Alastair's Adversaria - Did David Rape Bathsheba?

Episode Date: December 19, 2024

Within this podcast, I mention the following article: Ezra Sivan, 'The King’s Great Cover-Up and Great Confession': https://thelehrhaus.com/scholarship/the-kings-great-cover-up-and-great-confession/ James Jordan, 'Bathsheba: The Real Story': https://www.biblicalhorizons.com/biblical-horizons/no-93-bathsheba-the-real-story/ Alastair Roberts, 'The Reopened Wounds of David': https://theopolisinstitute.com/the-reopened-wounds-of-jacob/ Alastair Roberts, 'David and His Household in Genesis 38': https://argosy.substack.com/i/102907103/david-and-his-household-in-genesis. James Bejon, 'How does biblical narrative depict the exploitation of power?': https://www.psephizo.com/biblical-studies/how-does-biblical-narrative-depict-the-exploitation-of-power/ Peter Leithart, 'David's Pharaoh Moment': https://theopolisinstitute.com/leithart_post/davids-pharaoh-moment/ Follow my Substack, the Anchored Argosy at https://argosy.substack.com/. See my latest podcasts at https://adversariapodcast.com/. If you have enjoyed my videos and podcasts, please tell your friends. If you are interested in supporting my videos and podcasts and my research more generally, please consider supporting my work on Patreon (www.patreon.com/zugzwanged), using my PayPal account (bit.ly/2RLaUcB), or by buying books for my research on Amazon (www.amazon.co.uk/hz/wishlist/ls/3…3O?ref_=wl_share). You can also listen to the audio of these episodes on iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/alastairs-adversaria/id1416351035.

At some point over the last few years, I'm uncertain exactly how, the interpretation of the story of David and Bashiba became a matter of frequent contention on social media. Every few months, some tweet will revive Bathsheba discourse, and several days of heated argument will follow. At the heart of the dispute is the question of whether David raped Bashiba. For some on both sides of the dispute, answers to this question have come to function as tribal. or theological shibboleths, indicative of contrasting and often opposing stances regarding crises of sexual abuse and the handling or mishandling of them within churches. On one side, people claimed that David raped Bashiba, insisting upon the unilateral and coercive character of his actions.

Bashiba was not complicit or responsible and was the innocent victim of a radically violating act. Such a characterization of the episode helped to accent that. the severity of clerical sexual abuse by analogy, offering a biblical narrative from which such sin can be addressed, its character exposed, and its wickedness condemned. On the other side, people resist or recoil at such presentations of David's sin. They disagree with claims that David's sin was unilateral.

In contrast to Second Samuel's account of the rape of Tamar, they observe that nothing is mentioned of Bashiba resisting David or protesting his actions. Most go beyond this to suggest that Bashiba was not just non-resistant, but was willingly compliant, or even actively complicit. A few go even further, claiming that Bashiba was the one who initiated the forbidden union, seeking to seduce David by her disrobing and bathing. The force with which such claims are made tends to arise less from matters native to the text than from opposition to the ways the narrative has come to be used. The claim that David raped Barshiba is seen to operate in service of a wider cultural script,

for which it seems to many that female agency, related to illicit, regretted, or undesired sexual acts, can be denied or radically diminished, absolving women of almost any responsibility or blame. Those opposing the claim that David raped Barshiba see it as one of many occasions where, when a power differential between a man and a woman is supposed to exist, the agency and culpability of women can be radically minimised or even denied in situations where they were compliant or complicit in or even initiating of sexual acts. Examples of such situations might include regretted drunken sex

or illicit relations with figures in authority over them. I have no intention of litigating these wider debates here, both sides of which can point to genuine injustices and abuses that demonstrate the importance of their causes in their eyes. In many cases, there is a challenge of speaking clearly and effectively in volatile and fraught conversations about situations where the responsibility or culpability of parties to acts are very different or incommensurable degrees, orders or characters, and speaking of them in the same breath or even in close proximity to each other. seems wrongfully to equate them. This is often done carelessly, clumsily, or insensitably.

My interests are those of a hearer of Scripture, concerned that our ability to listen attentively to the text not be overwhelmed or undermined by concerns of our immediate contexts. I am persuaded that when we listen to the Scriptures closely and on their own terms, we will understand them much more deeply, and in turn their voice can speak much more distinctly into our contexts and concerns as their hearers. If we are to hear the scriptures well,

we might be best advised to begin by suspending loaded terms from the conversation, terms like rape, power dynamics, consent and the like. In place of questions and frames provided by our own contexts, we should prioritise questions and frames that emerge from close engagement with the text itself. Did David Rape Bashiba is not a promising source. starting point for our inquiry. Truly to understand David's actions, we should listen closely to the account and framing of them within the text itself. Perhaps at some later point, we can reintroduce our own terms, frames and questions in a more careful fashion. How might this help us to read

the story of David and Bathsheba? At the outset, many rightly look for analogies with other biblical narratives. Such analogies allow for comparison and contrast, helping us to categorize actions more precisely. One common narrative that is appealed to as an analogy is that of Joseph and Potiphar's wife in Genesis chapter 39. While a slave in the house of the Egyptian official Potipher, Joseph is repeatedly pressured by his master's wife to have sexual relations with her. Joseph continually resists her advances until one day as she begs Joseph to have her relations with her, she grabs hold of his garment and he flees the house, leaving it in her hand. She then accuses Joseph of seeking to rape her, and Joseph is placed in the prison by Potipha.

In several ways, Joseph's story is parallel to, and an inversion of, the story of Hagar and Ishmael. Hagar was an Egyptian slave in the house of a Hebrew master, whose mistress sought to use her sexually for her own ends. Hagar and Ishmael were cast out. out after Sarah accused Ishmael of mocking Isaac. After being brought down to Egypt by Ishmaelites, Joseph was a Hebrew slave in the house of an Egyptian master, whose mistress sought to use him sexually. He also was cast out as the mistress of the house accused him of mocking them. A slave's sexuality could be treated as something their master could dispose of as they desired. Sarai could seek to use Hagar as a depersonalized means to get a child for herself.

Nevertheless, the text resists Sarai's framing of her action, describing Hagar as Abraham's wife in Genesis chapter 16, verse 3. At no point does Genesis say anything about Sarai or Abraham asking Hagar what she thought about the situation. Hagar's will simply did not weigh much. Hagar was used by Abraham. and Sarai, and when she became a problem, afflicted and discarded. The Lord sees Hagar, and the story of Genesis, and not merely chapter 16 and 21, is narrated in a manner that demonstrates God's seeing of her.

Her subjectivity, volition, and agency come into view in the text, while Abraham and Sarai were formerly blind and indifferent to them. And later in the story of the text, in Joseph's story, for instance, narrative themes introduced in the story of Hagar reappear, and are addressed. In contrast to the story of Joseph, there is no evidence in the story of Hagar that she offered any resistance to Sarai and Abram. However, in Joseph's story, Part of his wife is pressing him for compliance in or complicity in an adulterous relationship with her, betraying his master and her husband. That she repeatedly speaks to him over time,

suggests that she is aiming to persuade or even seduce him, to secure some degree of willing involvement on his part in her sin, a willing involvement that Joseph, of course, refuses. That she is acting against her husband and Joseph's master is important here too. She cannot merely assert her supposed prerogatives. No such process of persuasion or requesting of willing compliance is suggested in the case of Hagar. Sarai takes Hagar and gives her to her husband and Abraham goes into her. The story is framed as, as a full narrative, and Hagar is initially cast in the role of the fruit, an impersonal object sinfully acted upon. As in the case of Hagar, the text does not present David as seeking

to seduce Bathsheba. No mention of her resistance is made, but no mention of David trying to secure her willing involvement is made either. Whether she was willing or unwilling at any point was irrelevant. Her will simply did not count for much in the situation. As with Hagar, whatever Bathsheba's desires, her situation was one in which a man who had immense power over her world felt entitled to her sexually and was acting accordingly. Some closer analogies to David's actions than that of Joseph are probably seen in figures like Pharaoh in Genesis Chapter 12, the Abimlex in Genesis chapter 20 and 26, or Shechem in Genesis chapter 34. David is a powerful king who can take a woman when it pleases him. As the patriarchs knew, anyone

obstructing such a king's desire was probably in grave danger. We should recall the way Abraham and Isaac got their wives to claim that they were their sisters. While a brother could potentially be negotiated with to get a desired woman and could play for time, a husband. A husband was a direct obstacle to be removed, probably violently. Indeed, the patriarch's ploy probably failed because they did not adequately take into account how the entitlement of such kings might lead them to ignore or override the standard cultural norms, simply seizing their wives, rather negotiating with them for them. David was later prepared to kill Uriah to cover up his sin. Uriah was one of David's closest mighty men, as was Bashir.

saba's father elian as we see in second samuel chapter twenty three verses twenty four to thirty nine basheba's grandfather was david's chief counsellor ahithafel as we see in the same place david's desire for basheba placed basheba's whole family in danger while joseph was just an individual whose non-compliance might have bitter consequences for himself bashiba might naturally have felt that her whole family was at risk if she did not comply david was also not merely the king, but the spiritual leader of his people. As James Jordan observes, Bashiba was a young woman who had likely grown up in David's court, looking up to David as a spiritual guide all of her life. In addition to his immense human power over her and her family, David was also uniquely positioned to exploit his spiritual authority to deceive and mislead Bashiba. This greatly compounds David's sin, as James Jordan, argues. In Nathan's parable to David in 2 Samuel chapter 12, Basheba is represented as a little

you lamb, weak and dependent. She is not presented as a willing and active party to a sin, but as a vulnerable lamb who has seized from her devoted protector, killed and consumed by a rich and powerful man. Within the books of Samuel, analogies can be drawn between Bashiba and the nation. The nation is like a woman or women, placed in the arms of King David by the Lord, a connection that Nathan probably has in mind in 2 Samuel chapter 12 versus 7 and following. David's duty was lovingly to protect, but he seized a woman who was not his, and also ended up treating the nation in a similar manner in his actions in the census. Peter Lightheart remarks upon that parallel, noting that with Bashiba, David committed statutory, if not

actual rape and that in the census it was as though he raped the bride of the lord. James Bejohn has also written perceptively about the close connection between the story of David and Bashiba and that of Ahab and Nabath's vineyard. Both stories describe predatory kings who want and take what is not theirs and conspire to kill those in the way. James writes, that Bashiba is treated like an object is underscored by her lack of agency in the narrative. Basheba isn't primarily an actor, but an individual who has acted upon. Basheba is not, however, entirely without agency. In response to David's message, she is said to come to him. And although some commentators portray her as a seductress, neither Chapter 11's narrative nor Nathan's parable does so, Bashiba doesn't seek

the attention of David, whom she wouldn't have expected to be in the palace at the time of Chapter 11th. 's events, compare 2 Samuel chapter 11 verse 1, and Herbath is part of a purification ritual, not an attempt to seduce anyone. Rather, David sees, seeks out, and sends for Bashiba. Meanwhile, Nathan's parable portrays Bashiba as a woman of lamb-like innocence, and his speech lays the blame for Chapter 11's events squarely at David's feet. The intertextuality between David and Ahab's stories further underscores the point. Insofar as Bashiba is the counterpart of Nabath, she shouldn't be seen as an adulterer, but as a woman caught in a self-indulgent king's crosshairs. Like Nabath, she initially attracts the king's attention because of her adherence to the Torah,

which the kings in the two stories grossly transgress. Second, our story's intertextual connections highlight each man's inability to manage his sin in the absence of a accountability. As awful as it is, the focus of 2 Samuel 11 to 12 is not Bashiba's ordeal, nor is the focus of 1st Kings chapter 21, Nabath's execution. Both narrative's central burden is to describe the collateral damage caused by sin. Just as the cost of Ahab's lust is born by Nabath, so the cost of David's is born by Bashiba and Uriah. Indeed, David's mistreatment of both Bashiba and Uriah is to.

described in its full horror at the conclusion of Nathan's parable. James Bejohn's observations here are very important, and as we move further in the narrative of Second Samuel, Chapter 13, which tells of the rape of Tamar, can be seen to be closely parallel to Second Samuel chapter 11, presenting both an intensification of David's sin that reveals key features of it and a consequence of it. This is something that I have commented on before in an article for Theopolis. The following are some of my remarks upon parallels between the two stories. In the story of Amnon, John Adab acts as Joab did with David,

with the craftiness of a serpent. He makes David unwittingly complicit in the rape of Tamar, much as David himself had formed a web of complicity around his sin. John Adab is a nephew of David, just as Joab was. Amnon's feigning illness and remaining in bed, David himself being sent as a messenger to Tamar, Tamar's mourning and the movement between houses all hearken back to David's own sin.

David himself had played the part of the ill king in chapter 11 verse 2, neglecting his duty to defend his country when it was under threat. He had sent messengers to get Bathsheba and had made her a mourner by killing her husband. David was made to feel some of the anger and disgust that God felt at his sin. Lightheart recognises the way the story of Amnon sheds light upon on the sin of David. He writes, Crudely, verse 14, records that Amnon laid her, rather than the more common idiom, lay with her,

which makes it clear that this was not consensual. A parallel with David is being drawn. Though David did not force Bashiba, Amnon's use of his superior strength provides an unexpergated view of what David actually did. Just like Amnon, David had used his superior strength to take a woman. In the more shameless actions of his sons, Yahweh was bringing to light the truth of David's sin. One feature of the story that renders it more complex is the fact that Bashiba became and remained David's wife.

This presents some problems if we believe that she was strongly unwilling and even resisting throughout. Their marriage would represent a regularization and continuation of a rape, even after David's repentance. some illuminating if appalling analogies might be seen in genesis chapter thirty four where shechem seizes diner rape or seduction it is unclear then professes love and seeks to regularize their relationship as marriage or in amnon's rape of tamar where amnon's sin is compounded in tamar's eyes by his sending her away it's hard to understand such situations without imaginably inhabiting cultures with exceedingly weakly weakly visions and realisations of the goods of marriage. Women were extremely dependent and objectified and their will often weighed little one way or another. For a woman in such a culture it might be preferable to remain with a powerful man who forced himself upon her, against whom no justice was likely to be forthcoming, if he was at least

semi-penitent, prepared to take responsibility for her as his wife, and to seek to build some relationship between them, unsocially approved, and less violent grounds the alternative for such a woman might be social dishonour perceived defilement the loss of serious marital prospects and even destitution the man who inflicted such an evil upon her could at least be liable to become her husband while losing most rights in a perceptive and thought-provoking article ezra seban observes the importance of leverate marriage themes in the story of david and basheba He suggests that David had to take radical action to repair some of the immense wrong he did to Uriah, Bashiba, and to their legacy. In effect, Stephen argues, David must promote the legacy of Uriah by placing Uriah's widow's son upon his throne over any of his own older sons. 1 Kings chapter 1, verse 11 and following, where Bashiba and Nathan confront David, claiming that Solomon was promised the throne, should be considered in lighten. of this. We should also note Matthew

1, verse 6, and David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah. The fact that Uriah's name is mentioned in such a manner in our Lord's ancestry adds a little weight to the possibility that David's line running through Solomon served in part as a leverate marriage style restitution to Yura and Bashiba, whose legacy David

had cut off. Likewise, Bashiba's part in this arrangement might suggest that she was also in some manner receiving restitution for a wrong committed against her. We might also consider some of the parallels several scholars have observed between Genesis chapter 38, the story of Judah and Tamar, and the story of David and his household. Bashsheba was also known by the name Bashua in First Chronicles, Chapter 3, verse 5, a name that she shared with Judah's wife in chapter 38 of Genesis. rape of his sister-in-law, Tamar in that chapter, is also similar to Amnon's rape of his half-sister, the other Tamar, in 2 Samuel chapter 13. Considering the character of David's actions,

it is essential that we consider them within the frame offered by the books of Samuel themselves. They must be read as a literary unit. We must pay attention to themes and motifs, to types, to symbols, and to narrative threads. There is some sophisticated, commentary going on between the lines. As we read carefully, we see that David's sin has far-reaching consequences and repercussions. First, as I've already noted, the text closely parallels Amnon's rape of Tamar with David's sin a couple of chapters earlier, alerting the hera to the similarities between the two. David's heir was following in his father's footsteps. Evil is presented as a sort of contagion, the son following in the sins of his father. Second, sin has a compounding effect. In attempting

to cover up his sin with Bashiba, David engages in a host of other sins, lies and intrigue, dark betrayal, murder, etc. Sin sets those who commit it careening down a path of destruction. It is essential to escape it. Third, in response to Nathan's parable, David cast judgment. The man who has done this deserves to die, and he shall restore the lamb fourfold. David is here applying the case law of Exodus chapter 22 verse 1, and he suffers the sentence he unwittingly declared upon himself. The story of Absalom's death, in which he is described as if he were an unblemished sacrificial lamb, connected with sheepsharing, has an annual haircut and hair weighing, etc., underlines the association. David loses four of his own lambs, the baby born to Bashiba, Amnon, Absalom, and later Adonijer.

Fourth, David's wickedness brings horrors upon his own house, and innocent victims pile up. His infant child dies, his own daughter Tamar suffers a horrific rape, and Absalom goes into David's own wives on the very place where David first looked at Bashiba. These events are especially awful. They involve helpless and innocent victims who suffer horrific evils because of David's sin. Sin and its consequences cannot be compartmentalized, privatized, contained or controlled. Sin brings disaster to whatever and whomever it touches. Fifth, the narrative highlights the way that such evils flow from David's own sin.

Some by more direct divine punishment, the death of the infant, some by others following the example of David's sin, Amnon, some by David being at the receiving end of sins he earlier committed against others. Amnon makes David complicit in his sin, as David had made others in his. Sixth, as I noted earlier, the books of Samuel present David as a sort of bridegroom figure, a figure who rules through love. David's sin with Bashiba, seizing a woman who was not his own, and betraying and killing one of his most loyal men is a violation and perversion of his vocation at the fundamental level. Seventh, besides being a symbolic perversion of his vocation,

David's sin has direct consequences for his power. The books of Samuel connect true power to love, trust, piety and moral authority. When he lost these, Saul fell back on appeals to partisan or tribal self-interest, mercenary loyalty, threats and violence in order to get his way. After taking Bashiba and betraying Uriah, David lost much of the love of his men. His court became a place of distrust and intrigue. Messages were distorted in transmission. David's execution of justice lost its moral authority,

and a situation was created in which Absalom could lead the hearts of Israel astray. Eighth, to help him to cover up his sin, David turned to Joab, the cunning commander of the army. This gave Joab leverage over David. It empowered a wicked man within David's court, who ended up being a thorn in his side, disobeying his commands and being involved in two coups. Joab became too powerful for David to act against,

and David had to leave the task of removing him to his successor Solomon. In pursuing wicked acts and intrigue, David had to throw his weight behind wicked and treacherous men, men who ended up betraying him. 9. Besides David's loss of love, trust and moral authority, creating a situation ripe for rebellion, the crisis of Absalom's coup followed from Amnon's rape of Tamar, in which Amnon followed David's example

and involved David's unwitting complicity, in other respects. David's failure to deal firmly with the crown prince Amnon led to Absalom taking matters into his own hands and to the alienation of Absalom from David. The parallels between David's failure and that of Jacob in Genesis chapter 34 should be noted here. While David is positively parallel to Jacob in many ways throughout the Book of First Samuel, after his sin with Bashiba, lots of unpleasant parallels to Jacob's trials with his wayward and wicked sons appear in David's life. David had also killed one of his mighty men, Uriah, seized the daughter of another, Eliam,

and the granddaughter of his chief advisor, Ahithafel. That Ahithafel joined Absalom's coup is entirely unsurprising when we consider that he was Bathsheba's grandfather. At the end of his reign, David is described in ways that emphasised his impotence. He doesn't know what is going on in his own court. He is paralysed and unable to act when he needs to. He no longer has the unswerving love and trust of his people. He can't even keep his own body warm. David is forgiven his sin by the Lord, but his sin has bitter consequences nonetheless. David becomes a shadow of the man he once was. He becomes a tragic and weak figure, where once he was powerful and heroic. The books of Samuel are, among other things, a deep consideration of power and politics.

One of its messages is that true power flourishes with virtue. Where virtue is lost, meaningful authority slips away with it. The events of the back half of the Book of Samuel follow closely in several ways, in direct cause and effect, in divine judgment, through others following David's example, through the shift in the ethos of David's court, etc. From David's seizing of Bashiba. The story of David and Bashiba is not merely an isolated episode, but a precipitating event for the decline of David's rule. I can think of few more powerful and sobering warnings of the destructive character and consequences of sin. It ruins lives and corrupts whole worlds. While I do not strongly object to it, I do not think that rape is the most apt way to describe David's actions in 2 Samuel Chapter 11,

and perennial evangelical Bashiba discourse is poorly framed by this term. It may not be inaccurate in certain respects, but tends to obscure certain facets of the situation, to substitute for the text's own far more searching revelation of David's sin and its wickedness, and it might also have misleading connotations for some. Nevertheless, it is hard to read the story closely, without finding considerably more to object to, in a consensual adultery framing. As should be evident by this point, several theological, conservative commentators, independent of current disputes about the story, come down very strongly

against the consensual adultery framing. The story of David and Bashiba offers a powerful exploration of the abuse of power, of sexual exploitation, of the corruption of institutions when leaders' sin and those sins are covered up, of the contagion of wickedness and abuse that can follow, and of the victims that are the result. As a story of the bitter fruits, and destructive consequences of the sin of leaders, much could be gained by reflecting soberly upon its message when navigating questions of sexual abuse in churches. Thank you very much for listening.

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