David and Batsheva/2

David and Batsheva

Exegetical Approaches

This topic has not yet undergone editorial review

Not Guilty of Adultery or Murder

Though David's actions deserved a measure of censure, he did not violate the Biblical prohibitions of adultery or murder.

Sources:Bavli ShabbatShabbat 56a-56bAbout the Bavli, RidShemuel II 12:4About R. Yeshayah of Trani,¹ MalbimShemuel II 11Shemuel II 12About R. Meir Leibush Weiser,

Uriah's death – These sources absolve David of guilt in Uriah's death in various ways:

• Rebellious – According to the Bavli, Uriah was considered a rebel against the king due to his referring to Yoav as "my master".² Malbim instead claims that the rebellion lay in Uriah's refusal to return home after David told him, "רֵד לְבֵיתְךָ וּרְחַץ רַגְלֶיךָ".‎³  According to either reading, Uriah was deserving of death.  David's sin lay not in killing him, but only in doing so outside of proper judicial procedure.
• Legitimate casualty of war– The Rid asserts that a king has a right to endanger his men in the front line, and can not be held accountable if they die there.  This, though, ignores the fact that David did not simply send Uriah to war but told Yoav to abandon him with the intention that he be killed.
• No messenger for transgressions – It is also possible to suggest that David was not held accountable since he did not personally hurt Uriah; it was Yoav's fault that Uriah was forsaken to be killed in battle (אין שליח לדבר עבירה).⁴

Batsheva was not legally married – According to this position, David did not commit adultery since Batsheva did not have marital status when he slept with her.  There are two variations of the approach:

• Divorced – R. Yonatan in the Bavli (followed by many sources) asserts that in David's era those who went to battle divorced their wives so as to prevent them from becoming "chained women" (עגונות) if the soldier was not to return from war.⁵  The sources disagree regarding the nature of the divorce:

• Full divorce – According to R. Tam,⁶ marriages were fully dissolved when the husband left to war.  If so, when David approached Batsheva she was no longer a married woman and there was no possible issue of adultery.  The sin lay in the fact that David knew that the divorce was given only for technical reasons and that under other circumstances the couple would have stayed married.
• Conditional –  According to Rashi and the Rid, in contrast, the divorces were conditional on the husband not returning home.  As such, when David slept with Batsheva her status was unknown, and it was only after Uriah's death that she was retroactively considered divorced. This understanding absolves David of technical guilt, but leaves his actions as still very problematic from a moral perspective.
• Illegitimate marriage – Alternatively, this approach could posit that Uriah was not Jewish as his title "the Hittite" implies. If so, Batsheva was never legally married to him and David was not committing adultery when he had relations with her.

"וַיִּשְׁלַח דָּוִד וַיִּדְרֹשׁ לָאִשָּׁה" – Malbim suggests that the phrase "וַיִּדְרֹשׁ לָאִשָּׁה" means that David was seeking to know not the identity of Batsheva, but her marital status (whether she was someone who had been given a divorce from her husband).

"אֵשֶׁת אוּרִיָּה הַחִתִּי"

"וְהִיא מִתְקַדֶּשֶׁת מִטֻּמְאָתָהּ" – Malbim asserts that the text shares that Batsheva was purifying herself to teach that David did not transgress the prohibition of sleeping with a woman while impure.  He claims that had David committed adultery it would be senseless to point this out as the king would have been transgressing a far more severe prohibition.  Thus, mention of the fact further supports the notion that David must not have committed adultery.⁷

Rebuke via parable – The Rid suggests that Natan's use of a parable to chastise David further supports this position.  If the sin was one of adultery, Natan would have simply accused the king of sleeping with another's wife. The method of rebuke chosen proves that the crime was not self-evident.⁸

"וַיִּקַּח אֶת כִּבְשַׂת הָאִישׁ הָרָאשׁ" – R. Medan⁹  asserts that Natan's parable does not contain a direct parallel to the sin of adultery, focusing instead on the taking advantage of a poor man by taking his lamb.  He points to this as further evidence that David's sin lay in taking advantage of another, rather than in sleeping with a married woman.

"וְאֹתוֹ הָרַגְתָּ בְּחֶרֶב בְּנֵי עַמּוֹן" – According to the Bavli, Natan is not chastising David for the killing itself,¹⁰ but the fact that he did so via "the sword of Amon" rather than via the Sanhedrin.

"וְאֶת אִשְׁתּוֹ לָקַחְתָּ לְּךָ לְאִשָּׁה" – R. Yaakov Fidanque points out that when Natan speaks of "taking Batsheva as a wife" he does so only after mentioning the death of Uriah, suggesting that he is not referring to the initial relations (which were permitted) but only of David's marrying her afterwards (which was improper).

How can David stay married to Batsheva? This question is one of the main motivations behind this position's reading of the story.  Had David committed adultery, Batsheva should have been prohibited to him.  It would have been meaningless for him to repent while staying married to her.  Moreover, it would mean that Shelomo, the next king, was illegitimate. Thus, their continuous marriage is one of the strongest proofs that Batsheva had not been forbidden to David.

"וַיֹּאמֶר דָּוִד לְאוּרִיָּה רֵד לְבֵיתְךָ" – This approach must explain why David attempted to have Uriah sleep with his wife. If Batsheva had no married status, then David should not have felt the need to cover anything up.  On the other hand, if her status was in doubt due to the conditional nature of the divorce, then would not inviting Uriah to sleep with his wife ensure that she was in fact married retroactively?¹¹

Punishment – This approach must explain why David's punishment is so severe if he was not actually guilty.  The sources could explain that despite technically being innocent, David was still morally wrong to act as he did.  In addition, Hashem often acts stringently with the righteous.

Why do the verses present David as guilty? Malbim, following Bavli Avodah Zarah, suggests that Hashem wanted to teach people about the power of repentance through David. If readers view him as having sinned greatly, but also repented sincerely, and see how his repentance was accepted, they will learn to similarly repent o their own misdeeds.

"חָטָאתִי לַי"י" – David says "I have sinned to Hashem" because his biggest sin was not an interpersonal one, but rather the desecration of Hashem's name that his actions might have led to.

Guilty of Adultery and Murder

David sinned egregiously, committing both adultery and murder.

Sources:Bavli YomaYoma 22bAbout the Bavli, R. Yosef KaraShemuel II 11:1-15Shemuel II 12:8-11About R. Yosef Kara, RadakShemuel II 11:2-4Shemuel II 12:9-13About R. David Kimchi, RidTehillim 51:1About R. Yeshayah of Trani, R. Yosef ibn KaspiShemuel II 11:6Shemuel II 12:9-14About R. Yosef ibn Kaspi, Abarbanel

Uriah's death:"אֵת אוּרִיָּה הַחִתִּי הִכִּיתָ בַחֶרֶב" – This position reads Natan's accusation simply to mean that David was responsible for Uriah's death.  Radak points out that even though elsewhere the rule "אין שליח לדבר עבירה" (there is no messenger for transgressions) applies, David's position as king made it impossible for others to defy his orders, putting the responsibility for the death fully on his shoulders.

"וְאֹתוֹ הָרַגְתָּ בְּחֶרֶב בְּנֵי עַמּוֹן" – Radak and Abarbanel read into Natan's repetition of the fact of murder further censure of David.  In killing Uriah via the enemies of Israel, David ensured that his loyal servant had an ignoble death. Moreover, orchestrating his death in the war required that many others in Israel died alongside him.¹²  As such, their deaths, too, were David's fault.¹³

"וְאֶת אִשְׁתּוֹ לָקַחְתָּ לְּךָ לְאִשָּׁה" – Abarbanel claims that this rebuke of Natan refers both to the initial adulterous action, and the fact that David married Batsheva so soon after her husband died.

Batsheva's role – It is unclear from the verses whether Batsheva was taken against her will, or whether the act was consensual.¹⁴ In other words, it is possible that David's sins included not only adultery but rape as well.

"אֵשֶׁת אוּרִיָּה הַחִתִּי" – The text refers to Batsheva as the wife of Uriah, because the two were fully married when David had relations with her.

"וְהִיא מִתְקַדֶּשֶׁת מִטֻּמְאָתָהּ" – This verse might not be coming to absolve David of the guilt of sleeping with an impure woman (which would be meaningless given that he was committing adultery), but, as R. Yosef Kara explains, to clarify that Uriah could not have been the father of the baby.

"וַיֹּאמֶר דָּוִד לְאוּרִיָּה רֵד לְבֵיתְךָ" – According to this position, David's words betray his desire to cover up his misdeed by passing off Uriah as the father.  Abarbanel criticizes him for thinking to cut off his son from his family and for creating a problem of unknown ancestry which could lead to illegitimate marriages.

Uriah's response to David – This position does not read any rebellion in Uriah's response to David. Uriah's referring to Yoav as his master is not problematic since Yoav was indeed of higher rank.  In addition, his refusal to return home is seen as a noble statement of solidarity with his fellow soldiers, not as an act of defiance against David.

Natan's parable – This approach might suggest that Natan choose to rebuke David via a parable rather than confronting him directly since he wanted David to decree his own sentence. A self imposed verdict is a much more powerful way to prove to someone their guilt.

Punishment – David receives a severe, measure for measure punishment in line with the severity of his actions.  Just as he took another's wife, his own wives were taken, and just as he killed Uriah via sword, his own family was plagued by violence and death.  David's own life was spared due to only to his repentance.

"רַק בִּדְבַר אוּרִיָּה הַחִתִּי"

How can David stay married to Batsheva?

Why did he merit dynastic rule?

וְדָוִד יוֹשֵׁב בִּירוּשָׁלִָם – The verses might introduce the story in this manner to cast david in a negative light from the very beginning.  Why is David in Jerusalem while the rest of the nation is at war? The description of David rising from an afternoon nap to stroll on his rooftop while others are risking their lives is further unsettling.¹⁵

Guilty of Murder but not Adultery

Sources:RalbagShemuel II 12:7Shemuel II 12:25Shemuel II Toalot 11Shemuel II Toalot 12:5About R. Levi b. Gershom

¹ This is how he expalins the story in his comments on Sefer Shemuel, following Chazal in the Bavli.  However, in his comments on Tehillim 51, he says that according to the simple sense of the text David did in fact sin.

² Such a title should have been reserved for David.

³ Malbim reads David's words as a command to go home and not return to the war, rather than a friendly suggestion to take a short respite before returning to the front.

⁴ Opponents of this position would claim that David's position as king made it difficult for anyone to defy him, so his acting via a messenger did not absolve him of guilt.  The repeated use of the verb "שלח" (eleven times in Chapter 11) might come to reinforce this point.

⁵ This is learned from the verse "וְאֶת אַחֶיךָ תִּפְקֹד לְשָׁלוֹם וְאֶת עֲרֻבָּתָם תִּקָּח" (Shemuel I 17:18), where the word "עֲרֻבָּתָם" is understood to refer to "דברים המעורבים בינו לבינה", matters which involve man and his wife.  The proof text is fairly weak as its context has nothing to do with divorce.

⁶ See also R. Yaakov Fidanque [He was a Portuguese rabbi of Hamburg whose commentary on the Prohets was printed together with that of Abarbanel in the 1687 Hamburg edition of Abarbanel's commentary.]

⁷ See, though, R. Yosef Kara who explains that that the fact is mentioned only to clarify that the fetus could not be from relations with Uriah, and must have come from Batsheva's relations with David.

⁸ See R. Medan who elaborates on this point in his article, "".

⁹ See his article, "מגילת בתשבע," Megadim 18-19 (1993): 67-167.

¹⁰ See above that the Bavli claims that Uriah was guilty of rebelling against the king and therefore deserving of death.

¹¹ Malbim suggests that when David discovered that Batsheva was pregnant, he realized that despite his not having technically done anything wrong, his actions would be viewed negatively and might even cause rebellion in the nation. To prevent this he invited Uriah home to hide the deed, knowing that this would be at the expense of his transgressing the prohibition of adultery.

¹² See Midrash Shemuel 25.

¹³ One might argue that David actually tells Yoav to abandon Uriah on the battlefield, precisely so as to prevent others from being killed. It is Yoav who veers from the plan, thereby causing other deaths.  However, one might respond that David's plan was not realistic.  Yoav could never tell his men to simply abandon an elite soldier in battle; his men would lose all faith in their general and never agree.

¹⁴ The verses clearly speak of David "taking" Batsheva, and his position as king would make it impossible for her to decline, absolving her of any guilt.  On the other hand, the words "וַתָּבוֹא אֵלָיו" in verse 4 are superfluous and might be included to hint that she willingly came to David and played a part as well.  In addition, if the words "מֵעַל הַגָּג" in 11:2 refer to Batsheva bathing on top of the roof (rather than David standing there), this would suggest that she displayed a lack of modesty which might implicate her to an extent as well.

¹⁵ These verses, however, need not be critical of David. There re many legitimate reasons why the king might have decided not to join the war and David's afternoon nap might be normal for the era, or perhaps the result of having been up all night dealing with the nation's affairs.