2 Samuel 11

We have taken up the task of writing an apology for the present style of the prophet David, not because he needs this gift, who has excelled in such great merits and flourished in virtues, but because many people, reading the sequence of his deeds without considering the power of the Scriptures or the hidden mysteries, wonder how such a great prophet did not avoid the contagion of adultery first and then of murder.

Therefore, it was our desire to review the history itself, which seems to have been exposed to sin. For in the second book of Kings (2 Samuel 11:2-27), we read that while David was walking in his royal palace, he saw a woman bathing (her name was Bathsheba), of remarkable beauty and grace, with a very attractive face, and he was overcome by the desire to possess her. However, the woman was married to a man named Uriah, and the scene of his death was arranged by royal command. For although it had no effect on his desire, yet it was considered to greatly impede his sense of shame for adultery.

Therefore, let us begin with the most obvious, whom God justified, so that you may not judge. 'For it is of little concern to me,' says Paul, 'that I should be judged by you or by any human court; indeed, I do not even judge myself' (1 Corinthians 4:3). Even though he was still in the body and subject to temptation, he did not judge himself because a spiritual person is not judged by anyone but God alone. Finally, he added, 'The one who judges me is the Lord' (1 Corinthians 4:4). Therefore, do not judge anything before the appointed time (ibid., 4 and 5). But David has already fulfilled his time and has earned grace, and he is justified by Christ; since David himself rejoiced in being called the son of the Lord, and those who confessed him in this way were enlightened. Why do you call a man of God from a reward to judgment? The Lord has already judged him, of whom he said to Solomon: If you walk before me as your father David walked in the holiness of heart and righteousness, in order to do everything I commanded him (3 Kings 9:4). Is he worthy of judgment or reward, who has done everything according to heavenly commands, walking in holiness and righteousness of heart? Where the vices and sins of others are hidden, there David receives divine testimony of his virtue and glory. And we discuss his sin in vain, for it is through his merit and grace that the sins of others have been revealed. For when Solomon sinned by not keeping the Lord's commands and God intended to divide his kingdom into many parts, He said to him: However, I will not do this in your days because of your father David. I will take it from the hand of your son. However, I will not take the whole kingdom; I will give him one scepter because of my servant David (3 Kings 11:12-13). Therefore, since the Lord justifies, who is there to condemn? What God has cleansed, you must not call common (Acts 10:15).

Nevertheless, with due regard to heavenly judgment, in which you honor the prophet even more, enter into his actions and behaviors. Do not marvel at the man, and do not judge him to be equal to the angels, because he has spent most of his life, even from childhood, dwelling in riches, honors, and positions of power, and has been subjected to many temptations. He has only once given in to error, and it is through this error that even the angels of heaven, as Scripture recounts (Genesis 6:2), were cast down from their virtue and grace. Indeed, another error of his is mentioned, that he caused the people to be counted.

It would be better for the sun to be extinguished than for David’s words to be forgotten and not transmitted to others. He fell into adultery and envy. For he saw, he says, a beautiful woman bathing and became enamored of her; and later he succeeded in doing all that he fancied.And the prophet was found in adultery, the pearl in mud. However, he did not yet understand that he had sinned, the passion ravaged him to such a great extent. Because, when the charioteer gets drunk, the chariot moves in an irregular, disorderly manner. What the charioteer is to the chariot, the soul is to the body. If the soul becomes darkened, the body rolls in mud. As long as the charioteer stands firm, the chariot drives smoothly. However, when he becomes exhausted and is unable to hold the reins firmly, you see this very chariot in terrible danger. This exact same thing happens to human beings. As long as the soul is sober and vigilant, this very body remains in purity. However, when the soul is darkened, this very body rolls in mud and in lusts.
Therefore, what did David do? He committed adultery; yet neither was he aware nor was he censured by anyone. This occurred in his most venerable years, so you may learn that, if you are indolent, not even old age benefits you, nor, if you are earnest, can youthful years seriously harm you. Behavior does not depend on age but on the direction of the will.…
So you may learn that the affairs of prudence rely upon the will and do not depend on age, just remember that David was found in his venerable years falling into adultery and committing murder; and he reached such a pathetic state that he was unaware that he had sinned, because his mind, which was the charioteer, was drunk from debauchery.

David was a man after God’s own heart, and his lips had often sung of the Holy One, the future Christ. Yet as he walked upon his housetop he was fascinated by Bathsheba’s nudity, and [he] added murder to adultery. Notice here how, even in his own house, a man cannot use his eyes without danger. Then repenting, he says to the Lord, “Against you, you only, have I sinned and done this evil in your sight.” Being a king he feared no one else.

Surely, it is better to believe that the apostle Paul wrote something untruthful than that the apostle Peter did not act uprightly. If that is so, then let us say something abhorrent, that it is better to believe that the gospel lies than that Christ was denied by Peter; and that the book of Kings [Samuel] lies than that a great prophet, so eminently chosen by the Lord God, committed adultery by coveting and seducing another man’s wife and was guilty of a revolting murder by killing her husband. On the contrary, I will read the holy Scripture with complete certainty and confidence in its truth, founded as it is on the highest summit of divine authority; and I would rather learn from it that people were truly approved or corrected or condemned than allow my trust in the divine Word to be everywhere undermined because I fear to believe that the human conduct of certain excellent and praiseworthy persons is sometimes worthy of blame.

For blessed Jerome among others points out that Bathsheba manifested a type of the church or of human flesh and says that David bore the mark of Christ; this is clearly apt at many points. Just as Bathsheba when washing herself unclothed in the brook of Kidron delighted David and deserved to attain the royal embraces, and her husband was slain at the prince’s command, so too the church, the assembly of the faithful, once it has cleansed itself of the foulness of sins by the bath of sacred baptism, is known to be joined to Christ the Lord. It was indeed appropriate in those days that the future mysteries of the Lord should be manifested by a deed of this kind, and that what people considered a blameworthy act should be shown to point in a spiritual sense to a great mystery.

For who, that hears of it, not only among believers but of unbelievers themselves also, does not utterly loathe this, that David walking upon his solar lusteth after Beershebah the wife of Uriah? Yet when he returns back from the battle, he bids him go home to wash his feet. Whereupon he answered at once, "The Ark of the Lord abideth in tents, shall I then take rest in my house?" David received him to his own board, and delivers to him letters, through which he must die. But of whom does David walking upon his solar bear a figure, saving of Him, concerning Whom it is written, "He hath set his tabernacle in the sun"? And what else is it to draw Beersheba to himself, but to join to Himself by a spiritual meaning the Law of the formal letter, which was united to a carnal people? For Beersheba is rendered 'the seventh well,' assuredly, in that through the knowledge of the Law, with spiritual grace infused, perfect wisdom is ministered unto us. And whom does Uriah denote, but the Jewish people, whose name is rendered by interpretation, 'My light from God?' Now forasmuch as the Jewish people is raised high by receiving the knowledge of the Law, it as it were glories 'in the light of God.' But David took from this Uriah his wife, and united her to himself, surely in that the strong-handed One, which is the rendering of 'David,' our Redeemer, shewed Himself in the flesh, whilst He made known that the Law spake in a spiritual sense concerning Himself, Hereby, that it was held by them after the letter, He proved it to be alienated from the Jewish people, and joined it to Himself, in that He declared Himself to be proclaimed by it. Yet David bids Uriah 'go home to wash his feet,' in that when the Lord came Incarnate, He bade the Jewish people turn back to the home of the conscience, and wipe off with their tears the defilements of their doings, that it should understand the precepts of the Law in a spiritual sense, and finding the fount of Baptism after the grievous hardness of the commandments, have recourse to water after toil.

Thus David, who in the judgment of Him who chose him was well pleasing to Him in almost all his deeds, as soon as the weight of pressure was removed, broke out into a swelling sore, and, having been as a laxly running one in his appetite for the woman, became as a cruelly hard one in the slaughter of the man; and he who had before known pitifully how to spare the bad learnt afterwards, without impediment of hesitation, to pant even for the death of the good. For, indeed, previously he had been unwilling to smite his captured persecutor; and afterwards, with loss to his wearied army, he destroyed even his devoted soldier. And in truth his crime would have snatched him farther away from the number of the elect, had not scourges called him back to pardon.