Jeremiah 17:9 “The human mind is the most deceitful of all things. It is incurable. No one can understand how deceitful it is.
At the spring time of the year when kings go out to battle, King David stayed back by just sending his troops to fight the battle. He committed adultery with Bathseba, the wife of Uriah the Hittite while Uriah was fighting David’s battle at the war zone. David who was certified as a man after God’s heart went spiraling down in his sinful ways. A lustful look which was not plucked off the root soon enough sent him spiraling down the crooked paths of deceit.
Just like how Adam and Eve’s one disobedience cost them everything, we learn that it doesn’t take much to lose grip of everything and fall on one’s nose into the pit of sin. Starting with adultery, followed by betrayal and murder is how sin works. Sin is a downward spiral. Immediately after this, David was informed that Bathseba was pregnant with his child of adultery. To cover this up, he calls in Uriah from the battlefield to the palace and asks him to go to his home to be with his wife Bathseba hoping to convince that the child is Uriah’s. Unimaginable crookedness from a man like David!
But Uriah didn’t go to his house. Instead he slept at the door of the king’s house. When David asked why Uriah did not go to his house, Uriah replied, “The ark of Israel and Judah are dwelling in tents, and my lord Joab and the servants of my lord are encamped in the open fields. Shall I then go to my house to eat and drink, and to lie with my wife? I will not do this thing“.
David gave it another try. He invited Uriah to the palace again to eat and drink and made him drunk. David hoped that Uriah would go home after being drunk. But Uriah, even in drunken state, slept diligently at the King’s gate. As David’s crooked plan did not work out, he wrote a letter to Joab and sent it by the hand of Uriah. In the letter, he wrote, saying, “Set Uriah in the forefront of the hottest battle, and retreat from him, that he may be struck down and die”. Unimaginable fall into crookedness in a wink of the eye, right? Once Saul did the same to David by sending him to the toughest battles hoping to get David killed. David was not killed in Saul’s plot but Uriah got killed in David’s plot.
After the mourning period was over, David married Bathseba and the son was born. So far it would have seemed to David that he successfully covered up everything. Because he had completely forgotten that God saw everything. So the LORD sent prophet Nathan to David to rebuke him of this sin. Nathan said to David as mentioned in 1 Samuel 12:9-15
“Why did you despise the word of the Lord by doing what is evil in his eyes? You struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and took his wife to be your own. You killed him with the sword of the Ammonites. 10 Now, therefore, the sword will never depart from your house, because you despised me and took the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your own.’
11 “This is what the Lord says: ‘Out of your own household I am going to bring calamity on you. Before your very eyes I will take your wives and give them to one who is close to you, and he will sleep with your wives in broad daylight. 12 You did it in secret, but I will do this thing in broad day light before all Israel.’You are not going to die.14 But because by doing this you have shown utter contempt for[a] the Lord, the son born to you will die.”
And the LORD did just as He said. He struck the child that Uriah’s wife bore to David and it became ill. Regardless of how much David pleaded with God for the child, the child died on the seventh day.
God forgave David as soon as he repented but consequences could not be escaped. In this story, mostly our focus is on David as he is the decorated King who was praised as after “God’s own heart”. Bathseba is also equally guilty because she did not oppose or correct David’s act. The forgotten and the overpassed character in this story is Uriah the Hittite. This man had the sincerity and the zeal for the ark of God and his job of fighting the war for Israel. This man was betrayed by his wife in an instant with no second-thought and by the King who had the authority and the resources to cover up his mistake. Even Uriah did not have any way of knowing about the chain of injustice done to him- if not for God who sees everything and who does something about it.
God is the defender of the ones who suffer injustice. God did justice for this poor man by bringing what was done in the dark to light.
Hebrews 4:13 Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.
This is the cruelest plot mentioned in the Bible. David might have easily fooled the people but God can never be mocked.
Galatians 6:7 Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows.
