?

However, we would like to pose a different candidate:

Bathsheba. God made good HER loss.

Chapter 1 of The First Book of Kings explains how Bathsheba (and Solomon) rose to power. As Bathsheba’s time in the Bible comes to a close, the one who raped her, and ordered the death of her husband, is an shivering, enfeebled, flaccid old man. His time ruling the land is coming to a swift, uneventful close.

One of his sons, Adonijah— the handsome, winsome, younger brother of Absalom and Tamar— is jockeying for support to succeed his father as king. While Joab (the head of the military) and Abiathar (the Aaronide high priest) have thrown their weight behind Adonijah, Benaiah (the commander of David’s foreign mercenaries and personal bodyguards), Zadok (the Musite/Levite high priest), and Nathan the prophet do not support him. In addition, other prominent members of the kingdom’s aristocracy are not on board, as well as large swaths of David’s own men. A possible civil war looms on the horizon.

Once again Nathan inserts himself into the situation, this time, speaking to Bathsheba:

Then Nathan said to Bathsheba, Solomon’s mother, “Have you not heard that Adonijah son of Haggith has become king and our lord David does not know it? Now therefore come, let me give you advice, so that you may save your own life and the life of your son Solomon. Go in at once to King David, and say to him, ‘Did you not, my lord the king, swear to your servant, saying: Your son Solomon shall succeed me as king, and he shall sit on my throne? Why then is Adonijah king?’ Then while you are still there speaking with the king, I will come in after you and confirm your words.” ~ 1 Kings 1:13-14

Nathan tells Bathsheba to ask David a question, to lead his addled mind toward a conclusion. However, when Bathsheba enters his private chamber, she confronts him with a statement of “fact” (1 Kings 1:17), which he believes. The rest of the chapter details how this plan was put into action, and the subsequent crowning of Solomon as king. In short, Nathan and Bathsheba conspire for Solomon against Adonijah and David.

Many a Christian and Jew try to fight against the notion that a prophet of the LORD lied to a possibly senile old man, regardless of the fact the Bible records prophets doing shady things (c.f. 1 Kings 13 & Ezekiel 14:9-11). And in this case, the silence of the text is what tells us that this is exactly what’s happening. If this promise was really made by the king:

• Nathan would not need to remind Bathsheba about it

• Solomon would already be acting on it

• The text would call Adonijah and his followers traitors

• Adonijah would have made killing Solomon a priority while making a claim on the throne,

  and

• There is no such promise recorded anywhere in the Bible. Not in 2 Samuel. Not in I Kings. Not in 1 or 2 Chronicles. Not anywhere.

What are we saying?

David got played by Bathsheba.

Period.

At the end of her tale, Bathsheba stands tall and in regal power.

The one who raped her is dead (1 Kings 2:10).

The one who sent Uriah into a trap is dead (1 Kings 2:5-6).

Her first born child is at peace with the LORD (2 Samuel 12:23)

Her living son is king of the United Kingdom (1 Kings 1:39), making her queen mother of all Israel. She has outlived and out-maneuvered all those who hurt her, or could harm her child.

Once naked, objectified in his male gaze, now 

She is clothed with strength and dignity,

and she laughs without fear of the future. 

(Proverbs 31:25, New Living Translation)

Get it girl.

But what do we know”: we made this game and you probably think we’re going to Hell.