Then David sent messengers to get her. She came to him, and he slept with her. (Now she was purifying herself from her monthly uncleanness.) Then she went back home. – 2 Samuel 11:4

Today's Scripture Reading (July 24, 2025): 2 Samuel 11

I loved playing "Hide and Seek" as a child. My favorite version of the game was played in the twilight of the day. You ran and hid, but then, using the dark as your ally, you snuck back toward home base, seeing if you could get home. I loved getting out as the hot summer day began to die, playing a game with a bunch of neighborhood kids. If you were it, part of the strategy was to be patient and wait for the players to begin to sneak back and then hide yourself somewhere where you could pounce on your unsuspecting friends as they tried to make it home.

Sin rarely sneaks up on us. It's often the result of a series of missteps, and it's more than a little like the game of "Hide and Seek" I loved to play as a child. Perhaps each step is not a sin, but each step carries us just a little closer to it. The reality is that there are usually several moments when we could have stopped the sin, but we don't.

And that is precisely what happens to David. Perhaps the first decision David makes is to send his army out to fight without him. At other times, David would have led his troops; he would have been part of the strategy sessions with his Generals, but this time he decides to stay home while his army goes out to fight. It was not really a sin to stay home, but it was a break in tradition.

Then David goes up on the roof of his palace as the day begins to end. In the ancient world, where there was no such thing as hot and cold running water, woman would often put their bathtubs on the roof of their homes and then let the sun warm the water. Then, as the day began to close its eyes, they would go up onto the roof and bathe. The roof of David's palace was higher than that of any other roof. As David goes to the roof of his palace at this time of the day, he knew exactly what it was that he was going to see. 

David sees Bathsheba and sends someone to find out who she is. He finds that she is the wife of one of his soldiers and a friend, a man named Uriah the Hittite. This woman's husband was someone David had learned to trust. David has come close to sin with each step, but he hasn't crossed the line. (Admittedly, I am not sure where to place his voyeurism, maybe that crosses the line, or at the very least it comes incredibly close to the line, but up until now no one would need to know what David has done.)

But there is no doubt that when David sent for Bathsheba, the King had definitely crossed the line. There were many places where David could have stopped the process, but he didn't. There were several guardrails (see the July 19, 2025 post from 1 Chronicles 18:3) designed to keep David safe, but he plowed through every one of them. And at the end of the road was a sin that would set up some of the biggest disasters of David's life, which included the murder of a friend, the death of at least one child, maybe more, rebellion against his kingdom by his son, and the rape of his daughter by one of her brothers and the murder of a son. None of this had to happen, but the dominoes that led to all of this were set in motion and began to fall on this fateful day.

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: 2 Samuel 12