Bad Theology

Text for today: II Samuel 11-12

King David is attracted to another man's wife and, since she has conveniently purified herself of her uncleanliness, sleeps with her and impregnates her. Her husband, Uriah the Hittite, is away massacring the Ammonites, so David summons him and tries to induce him to go home and sleep with his wife; but Uriah refuses out of respect for the hardships being suffered by his comrades and by the Ark of the Covenant, though not necessarily in that order. Even after David gets him drunk Uriah does not return home, so David orders his commander to place Uriah where the fighting is heaviest and let him be killed. God is displeased and sends the prophet Nathan to announce David's punishment. For despising God and disobeying His orders, David's penalty is that the sword will never depart his house; and because David has scorned the Lord, his child from the adulterous union dies after a week of illness.

As in the case of Pharaoh during the Exodus, God punishes the sinner through the suffering of others, although in this instance He does not go quite so far as to boast Himself the source of the sin. Although He did not intervene to save the life of the virtuous Uriah, He is content to punish the entirety of His chosen people for Uriah's murder. God's anger at David's disobedience means that thousands will suffer and die in the kingdom's civil wars, while His annoyance at being slighted leads Him to torment a new-born for seven days before killing it. Eventually Bathsheba gives birth to Solomon, whose later sins of tolerance and their unfortunate consequences, long after David's death, must clearly be ascribed to God's chastisement of David rather than to any fault of Solomon's own.