2 Samuel 11:2-5: 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, "Isn't this 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. (She had purified herself from her uncleanness.) Then she went back home. 5 The woman conceived and sent word to David, saying, "I am pregnant."
How many times have we heard this story? Not necessarily this specific story from Scripture, but the story of power, seduction, and violence. This story could read from a Hollywood movie script.
Recently though I have been studying this story again, simply because it seems that a few points have been overlooked, not in understanding the implications of David's adulterous act, but in the set paradigm of power in relation to the king and one of his civilian subjects. The eventual outcome of violence later in the story in relation to the woman's husband Uriah, the Hittite seem to really be an extension of the initial violent act against this innocent woman committed by a man given the incredible responsibility of actually building trust in a community committed to the faithful act of being Yhwh's covenant people. I wish that more could be said about the inter communication between David and Bathsheba. Verse 4 says that, "David sent messengers to get her. She came to him, and he slept with her." So, a woman living by herself as her husband, a soldier in the king's army is in battle is brought into the king's palace. Was she nervous? Was she apprehensive? Was she thinking that she must impress the king to keep her husband safe?
From an outside perspective, I have to ask, "Did she even have a choice in the matter?" Now I do not assume to place my modern worldview of the 'autonomous individual' into the story, simply because the people in this story did not think in those terms. And the fact that the idea of the 'autonomous individual' is deeply flawed anyway, because even in our modern world, we continuously have to understand the dynamics of how power is utilized in relation to each other. In this story, we seem to have focused primarily on the fact that the king slept with Bathsheba, (committing the act of adultery) but we do not view this act as a situation of an extreme power imbalance between two parties. This act was probably not a consensual act, but an act of manipulative power, utilized by the king, especially since in Bathsheba's mind, she understood her husband as being a soldier under David's regime. I can imagine the feelings of powerlessness as she consented this act by the king, possibly with the tacit threat to her husband's life. The threat may have been greater than tacit, it could have been formal, i.e. David could have stated that her husband's well being depended on her consent. I would be quick to believe that this interpretation would be possibly correct, since the eventual outcome of this act was the subsequent killing of her husband. The very lie told to Bathsheba to gain her consent was eventually actualized in this story to cover the fact that this facade would be exposed. But this story is not surprising in the least given the institutionalization of power through the monarchy and the explicit violence associated with war.
David's act of violence against Bathsheba is simply an extension of an institution which needed violence to perform the duties of preserving its position. Previously in 1 Samuel 8 when the leaders came together and petitioned to have king other than Yhwh lead them, one of the stipulations of the monarchy would be war with other nations, and the exploitation of human beings. The institutionalization of power needs a presentation of an image in order to sustain itself. Therefore, people would be utilized for the purpose of creating an image which creates a facade of impenetrability.
Now, I am of course taking certain liberties with the text, since the story does not unpack any of what I have interpreted above, but I believe that the implications of David and Bathsheba's relationship is not only demonstrated in the eventual killing of her husband, but the violent acts committed later in the story by David's children.
1 comment:
Excellent post, Paul. Your perspective is eye- opening and helps reveal what Bathsheba may have thought was the "right" thing to do at the time in order to save the life of her husband. I could only imagine how frightening that must have been to have that much power staring her in the face in a situation like that.
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