After considering first Psalm 51 and then Saul's contrition in 1 Samuel 15, today we consider David’s sin with Bathsheba and his attempt to conceal it through the murder of Uriah. By any standard, this is among the most grievous transgressions in scripture. Yet an important question arises: why does the Bible memorialize this episode by linking it to Psalm 51, the quintessential penitential psalm?
To understand this, we must recall the sins of Manasseh from our first lecture. He was, without a doubt, the worst king in the Bible. Yet it is precisely because—not in spite of—these sins that the famous “Prayer of Manasseh” was composed. For in that prayer, Manasseh makes the observation that forgiving the righteous will bring God little honor, for their sins are trivial in nature. But should God forgive Manasseh, then the true depths of divine mercy will truly be on display. No sin can put us outside the saving power of divine grace. I would argue the same holds true for David. We must attend to the horror of his actions because they demonstrate, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that no sin can place us beyond the reach of grace or thwart the power of divine mercy.
I. What Was David Thinking?
Let us begin by examining the structure of 2 Samuel 11. The chapter opens with a concise, almost clinical account of David’s affair with Bathsheba:
2 It happened, late one afternoon, when David arose from his couch and was walking upon the roof of the king’s house, that he saw from the roof a woman bathing; and the woman was very beautiful. 3 And David sent and inquired about the woman. And one said, “Is not this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?” 4 So David sent messengers, and took her; and she came to him, and he lay with her. (Now she was purifying herself from her uncleanness.) Then she returned to her house. 5 And the woman conceived; and she sent and told David, “I am with child.”
Once pregnancy and paternity are established, the focus shifts to a significantly longer narrative involving David and Uriah (spanning twenty verses compared to the initial four). This is clearly the author’s central interest. While we cannot comment on every verse, this entire section is worthy of a slow and careful reading; it presents a stunning contrast between Uriah’s virtue and David’s despicable opportunism. While David’s adultery is a grave sin, his premeditated murder of an innocent man is far worse. The chapter then concludes (vv. 26-27) with a brief notice of David taking Bathsheba into his house and the birth of their son.
What is most striking is that this entire sequence is narrated from a "horizontal" or secular frame; there is no reference to divine agency or judgment. This is a deliberate literary choice. David acts as though God is not watching, making his decisions without any regard for divine evaluation. Consequently, the final line of the chapter is chillingly ominous: "But the thing that David had done displeased the Lord" (v. 27). Given the “secular” character of narrative, David must have assumed that he had successfully covered his tracks—that Uriah is dead, the adultery is hidden, and he has escaped consequence.
David’s inner thoughts might very well follow the train of Psalm 10:4-6:
4 In the pride of their countenance the wicked say, “God will not seek it out”;
all their thoughts are, “There is no God.”5 Their ways prosper at all times;
your judgments are on high, out of their sight;
as for their foes, they scoff at them.6 They think in their heart, “We shall not be moved;
throughout all generations we shall not meet adversity.”
Like the figure in this Psalm, David believes his deeds have gone unnoticed. Now that Uriah is dead the worries about adultery have waned. He can marry Bathsheba and no one will be the wiser. David has concluded—paraphrasing v. 4 of our Psalm—that God will not "seek out his sin.”
II. Nathan’s Rebuke and David’s Confession
Chapter 12 begins with the prophet Nathan being sent to rebuke David. He opens by recounting a parable:
1 “There were two men in a certain city, the one rich and the other poor. 2 The rich man had very many flocks and herds; 3 but the poor man had nothing but one little ewe lamb, which he had bought. And he brought it up, and it grew up with him and with his children; it used to eat of his morsel, and drink from his cup, and lie in his bosom, and it was like a daughter to him. 4 Now there came a traveler to the rich man, and he was unwilling to take one of his own flock or herd to prepare for the wayfarer who had come to him, but he took the poor man’s lamb, and prepared it for the man who had come to him.”
As many have observed, the parable does not perfectly mirror the situation. To be sure, the rich man is David, the poor man is Uriah, and the little ewe lamb is Bathsheba. However, the traveler represents no one in particular, and the rich man’s slaughtering of a lamb does not exactly square with David’s adulterous behavior.
The reason for this "ill-fit" is strategic: the parable cannot match the reality too closely, or David would catch on and refuse to recriminate himself. By being slightly off the mark, David is drawn into the story and issues his own damning indictment:
5 Then David’s anger was greatly kindled against the man; “As the LORD lives, the man who has done this deserves to die; 6 and he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity.”
This allows Nathan to step forward and make his point with sharp precision in the very next verse: “You are the man!” (v. 7). David, for his part, accepts this verdict. In words just as succinct, he says: (v. 13) “I have sinned against the Lord.” In the original Hebrew, both Nathan's accusation and David’s confession consist of only two words each. The turning point of this entire sordid affair rests on just four words total.
However, it is crucial to understand what David is consenting to when he offers his confession. We skipped over quite a bit of text when we went from Nathan’s accusation (v. 7) to David’s response (v. 13). Let us look at Nathan’s full speech:
Nathan said to David, “You are the man. Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, ‘I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you out of the hand of Saul; 8 and I gave you your master’s house, and your master’s wives into your bosom, and gave you the house of Israel and of Judah; and if this were too little, I would add to you as much more. 9 Why have you despised the word of the LORD, to do what is evil in his sight? You have smitten Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and have taken his wife to be your wife, and have slain him with the sword of the Ammonites. 10 Now therefore the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised me, and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife.’ 11 Thus says the LORD, ‘Behold, I will raise up evil against you out of your own house; and I will take your wives before your eyes, and give them to your neighbor, and he shall lie with your wives in the sight of this sun. 12 For you did it secretly; but I will do this thing before all Israel, and before the sun.’” 13 David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the LORD.” And Nathan said to David, “The LORD also has put away your sin; you shall not die. 14 Nevertheless, because by this deed you have utterly scorned the LORD, the child that is born to you shall die.”
I would like to focus on verses 10–12, where Nathan outlines the consequences of David’s egregious behavior. The punishment matches the sin exactly. Because David used the "sword" to eliminate Uriah (v. 9), so “the sword shall never depart from [his] house” (v. 10). And as we will see in our next essay, this proves tragically true when David’s own son, Absalom, evicts him from the throne and forces him to flee for his life.
Furthermore, when Absalom rises in rebellion, he is urged by the shrewd royal counselor, Ahitophel, to take David’s wives onto the roof of the palace and lie with them there (16:22). This fulfills exactly what Nathan predicted in verse 12: “For you did it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel, and before the sun.”
Recognizing these penalties is essential to grasping the depth of David’s confession. When David replies, “I have sinned against the Lord,” he is not merely admitting to the act; he is accepting full responsibility for the consequences that follow. The Jewish Biblical scholar, Uriel Simon, captures this nicely when he says that David’s confession “goes far beyond his original reaction to the rich man’s sin against the poor man. His unqualified admission of his guilt before God—which obviously includes his sin toward his fellow man—is also an acceptance of his punishment.”[1]
In the wake of this humble confession, Nathan speaks words of absolution. For capital crimes such as David's, the penalty should have been death. Mercifully, it is set aside: “The Lord also has put away your sin, you shall not die” (v. 13b). Yet, David does not get off "scot-free." Beyond the long-term punishments described in verses 10–12, the immediate consequence is the death of the child (v. 14). Modern readers understandably recoil at this. What did an innocent baby do to deserve such a fate?
To understand this, we must remember that the Bible views personal identity through family units rather than "siloed" individuals.[2] We rise by the virtues of our parents and sink by their vices. Even in our modern, individualistic world, we recognize this dynamic when we speak of “Adult Children of Alcoholics.” The tragedy of alcoholism affects more than the individual him or herself; it pulls an entire family into its wake.
But we also need to appreciate the linkage between the moral and physical world for our Biblical authors. Let me explain. We would make a clear distinction between a mother who lost a child as a result of substance abuse and a mother who lost a child because she swindled the poor of their meager resources. In the first case, the penalty follows the laws of nature; no outide intervention is needed. In the second, the penalty appears somewhat arbitrary. It could only be imposed by a conscious and willing outside agent.
But here is the point. In the Bible, the laws of nature are not independent, scientific principles; rather they are dependent on the moral actions of a people. The best example of this would be the rain that is necessary for the flourishing of one’s crops. In the Bible, rain depends more on the moral stature of a people than any meterological principle. For this reason, periods of drought triggered public actions of penance such as prayer and fasting. Similarly, for the ancient mind, the passing of the child of David and Bathsheba is ultimately a “natural” consequence of an adulterous relationship. In the cultural world of the Bible, losing a child because of substance abuse would be little different from losing a child due to adultery.
Let us return to the primary point: when Nathan rebukes David, the goal is not just to secure a verbal confession, but to lead David to accept the natural consequences of his actions. This connection is fundamental to a biblical understanding of forgiveness, yet it is often missed in popular culture. To see this misconception on display, let us turn to an episode from the award-winning series, The Crown.
III. Forgiveness in The Crown
The series The Crown follows the life of Queen Elizabeth through the many decades of her reign. Our focus is Season 2, Episode 6, titled “Vergangenheit”—a German word meaning “the past.” In this episode, the intrigue surrounding the Duke of Winsor’s actions during the Second World War is woven into the story of Billy Graham’s first gospel “crusade” in the British Isles. And let me make an important aside: my interest is not historical accuracy, but rather the theological logic of the script as it stands.
It turns out that the Queen loved Billy Graham and met with him twice during his visit. The reason for the juxtaposition of these two themes becomes clear at the end of the episode. The Queen faces a difficult task: the Duke of Winsor, who had abdicated from the throne decades earlier due to an irregular marriage and was forced into exile in Paris, is seeking to return to Britian. He believes he has “served his time” and that no punishment should continue in perpetuity.
However, unbeknownst to him, archives related to his actions during the war are about to be made public. The Queen learns for the first time that the Duke had been a collaborator with Hitler and the Nazis. He had hoped to use the influence of the German military machine to assist him in his return to the throne. And that was only one of the horrors that the Queen has come to learn.
Against this background the Queen has to reshuffle her cards so to speak and think hard about the task ahead of her. Should she—or even could she—forgive the Duke? She invites Billy Graham to her home to seek his counsel. You can watch the clip here.
Queen Elizabeth: Are there any circumstances do you feel, where one can be a good Christian and yet not forgive?
Graham: Christian teaching’s very clear on this. No one is beneath forgiveness. Dying on the cross, Jesus himself asked the Lord to forgive those that killed him.
Elizabeth: Yes. But . . . we must remember his words. “They know not what they do.” That forgiveness . . . it was conditional.
Graham: True, but he still forgave. God himself forgives us all. Who are we to reject the example of God?
Elizabeth: Mere mortals?
Graham: We are all mortals, that is our fate, but we need not be un-Christian ones. [Pause, Elizabeth sighs] The solution for being unable to forgive . . . one asks for forgiveness oneself. Humbly and sincerely, and one prays for those that one cannot forgive.
(The camera then cuts to the chapel. We are looking down a long aisle toward the altar where we see Elizabeth kneeling in prayer.)
In spite of Billy Graham’s urging, the Queen choses to stay her ground and refuses to offer the Duke the reconciliation that he desires. Yet, she feels horrible about this decision, believing she had failed as a Christian. Most of us, I think, would be inclined to agree with the decision the Queen has made. But precisely for this reason, I would claim, something has gone terribly awry. Why is it so natural for her (and, by implication, us) to stand athwart what the Gospel seems to demand?
The answer, I would suggest, is that the script writers presume a definition of forgiveness that does not square with the Bible. Now to be fair, the deviancy is not catastrophic: a scene with the Queen on her knees praying for herself and her adversary is most commendable. But the Queen’s deep conviction that she has failed as a disciple of Christ cannot be right. In order to get a proper grasp on the theological dimensions of the challenge she faces, we must return to our Biblical texts.
First of all, it is striking that when the Duke is confronted by the Queen about his relationship to Hitler and the Nazis, his response mirrors Saul’s response to Samuel. Like Saul, the Duke is unaware of how much the Queen knows and dramatically understates his culpability. Clearly the Duke does not enjoy the grace of humble and sincere contrition.
But this is not the only part of the episode that does not do justice to the Bible. Indeed, there is a far bigger problem. The writers of this episode labor under the presumption that forgiveness is a simple matter of clearing the books and putting all parties concerned into the position of the status quo ante. The logic of the episode assumes that forgiveness requires the Duke’s return to England. But, as we saw in the story of David’s encounter with Nathan, things are not so simple.
In other words, the Queen labors under a significant misconception about the nature of forgiveness. She feels called by the Gospel to forgive the Duke but cannot fulfill that obligation because she assumes that forgiveness would require allowing the Duke to return to England. But the Duke’s sin was very grave—certainly on a par with that of David—and the notion that certain consequences would follow even after a sincere confession is very much a part of the Biblical picture. Recall what Nathan told David regarding the consequences of his sin (vv. 7-13). Confession was not the end of the matter for David, nor could it be so for the Duke.
We will return to this particular feature of forgiveness in far greater detail in our next lecture. I cannot do full justice to it here. But for now, let us make sure we have understood what made David’s confession virtuous. Unlike Saul, David’s confession was made quickly and without any attempt at self-justification. And also, unlike Saul, David not only owns up to his sinful actions, but accepts the consequences that will follow from his deeds. It is the act of accepting the consequences that needs a bit more attention and we will fulfill that obligation in our next essay.
EDITORIAL NOTE: This essay is adapted from the third installment of the McGrath Institute's six-part Lenten Illuminating Scripture series, which you can watch in its entirety below.
