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2 Samuel 11 · a question people ask

Why wouldn't Uriah go down to his house?

In the text

The chapter gives only his own answer. David asks him, "Haven’t you come from a journey? Why didn’t you go down to your house?" (11:10), and Uriah says, "The ark, Israel, and Judah, are staying in tents; and my lord Joab and the servants of my lord are encamped in the open field. Shall I then go into 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!" (11:11). The chapter doesn't say whether Uriah knew anything of 11:4-5, and it doesn't give any other reason. Earlier, when David came to the priest at Nob and the priest offered holy bread "if only the young men have kept themselves from women" (1 Samuel 21:4), David answered, "Truly, women have been kept from us as usual these three days" (1 Samuel 21:5); 2 Samuel 11 doesn't point back to it, and Uriah's reason is the one he gives himself, the ark and his fellow soldiers in the field (11:11).

The verses

“When they had told David, saying, “Uriah didn’t go down to his house,” David said to Uriah, “Haven’t you come from a journey? Why didn’t you go down to your house?” Uriah said to David, “The ark, Israel, and Judah, are staying in tents; and my lord Joab and the servants of my lord are encamped in the open field. Shall I then go into 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!””
2 Samuel 11:10-11 · World English Bible
“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.””
2 Samuel 11:4-5 · World English Bible
“Then David came to Nob to Ahimelech the priest. Ahimelech came to meet David trembling, and said to him, “Why are you alone, and no man with you?””
1 Samuel 21:1 · World English Bible
“The priest answered David, and said, “I have no common bread, but there is holy bread; if only the young men have kept themselves from women.” David answered the priest, and said to him, “Truly, women have been kept from us as usual these three days. When I came out, the vessels of the young men were holy, though it was only a common journey. How much more then today shall their vessels be holy?””
1 Samuel 21:4-5 · World English Bible

From Favor's study of 2 Samuel 11

2 Samuel 11: The thing David had done

David told Joab, "Don’t let this thing displease you" (11:25), in Hebrew, let this thing not be evil in your eyes. Two verses later the chapter ends with the same Hebrew verb, the same word for thing, and eyes again: "the thing that David had done displeased the LORD" (11:27), the thing was evil in the eyes of the LORD.

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Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Every answer cites the verses it rests on. What we believe · All Bible questions