You Are the Man

A prophet tells the king a story about a poor man and a stolen lamb. The king is furious. “The man who did this deserves to die!” The prophet looks him in the eye. “You are the man.”

It is spring, the time of year when kings go out to war. David sends his general Joab and the whole army of Israel to besiege Rabbah, the Ammonite capital. But David himself stays behind in Jerusalem. One evening he gets up from his couch and walks on the palace roof. From there he sees a woman bathing. She is very beautiful. He asks who she is. She is Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah the Hittite, one of his own soldiers, away fighting at that very moment.

David sends messengers, and they bring her to him, and he sleeps with her. Then she goes home. Some time later a message comes back to the palace, so short it takes a breath to say. “I am pregnant.” Readers have long asked how much choice Bathsheba had when the king sent for her. The Bible does not tell us her thoughts. But it is clear about whose wrong this is. Every verb belongs to David. He saw. He sent. He took.

Now David tries to cover it up. He calls Uriah home from the battle, asks politely how the war is going, and sends him off to his house to rest, hoping everyone will think the child is Uriah's. But Uriah will not go home. He sleeps at the palace door with the servants. “The ark and Israel and Judah are living in tents,” he says. “My commander and his men are camped in the open fields. How could I go home to eat and drink and lie with my wife?” David even gets him drunk. Still he will not go. So David writes a letter to Joab and sends it back with Uriah himself. Put Uriah at the front, where the fighting is fiercest, and then pull back from him. Joab does it. Uriah is killed in battle. When the time of mourning is over, David brings Bathsheba to his house, and she becomes his wife and bears him a son. But the Bible adds one quiet line. The thing David had done displeased the Lord.

So the Lord sends the prophet Nathan to David. Nathan tells him about two men in a town. A rich man with huge flocks, and a poor man with one little ewe lamb. The lamb grew up with his children. It ate from his plate and slept in his arms. It was like a daughter to him. When a traveller came to visit, the rich man would not take an animal from his own flocks. He took the poor man's lamb and served it up. David burns with anger. That man must pay four times over, he says, because he had no pity. And Nathan says, “You are the man.” Then he speaks for God. I made you king. I gave you everything. Why have you despised my word? Trouble will now rise against you from your own house.

David does not argue. He does not make excuses. He says, “I have sinned against the Lord.” And Nathan answers, “The Lord has taken away your sin. You will not die.” But the consequences remain. The baby falls ill. David fasts and lies on the ground all night, pleading for the child. On the seventh day the child dies. David gets up, washes, goes to worship, and then eats. His servants are confused. He tells them: while the child lived, I hoped God might be gracious. Now I cannot bring him back. Later, David comforts Bathsheba, and she has another son. They name him Solomon, and the Lord loves him.

The city David's army was besieging, Rabbah of the Ammonites, did not vanish. It became the city later known as Philadelphia, and today it is Amman, the capital of Jordan. And the spring timing fits the ancient world. Armies waited until the winter rains had ended and the roads had dried before they marched. That is why the story opens by saying it was the time when kings go out to battle, and David stayed at home.

This story is told in Second Samuel, chapters 11 and 12. It shows how one wrong choice, hidden instead of confessed, led to another and another. It also shows that when David finally told the truth, God forgave him. So here is a question to carry with you. Is there something you are trying to cover up, that God is inviting you to bring into the light?