2 Samuel 11 · a question people ask
Was Bathsheba wronged by the king, or did she share in the wrong?
The chapter tells her part in very few words. She is named once, by someone answering David: "Isn’t this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, Uriah the Hittite’s wife?" (11:3). "David sent messengers, and took her; and she came in to him, and he lay with her" (11:4), "and she returned to her house" (11:4). Her only words are the message she sends: "I am with child" (11:5). When she hears that Uriah is dead, "she mourned for her husband" (11:26). The chapter says nothing of what she thought or wanted. Christians read her part in two main ways, each resting on its verses. Both agree that the chapter's one judgment is on "the thing that David had done" (11:27), and that it is to David that the LORD sends Nathan (12:1).
How Christians read it
Where Christians differ, Favor sets out the main views side by side and doesn't pick one.
Taken by the king
Those who read it this way note that the sending and the taking are the king's: "David sent messengers, and took her" (11:4). In the next chapter Nathan tells David of a rich man who "took the poor man’s lamb" (12:4), and then says, "You are the man!" (12:7). The LORD's word through Nathan lays the charge on David: "You have struck Uriah the Hittite with the sword, have taken his wife to be your wife" (12:9). David answers, "I have sinned against the LORD" (12:13).
2 Samuel 11:4 · 2 Samuel 12:1-4 · 2 Samuel 12:7 · 2 Samuel 12:9 · 2 Samuel 12:13
She shared in the wrong
Those who read it this way note that 11:4 also gives her an act of her own: "she came in to him" (11:4). The commandment "You shall not commit adultery" (Exodus 20:14) was spoken to all the people; the LORD told Moses to say to the children of Israel, "You yourselves have seen that I have talked with you from heaven" (Exodus 20:22). They take the charge Nathan brings to David (12:7-9) as the heavier guilt, the king's, and 11:4 as giving her a part in the wrong as well.
2 Samuel 11:4 · Exodus 20:14 · Exodus 20:22 · 2 Samuel 12:7-9
The verses
“David sent and inquired after the woman. One said, “Isn’t this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, Uriah the Hittite’s wife?” David sent messengers, and took her; and she came in to him, and he lay with her (for she was purified from her uncleanness); and she returned to her house. The woman conceived; and she sent and told David, and said, “I am with child.””
“When Uriah’s wife heard that Uriah her husband was dead, she mourned for her husband. When the mourning was past, David sent and took her home to his house, and she became his wife and bore him a son. But the thing that David had done displeased the LORD.”
“The LORD sent Nathan to David. He came to him, and said to him, “There were two men in one city: the one rich, and the other poor.”