40 Minutes In The Old Testament - 2 Samuel 11:1-13 (Episode 269)

Episode Date: June 8, 2021

Chad and Daniel discuss the beginning of the lowest part of David's life. While his men are gone at war, David becomes idle, and watching a beautiful woman bathe starts a chain of terrible and sin-riddled events. 1517 Podcast Network Regional Event in Las Vegas 1517 YouTube Donate

Welcome to another episode of 40 Minutes in the Old Testament. 40 Minutes in the Old Testament is a 1517 Podcast Network podcast. You can go to 1517.org slash podcast. Check out all the other podcasts that are living over there. and while you're over there, make sure you hit the events page so that you can check out the event that we're doing in Las Vegas. It's October 15th and 16th. We're going to be out there with Flame and Scott Keith and Stephen Paulson and Michael Berg and Gretchen Ronovic. Eric Sorensen will be there. Chad will be there. I'll be there. It's going to be a good time. It's only $65 to

come, and that includes your lunch on Saturday. Two-day event. You can fly to Vegas from anywhere. Vegas has made sure that you can go get all the things they have to offer from anywhere. So that means you can get there and come and join us in Sin City where we're going to talk about the forgiveness of sin. So it's going to be a good time. Check it out. Also, if you haven't done this yet, you've got to check out the new podcast that Chad and I and Eric just dropped called A Field Guide to the Bible. I mean, you're listening to this podcast. Obviously, you're interested in the Bible.

A Field Guide to the Bible is a little different. We just dropped the Old Testament portion of it all at once. It's 16 episodes, and in 16 episodes, we kind of go over the whole narrative of the Old Testament. So it's for people who, you know, maybe aren't super familiar with the Bible, so they can get familiar with the Bible, but also for people who just want to revisit the grand narrative. I mean, it takes a long time to read all the way through the Old Testament, and if you listen to something like this, it will actually probably help you

as you read through the Old Testament. So it's a lot of fun to do. You can listen to the Old Testament section of it now. The New Testament portion will drop probably this fall. Search it up in iTunes or wherever you listen to podcasts, A Field Guide to the Bible. Subscribe to that. All right, Chad, we have hit 2 Samuel 11.

This is the low part of his life, is what we're going to be talking about today. Yeah, it's kind of as Genesis 3, isn't it? I mean, I sometimes think of it this way. I mean, not that, of course, he didn't have issues before. but in many ways this is kind of his uh his equivalent of genesis 3 and i was thinking we we do see this on occasion you have adam and eve they have their genesis 3 and then another major character noah you know after he uh builds the ark goes to the flood steps out into a new and purged creation what happens next well he had sort of has his own genesis 3 right with uh his

drunkenness and nakedness in his tent and his son finding him going out and telling his brothers and then the subsequent curse and now we get to David and you know up to this point in David's life it's not as if he is sinless not as if he hasn't made some mistakes we've talked about those but this is going to be his his main and uh main fall with ongoing repercussions so it is kind of his Genesis 3 moment, just in the sense that everything is going to be not minor but catastrophic after this. Yeah, I mean, David is best known for two things to the people that don't, maybe if you're not that familiar with the scriptures. David is super famous for slaying Goliath, everyone knows this, and then he's super famous or infamous for his encounter with Bathsheba and everything that

happens after that i think we sometimes can kind of ignore or skip over just maybe not realize is that this isn't just about david isn't just about david and bathsheba one of the things that we talked about in the previous episode leading up to this is all the warfare going on back in chapter 10 we talked about all those various uh skirmishes and battles and some of them david was involved in some of them he wasn't involved in uh his his general joab was out there with his brother, and they were leading an assault against the Ammonites and the Syrians and whatnot. It's important to keep in mind that all of that is in the background of this. In fact, the way it's going to start out, chapter 11, is by making reference to the fact that his armies,

under the leadership of Joab, are going to go out and they're going to make war against the Ammonites. So when we're going through this story, which does seem to be entirely focused upon this man and this woman and her husband there's a whole lot more at play here and the reason i bring that up is because the the negative ramifications which are going to come after this aren't going to affect just david or bathsheba or uriah but this is going to be in some ways a national catastrophe because one of the things that god will say to to david through Nathan is that he has given occasion for the enemies of God to blaspheme. That's one of the things that God is going to say in chapter 12. And this context, this military context, is kind of

part then of that backstory that's leading to all of this. So rather than David being with his army and doing what kings do, he's back home committing an act of evil, actually multiple acts of evil, which are then going to ripple out to have an impact, not just on his family, but as we'll see in the chapters to come, on the whole nation, because we're going to have basically a civil war that takes place, all of which arises from what we're going to cover in chapter 11. It's just, for me anyway, when I read 2 Samuel 11, this whole story, it's a reminder that it's very rare that, if it ever happens actually, that a sin is just affecting one person. Right. Most of the time it's going to affect the people around you, maybe it's your family. Sometimes a whole community is

going to be affected by this. And I mean, so if there's any story in the scriptures that you want to point to that shows the social and even national ramifications of what one man does, it's 2 Samuel 11. And in that ways, it's kind of parallel to Genesis 3 again, because all of humanity is affected by what happened back then. Enough of a preamble. Let's get into it. Verse 1 of 2 Samuel 11 starts out like this. In the spring of the year, the time when kings go out to battle, David sent Joab and his servants with him and all Israel. And they ravaged the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah, but David remained at Jerusalem. So that's kind of setting the stage, right? We know that the previous chapter had all of this military activity where David's army

was besieging the Ammonites, and so it's going to carry over now into chapter 11. And it almost gives the impression like David's the only guy, right? Like all the soldiers of Israel are out in the battlefield. They're doing the bidding of the Lord. They're trying to defeat the Ammonites, and David is flying solo. Literally, it's translated remained. The verb is yashav, which can be translated sit. So it's like the antonym of what the soldiers are doing. They're going out. They're sallying forth to engage in war. And what does David do? David sits. He remains at Jerusalem. And those words right there, but David remained at Jerusalem, is kind of the lead in into what's about to happen in the rest of the story. Yeah, I mean, it really comes down to this.

I mean, if David is not sitting at Jerusalem, this is a very different chapter. Yeah, right. It is one of those, if he hadn't been there, if he had actually been doing what, up until actually the previous chapter, he'd always done, which was to lead the army, then, yeah, none of this would have happened. So in many ways, I suppose you could make the argument that it's a failure at his vocation. So one of the reasons that Israel had kings is so that those kings could serve as the military leaders, of which, of course, David was quite capable. I mean, that's what made him famous to begin with. He was the leader of Saul's army.

He was one of the best warriors they ever had, but he's not out there. He's at the point in his reign, which I think we've talked about before, where he kind of has everything the way he wants it. You know, he's conquered most of his enemies. The Ammonites are bothering them, but he's got pretty secure borders. He's captured Jerusalem. He's got the capital city. He's already been promised back in chapter seven that God is going to establish his dynasty. So he kind of has everything the way that he wants it to be. And so he's just sitting there. He's remaining at Jerusalem. By the way, before I forget, this verb, he says he sent Joab. If you, if you look through, if you're, if you follow along in your Bible while listening to

the podcast, just do a quick read through of the whole chapter and notice how many times the verb sent is used. The Hebrew is Shanach and it occurs 11 times just in this chapter. That's one of the kind of the unifying theme of this chapter is there's a lot of sending. So David sends the Kings out to battle. He's going to send a servant to find out who this woman is that he he's bathing. She's going to send and tell David that she's pregnant. And then David is going to send a letter out to the battlefield to say, Uriah needs to come home. He's going to send Uriah back to the battlefield. So they're sending back and forth. There's an exchanging of messages, and that kind of forms a sub-theme of this entire narrative. Okay, so David's in Jerusalem. What's

going to happen? Well, it happened late one afternoon that David gets up from his couch or his bed i suppose what he was taking a siesta yeah this whole thing sounds so sluggish at this point right so just it doesn't say it happened one morning so it happened late one afternoon when david arose from his couch or his bed or whatever david really is doing nothing so like you get the impression that david's bored like he's not out there with his guys fighting he's taking afternoons and then afternoon naps and uh he's getting off his couch he's kind of walking on the roof kind of stretching out like he's got nothing going on yeah what what what is it that our grandparents would always say that's idle idleness idle hands are the devil's

workshop idle hands of the devil's workshop i don't know what yours used to say that's what mine used to say that sounds about right well i i think maybe they were maybe they were onto something so yeah david gets up a little stretch thinks you know what i'm gonna take a take a little walk so gets off his couch uh and he's walking on the roof of the king's house of course back then all the the roofs were were flat roofs and there was a lot of activity on the rooftop people would often sleep up there uh it was a place where they could store things uh you know think back to Rahab hiding the spies under the flax that was on her roof. So rooftops were pretty commonplace for people to hang out. I guess David's, you know, he's going to have a big house.

He's got the king's palace. So he's walking around the roof. And lo and behold, while he's on this roof, he sees a woman bathing. And not just a woman, but we're told that the woman was very beautiful. Now, I was curious as to whether any other woman was described with exactly these words. So I did a search of that particular Hebrew phrase and found that there is actually one woman mentioned in the rest of the scriptures who is also called very beautiful. And that is Rebecca back in Genesis 24, 16. So two women, the exact same description is used, except their stories are going to be quite different. Now, I want to get back to the bathing part in a minute. I'm going to withhold that till we get down to verse four, but keep in mind that she is, I'll say this,

she's bathing for a particular reason. She isn't just taking like her daily bath or something. There's going to be a reason for this. So she's beautiful and she's bathing. And notice even the direction is significant here so david is on his on his rooftop and he's looking he's looking down at her now where was she we're not told i don't think it really matters uh where she was she was but she was in a spot where presumably she was not able to be seen except from the rooftop so and maybe not from except for the rooftop of like the hot the highest rooftop so like maybe david's rooftop is probably a little higher uh than most rooftops i would imagine his house a little little bigger so she's probably not in a place that is super public unless you happen to

be on top of a palace yeah right right so don't don't get the impression that she is somehow being indiscreet in other words yeah when she's when she's doing this presumably this was something that every woman would have done in a particular place in their house, and at this time, of course, she doesn't expect anyone to be looking down at this time, but David does. Now, verse 3, David sent and inquired about the woman, and one said, is not this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite. One of the things that strikes me right away about this big verse, and we're going to see more of this as the rest of the chapter goes on, is that David is bringing more people into what's happening. So right now, the only two people involved in this

are David and Bathsheba. But as soon as, and of course Bathsheba is presumably unaware that David had seen her. But David now brings at least one other person into the orbit of what's about to happen. He brings somebody, maybe it was a servant, whoever it was, but he sends somebody and he finds out who this is. And not only is she known now by name and whose daughter she is, but the most important part of this is who her husband is. She is the wife of Uriah the Hittite. Uriah is a pretty fascinating character, just in and of himself. His name, even though he's a Hittite, his name is a Yahweh kind of name. Uriah means Yahweh's light, or the light of Yahweh. So he doesn't have a Hittite name. He has a Yahwistic name, we might say, a name that's

connected to Yahweh, but he is called the Hittite, so he's not a native Israelite. We don't know enough about his past to really be able to say definitively how he got connected with David, but we do know that David has known him for a long time. He's one of David's mighty men. He's going to be mentioned in other parts of the scriptures, such as 2 Samuel 23 and 1 Chronicles 11 as one of David's 37 mighty men. Now, were these guys with David way back in the wilderness when he was running from Saul? When exactly did Uriah join up with him? We don't know, but we do know that David knows Uriah. They fought together. They have a history together. And because Uriah's house is obviously close to the palace, then I don't think it's reading

too much into this to say that uriah is one of his one of his closest guys because he's able to live basically right beside the king's palace yeah and obviously uriah uh not home because he's out fighting for david i mean he's out fighting david's battles right this is so that she was home by herself uriah is out you know fighting battles for israel and david is not you know who else is not out fighting battles for israel if david just wakes up and decides that he needs to entertain himself is it's not as though david doesn't have multiple wives uh and a harem as well i mean so that maybe you know maybe maybe culturally at this point you could see him david being like hey who is that because that's kind of how things work here i mean you got

wives like multiple wives and all that kind of stuff so i don't know you should see some beautiful woman and you maybe want to know who she is okay that's weird now probably not that weird then uh but when it comes back like oh yeah that's uh uriah's wife you would think that like oh that's the end of that investigation that should have been the end of the story right there oh oh okay yeah yeah yeah yeah now i've often wondered like how do you not know that too yeah how do you not know that i mean is it just one of these situations where you're just around uriah you know you're out you're out fighting you're out doing your thing and yeah he never invites children for dinner so you don't know what his wife looks like i mean it is rather

it is a rather odd detail uh reading through this uh but whatever the reason is you know he he doesn't know who she is up until this point and that should have been the end of it right yeah Like, oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. All right. She's used your wife, your rise wife. Okay. So fine. I'll go back to my couch, turn Netflix back on, watch some more shows. I'll be done with it. Uh, but that's of course not, uh, not what happens. So verse four. So David sent messengers. There's our, uh, our verb sent again. So David sent messengers and notice now more people are involved in this. He doesn't even just send one. He sends at least two. He sends messengers and took her and she came to him and he lay with her. And then depending on which translation

you're using, I'm looking at the ESV right now. In parentheses, we have these words. Now she had been purifying herself from her uncleanness in parentheses. And then the verse concludes this way then she returned to her house now i mentioned earlier that she there was a reason why she was bathing and now we get to it so at the end of a at the end of a israelite woman's menstrual cycle then she would have engaged in a ritual bath which is part of the the old testament law and orthodox jewish women still still do this this is a ritual cleansing that marks the end of menstrual cycle. They bathe, they have this ritual bath, and then they enter into the rest of the month. Now, why is this mentioned here? Because this is the narrator's way of making sure that

we realize that when she was bathing and David saw her, she was bathing because she was purifying herself from her uncleanness, meaning, of course, she's not pregnant up until this point. So this is the narrator's way of making sure we realize that the paternity of the child can in no way be traced to uriah right she just had a menstrual cycle she's not pregnant until this happens with with david and what happened when she came to david well we're not told uh david sent the messengers they took her she came to him he lay with her then she returned to her house yeah it's The whole verse is told so briefly that it just leaves us asking questions to which we don't have the answers. Yeah, the language is even a little bit confusing as far as, you know, at first you have like, okay, you're going to send multiple messengers, and they took her.

Well, that sounds, that doesn't sound good. And then you have, then she came to David. Well, that sounds different. It's just weird how it's constructed, almost intentionally to not let you know exactly how this happens, because you have this taking, then you have this coming. If this language was just, they took her and they brought her, that might lead you to one conclusion about how this went down. But took her and she came, that just leaves it, it's just a little ambiguous exactly about what's going on here. I have to assume intentionally so. Yeah, in fact, that would actually fit with what we know from the whole rest of the story.

We'll see a number of occasions where there is a built-in ambiguity to the story. Just to give you one other example. So when Uriah returns home, did Uriah know? I mean, a lot of people knew what had happened, because more and more people are going to be kind of brought into the secret as time goes on. And so when Uriah comes back, does he know when he's talking to David? Maybe not that his wife is pregnant, but at least that David has done what he did. Well, we're not sure because his language is a little bit ambiguous as to what he knows

or what he doesn't know. Did Joab know? Because some of the language that Joab uses is highly suggestive that Joab knows. But again, we're not told explicitly. so there's a lot of there's a lot of built-in ambiguity which then prevents us from saying definitively this i'm 100 sure that this happened and that this didn't happen the ambiguity is there for a reason it's to you know get us to explore possibilities and ask questions but we don't always have a definitive answer to some of these questions and this is one of them what what

happened when Bathsheba came to David? What happened behind closed doors? Well, they obviously had sex, and she obviously got pregnant, and saying anything beyond that with definitiveness is just not going to be possible. Yeah, I think the thing that you can say definitively is that as far as, and we'll see this play out, as far as God is concerned, the opinion that matters, This is David's fault Yes, absolutely This we can say with certainty That David is the one held responsible

For whatever Went down here David is the one who's responsible For this It doesn't happen apart from him Yeah, right Every finger Of accusation is pointed

Solely at him David wasn't taking a bath and uh you know you know Bathsheba was on her roof saw him and showed up at his door that's not how this happened no no I mean he is the king right yeah he he starts this uh he is the one that has the messengers to send he is the one who has the palace to which he brings her he is the one who you know sometimes I think we get we get so wrapped up in what happens between David and Bathsheba that we forget about David and Uriah yeah because that's that's the kind of the huge part of this story so it isn't just a matter of of a man and a woman but it's this what this man

David does to this woman's husband yeah well this this is terrible but it's uh if we're if we're ranking how horrible the individual events of this story are we have not yet got to the worst thing that david will do no there's a there's a whole there's a whole series of iniquities here that we're uh that are leading up to uh what eventually will will turn into to murder so uh verse five into verse four says she returned to her house verse five says and the woman conceived and she sent there's our verb again sent and she sent and told david i am pregnant so now now somebody knows that now somebody knows that because she doesn't go to him but she sends somebody so you can see he finds out who she is that's one person involved he sends messengers

that's at least two people involved now she's sending somebody with this message telling him hey i'm pregnant somebody else is involved a lot of people are in the know this isn't and i mean people back then are no different than we are today try and keep a secret today yeah my wife likes to say as as long as two people know it's no longer a secret which is which is very true we've all experienced these things where we tell somebody and we think they're gonna keep it a secret lo and behold we find out that half a dozen people know and then a dozen and they just you know mushrooms from there well just imagine this situation you've got the king all this going on and multiple multiple servants of the palace know what's happening do you really think they're going

to keep their mouth shut? No. A lot of people are being roped into this. And it's not just a matter of them finding out what's happening, but they're being kind of forced to be involved in this terrible and becoming even more terrible situation. So she sends a message, I'm pregnant. Now, David has, I suppose you could say he has multiple options at this point, right? I mean, I guess best case scenario, he could simply confess what he did and deal with the consequences of that. There's a lot of other options that he could engage in, some better than others. But David opts to try and cover up the whole matter. So he sends, there's our word again, he sent word to Joab, his nephew, the commander of his army, saying, send me Uriah the

Hittite. So Joab sent Uriah to David. Joab's got to be wondering at this point, why the heck are you bringing one of my best warriors away from the battlefield? They've got runners that bring messages to and fro between the camps. There's kind of strains that David would send for one of his best warriors to lead the battle against the Ammonites and to come back to Jerusalem. So Joab at this point is probably scratching his head thinking, what in the world's up? Why does he need uriah and uriah himself is probably wondering the same thing yeah dude why are you why are you bringing me back from the battlefield so uriah comes to david and uh david says you know how's joab doing how are the people doing how's the war going you almost get the impression that's kind of

like uh small talk you know hey good to see you right you know what's up on the battlefield has everything going joab doing okay you know kind of give me the scoop as to what it's uh what it's looking like down there. And, uh, verse eight, then David says to Uriah, of course, all of that was just, uh, uh, an introduction to what David actually wanted to happen. So after they had this conversation, then David says to Uriah, tell you what, why don't you go down to your house and wash your feet? Now that could be taken literally. Uh, I mean, you're, you're coming from the battlefield you've been out uh you've traveled the dusty roads to come back to jerusalem and so washing feet is something that literally was done when you when you got back i mean we see

examples of that in the new testament as well where feet were washed and cleansed and sometimes anointed uh so maybe it meant that it could also be some commentators think this is a euphemism because of course as we've talked about before feet in in the bible are often a euphemism for for genitalia so was this kind of a slang way of saying hey why don't you go home and make love to your wife possibly uh either way that's what david wants him to go do that's exactly what david wants to do i mean that's the whole purpose of getting it back david wasn't interesting in finding out how the battle was going he wanted him home so uriah would go sleep with his wife and of course then he would think that this child that she is pregnant with is is his own but what does uriah do

in the verse 8 says uriah went out of the king's house and there followed him a present from the king he's like hey hold up a minute i got you some wine and cheese here whatever it was but uriah slept at the door of the king's house with all the servants of his lord and did not go down to his house yeah so one of the things that like david couldn't have picked in this scenario a worse guy to try to get to do this because uriah is one of the guys in scripture that it just comes across as absolutely legit right so he's like the third one or so that we've discovered right yeah i mean jonathan is legit uriah is legit yeah yeah so uriah you're like what's going on here what he's going to tell you what's going on but uh uriah is not the kind

of guy that is like sweet i'm getting to miss out on the battle all my brothers are out there fighting but i'm getting to hang out with the king got this present gonna go go home and you know sleep with the wife it's gonna be great uh really got lucky this time around no this is not the kind of guy that uriah is no he is a complete uh he's a man of integrity and he's uh he's a soldier more importantly he's a he's a soldier he's a warrior of integrity and he'll of course tell tell us in just a minute as to why why going to his house and washing his feet and sleeping with his wife could not happen would be impossible for him to do that so verse 10 they told david again you know what we have all of these kind of generic people involved they who's they you know

presumably the servants or that he was sleeping around there at the entrance to the house they told david now i'm assuming they told david because they knew exactly what david wanted uriah to do. Yeah, they came in and said, hey, the plan has not worked thus far. Yeah, the plan has not worked, David. So they told David, Uriah didn't go to his house. So David says to Uriah, have you not come from a journey? So why didn't you go to your house? I mean, it would be the natural thing for anybody to want to do. You've been away for a while. You have, obviously, a beautiful wife at home that you deeply care about that you love and so it seems unnatural for you not to go to your house and keep in mind where is his house like right beside the palace yeah so i'm assuming

that uriah's house that he refuses to go to is what a hundred yards away yeah i mean the most two three hundred yards away so this is like he is right around the corner from his house from his wife from all the comforts of home and the pleasure of sex and he refuses to go there yeah he kind of tells david in a nice way that david has gotten soft and forgotten what it means to be a warrior that's exactly right so yeah verse 11 this is where i love verse 11 because this is this ambiguity i was talking about so everything that uriah says to david in verse 11 is an indictment of David. And it also could be an accusation against David if Uriah has heard whispering around the palace as to what has transpired while he was out fighting the king's

battles. So here's what Uriah says to David. The ark and Israel and Judah dwell in booths in Sukkot in Hebrew, which is like temporary shelters, basically. So the ark and all these Israelites. What are they doing? Well, they're in these temporary shelters. They're in these booths. And my Lord Joab and the servants of my Lord are camping in the open field. Shall I then go to my house to eat and to drink and to lie with my wife? As you live and as your soul lives, I will not do this thing. Yeah, this dude is like, you ever met you ever met people that uh they have like a certain ethic and maybe that ethic's like a little bit weird like there's just like something where you're like that doesn't seem

like a big deal but for them it's like i don't know if i did like this would damage who i am if i did this thing it's like a line i will never cross and this line seems like a line that's not even shouldn't even be a line right we're like what like that like that's you could no one's getting hurt if you do that like that's not that's not like a this is not a thing uh but they're just that's the kind of guy uriah is he's like oh no no like this is i would i would never do this yeah well you know the odd thing that's kind of in the background here is that ordinarily israelite warriors were supposed to be sexually chased uh when they were out on the battlefield In fact, earlier, David refers to the fact that, you know, the young men who were with him.

I think this is the whole episode where they were wanting the young to eat the bread of the presence at the tabernacle. He's like, the young men who are with me have not been with a woman. In other words, they've been sexually pure chased while they're out in the battlefield. So this is kind of a soldier's ethic if you're living in Israel. And keep in mind, David should have known this. now maybe there were exceptions if you know you kind of had a you were given leave if you were if you will and you came home uh but but uriah is not going to not going there but the reason this is an indictment against david of course is because this is exactly the opposite of what

david is doing so the ark israel judah joab all the servants of the lord are camping in the open field are dwelling in temporary shelters and where's david he's you know he's sleeping in He's on the couch, taking a nap, getting off his couch, walking on the roof, looking at naked women, engaging in everything that we've been talking about. And he says, shall I then eat and drink and lie with my wife? Which, of course, is exactly, maybe not the eating and drinking, but the lying with his wife, of course, is exactly what David has just done. So David is not giving up. He's going to try one more thing. Verse 12.

David says to Uriah, remain here today also and tomorrow i'll send you back so david remained in jerusalem that day and the next so he's been here what three days so far yeah and uh david's gonna take one last stab at this verse 13 says that he invites uriah in and he ate in his presence and he drank in fact he drank so much that he made him drunk yeah so david is like just the the he just pouring the wine in this guy's cup and telling him to keep drinking. Yeah, yeah, let me get you another beer.

Oh, let me get you another beer. He's thinking, of course, we all realize that overconsumption of alcohol and sexual activity are often related. We see that in the scriptures themselves, right? That still plays out today.

Well, Uriah's got this hard line that he won't cross and David's like, what I need you to do is to not be thinking about that line. I need you, I'm going to have to take that iron constitution of yours and soften it and weaken it with something. And so alcohol seems like the best way to do that.

Yeah. I need you to forget about that thing. I want you to forget about this being a line you won't cross and you just sort of stumble down, stumble into your house and do whatever. Yeah, yeah. I mean, logically, objectively, it sounds like it's a pretty good tactic, right? You know, but it doesn't work. He gets him drunk in the evening. Uriah goes out to lie on his couch with the servants of his Lord, but he did not go down to his house. So at this point, David is,

he's not out of options, but he's out of options with regard to getting Uriah to do his bidding while he's back in Jerusalem. So David, we'll talk about this next time, David is going to take a fatal step in sending Uriah home with a particular message in his pocket. But you know what, of course we're leaving it off here,

but one of the fascinating aspects of this story for me is to see where David had been in his life, all the stuff we've been talking about for months now, leading up to now where where he is and uh we've mentioned several times how david sort of always got what he wanted right everybody loved david he was always getting what he wanted uh which in some ways is great and then also in some ways is also terrible because sometimes when you get what you

want it is the worst possible thing that you that you could have and that's precisely where david is at this stage yeah and uh it does seem that every every once in a while you know david runs into david does has this move where he won't uh he won't touch saul because well that's just a line that he won't cross and he's like i can't kill saul that's a line i won't cross uh he has run into somebody with uh with similar lines that he will not cross it's really it is really hurting david's ability to get himself out of a situation that he has gotten himself into it's wild that david is now has met someone who is more virtuous than him the only thing that's left to do about it is something extremely terrible david's a weird figure a guy that won't kill saw who's hunting

him down trying to kill him but will be responsible for the death of uriah because he can't convince him to do something, uh, that he refuses to do. So it does seem like the decline of David in that way, uh, the, the sort of softening of David and David getting too comfortable happened kind of quick. Yeah. Yeah, it did. I mean, in the, in the big story, it did, it did happen. It did happen pretty quickly. Um, and then, you know, the, the fallout from this will happen over, over a period of time but uh well we'll we'll get to we'll get to that eventually hate to leave the story kind of the middle but this is one of those stories that you can't just simply rush through yes uh you have to have to take your time so we will get to the end of the story we will get to

nathan's confrontation of david david's confession all of that is is coming up but uh we're just gonna keep on kind of crawling through this particular story because there's there's too much here to uh to rush through yep and uh the crazy the craziest part is that god is actually going to use this all of this mess to also bring about his promise so we're gonna we're gonna see that that even even in something as disastrous and gross and terrible as this god is still uh going to do something so we'll get to that as well but god wait uh till next week or the week after that, or however long it takes to get through this particular narrative in David's life. So, Chad, I'll see you next week. All right. See you then.