David Takes Bathsheba
11 1 In the spring of the year, the time when kings march out to war, David sent Joab with his men and all Israel. They ravaged the Ammonites and laid siege to Rabbah. But David stayed behind in Jerusalem.
2 One evening David rose from his bed and walked about on the roof of the king's house. From the roof he saw a woman bathing, and the woman was very beautiful. 3 So David sent to ask about the woman. Someone said, "Is this not Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?"
4 Then David sent messengers and took her. She came to him, and he lay with her—now she had purified herself from her impurity—and she returned to her house. 1 1 v4 Mosaic law required a woman to undergo purification rites after her monthly period before resuming normal life (see Lev. 15:19–28). 5 The woman conceived, and she sent word to David: "I am pregnant."
6 So David sent this word to Joab: "Send me Uriah the Hittite." And Joab sent Uriah to David. 7 When Uriah came to him, David asked how Joab was, how the troops were, and how the war was going. 8 Then David said to Uriah, "Go down to your house and wash your feet." Uriah left the king's house, and the king sent a gift after him. 9 But Uriah slept at the entrance of the king's house with all his lord's men, and he did not go down to his house.
10 When they told David, "Uriah did not go down to his house," David said to Uriah, "Have you not come from a journey? Why did you not go down to your house?"
11 Uriah said to David, "The ark and Israel and Judah are staying in tents, and my lord Joab and the men of my lord are camped in the open field. Should I then go to my house to eat and drink and lie with my wife? As you live, and as your soul lives, I will not do this thing."
12 Then David said to Uriah, "Stay here today as well, and tomorrow I will send you back." So Uriah stayed in Jerusalem that day and the next. 13 David invited him, and he ate and drank in his presence, and David made him drunk. But in the evening Uriah went out to lie on his bed with his lord's men; he did not go down to his house.
David Sends Uriah to His Death
14 In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab and gave it to Uriah to deliver. 15 In the letter he wrote, "Put Uriah at the front, where the fighting is fiercest, then pull back from him, so that he will be struck down and die."
16 So while Joab was besieging the city, he assigned Uriah to the place where he knew the strongest defenders were. 17 The men of the city came out and fought against Joab, and some of the people, the servants of David, fell. Uriah the Hittite also died.
18 Then Joab sent word and told David all the news of the battle. 19 He instructed the messenger, "When you have finished telling the king all the news of the battle, 20 if the king's anger flares up and he asks you, 'Why did you go so close to the city to fight? Did you not know they would shoot from the wall? 21 Who struck down Abimelech the son of Jerubbesheth? Didn't a woman drop an upper millstone on him from the wall, so that he died at Thebez? Why did you go so near the wall?'—then tell him, 'Your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead also.'" 2 2 v21 Jerubbesheth is another name for Gideon; the millstone story is recorded in Judges 9:50–54.
22 So the messenger set out, and when he arrived he told David everything Joab had sent him to say. 23 The messenger said to David, "The men overpowered us and came out against us in the open field, but we drove them back to the entrance of the gate. 24 Then the archers shot at your servants from the wall, and some of the king's servants died. Your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead also."
25 David said to the messenger, "Say this to Joab: 'Do not let this matter trouble you, for the sword devours one as well as another. Press your attack against the city and overthrow it.' And encourage him."
David Marries Bathsheba
26 When the wife of Uriah heard that Uriah her husband was dead, she mourned for her husband. 27 When the mourning was over, David sent and brought her to his house, and she became his wife and bore him a son. But the thing David had done was evil in the eyes of our Father.