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7 April. 2 Samuel chapters 11-13
These chapters contain two incidents of sexual violence, each of which results in an arranged killing. First, King David takes a neighbour’s wife and makes her pregnant, an act which h the prophet Nathan compares with seizing a poor man’s lamb, and then he arranges for her husband to be killed to prevent any revenge, with other soldiers being unnecessarily put in danger, what the media would now call ‘collateral damage’. It is usually thought that Psalm 51, a song of heartfelt repentance (best known in Allegri’s setting ‘miserere’), is David’s act of contrition for his own sins, and he also fasts and prays for seven days in vain when his illegitimate son falls ill. It seems that God did not want this boy taking his place as the king’s firstborn and therefore heir to the throne; instead God had plans for David and Bathsheba’s second child, Solomon, who would become a great king.
Uriah was the innocent party in all this – he did nothing wrong, indeed insisted on sleeping rough like his troops rather than in the comfort of his own city home, and willingly led his men into the heat of battle, dying without the knowledge that the king had already taken his wife. But if all this had not happened, Solomon would not have been born. We may not always know what good might come for others out of our own misfortunes in life.
Then (presumably many years later when his children are teenagers) within David’s own family one of his other sons rapes his sister and is later killed by his half-brother in revenge. Unlike David, he does not seem to repent of his sin. This is an even darker episode in the royal history. Incest is still an unspoken taboo, a sin and crime in virtually all societies, though it undoubtedly occurs, and splits families apart if it becomes known.