When David was creeping on the roof, looking in windows like a perv, he saw this woman, naked, bathing. And in true Biblical form we’ll say that “lust was in his heart”. Which just sounds like the euphemistic excusing “boys will be boys” of Biblical interpretation. It makes David seem so innocent to his urges: the creeper on the roof.

There he is, and he looks in his neighbor’s window, at her, stripped, bathing, and in that moment, makes a terrifying decision. He has his men go get her. Not that she’ll be able to say no. Not that she could say no to the king. Not that she really had another option, other than death. David doesn’t succumb to his basest urges, he makes the horrible choice when he was in a position to make horrible choices.

We read at the beginning that this was when the country was at war and for some reason he stayed home. He would go out there normally. But he didn’t. And now he’s creeping on his neighbor. And then he brings her to his house and he rapes her. And when he’s done with her, he sends her home, used up like a dryer sheet.

'This story juxtaposes power with faith and righteousness. ' Share on X

Tradition hasn’t always named this story for what it is, the rape of Bathsheba. It has often pinned part of the blame on the victim, suggesting that the two of them are at fault: adultery. But it is Nathan who names David as the bad man. It is Nathan who names David the sinner. And it is learned men proclaiming the Good News who have called Bathsheba the co-sinner.

This certainly is a creepy perv story and an abuse of power story. And yet, it is also a story of faith and observance.

Bathsheba isn’t in the shower; she hasn’t gotten up in the morning and some perv in the next building is looking through his binoculars at her, or the more innocent teenage neighbor with a telescope who turns to look at stars and instead sees something more heavenly.

Bathsheba is ritually purifying herself. She is observing not only the custom of the people, but the command of GOD to the people. She has been in a place of deep vulnerability and exclusion: during the week of the month in which she is without contact with anybody, and this will allow her to be with people, whole, pure. It is in this moment, when she has been made pure, that David steals her purity.

The fact that this rape leads to a pregnancy, that she gives birth to Solomon, David’s great successor, doesn’t change this moment. It isn’t turning rape into lemonade or that GOD makes the most of bad situations. This story doesn’t do that. Neither should we.

This story juxtaposes power with faith and righteousness. It contrasts David, ever faithful, against the villain of the kingship. His power gave him what he was not to have and deprived the faithful woman of what was rightfully hers.

As I pointed out earlier, the text actually makes the victim of Uriah, her husband. And he certainly is: his wife is raped and then he is murdered by David’s order. But only after Uriah shows faith. Faith to his fellow soldiers, to his people, to his king; perhaps therefore to GOD.

I’ve often thought that this was a story to discredit David and the kingship; a piece written after the fall of the kingdom and one that counters the glorifying depictions of David to discredit the monarchy. It probably is.

It is also a story of faith and faithfulness. The true virtue of David as the faithful king is revealed through this conflict: the faithful obedience of the powerless against the sinful selfishness from the powerful. Deep, disturbing selfishness.That it isn’t just David, and it isn’t just generic kings, but what becomes of the powerful and how the power creates evil.

And given what happens next in the story, the purpose of the story appears to be a truly grave indictment of such selfishness.