Abuse of Power (2 Samuel 11:1-5)
Read 📖
Today’s reading is 2 Samuel 11:1-5
So David sent messengers and took her…
2 Samuel 11:4a
Reflect ❤️
This passage is a shocking narrative of David’s sin, but it is so well known that we may have become less shocked by it. We have seen David’s God-given, humble rise to power, and now we see this staggering fall. We see here that, instead of using his power to protect his people, he uses it to abuse them.
David seems to use his power for an easy life. Verse 1 starts by making it clear that David is not where he should be. This isn’t the first time; in the previous chapter, David is also absent for the first battle against the Ammonites. And now, again, David hasn’t gone to battle. Why is this? While others are risking their lives to protect God’s people, David is ‘killing time’, having a nap and wandering around on the rooftop.
What happens next serves as a stark warning to us when we are idly neglecting our duty or avoiding God’s calling, and shows how easily it can lead us into tempting situations and devastating sin.
David’s glance turns into a gaze, and he uses his power to get whatever he wants when he “saw” and “took” Bathsheba. This is a theme throughout the Old Testament, where people’s sin involves ‘seeing and taking’, repeating Eve’s fall, where she “saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes” and “took of its fruit and ate” (Genesis 3:6). This situation also fulfils the warning that Samuel gave the people when they decided they wanted a king, about kings being ‘takers’ (1 Samuel 8:11–18). We see a man engrossed in self-centred pursuit, and the author emphasises this through the use of these verbs, by mostly calling Bathsheba “the woman” and by neglecting her perspective. When David enquired and found out who she was, this should have been enough to stop him. But power has gone to his head, and any care for anything else—her, her husband, his people, God’s law, marriage, and his duty as king—all falls by the wayside as he selfishly follows his lust.
This brazen ‘taking’ and using of Bathsheba should shock and disturb us; how is it that God’s anointed king, “a man after God’s own heart” (1 Samuel 13:14), could act in this way?
It would be easy to stand at a distance from this story in judgement. We may think, “another story of a powerful man doing whatever he wants at the expense of others,” and, “I would never do such a terrible thing.” But let us read this story and humbly heed its warnings ourselves. Are there people whom you are not treating with the dignity that God has given them? In the car, on a sales call, at work or in the home? Are there situations where you are neglecting God’s ways and doing whatever you want, or whatever is easiest for you? Let us repent and ask for the Holy Spirit’s power to act righteously with our power and with the people in our lives.
David may have thought that he was so powerful that he could avoid the consequences of his sin. But the passage ends and we see that David is going to have to face the consequences and decide what he will do about Bathsheba next.
Pray 🙏
Are there any areas of our lives where we are neglecting our duty or God’s calling, and can easily fall into temptation?
What power do we have in our life, and how are we using it - for the benefit of others, or ourselves?
Let us repent of our sin, knowing that “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).
Our Father, forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For yours is the kingdom, now and forever, Amen.