David Bahn – Reflections

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These devotions are part of the Follow the Word Bible reading program at St. John Lutheran Church in Cypress, Texas. This year we are reading through the Scriptures together, listening for how God speaks through his Word day by day. I hope you will join me on this journey.

Today’s readings are 2 Samuel 10, 1 Chronicles 19, 2 Samuel 11, Psalm 119:145-176.

Psalm 119:176

I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek your servant,
    for I do not forget your commandments.

2 Samuel 11:1-5

In the spring of the year, the time when kings go out to battle, David sent Joab, and his servants with him, and all Israel. And they ravaged the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David remained at Jerusalem.

² It happened, late one afternoon, when David arose from his couch and was walking on 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 had been purifying herself from her uncleanness.) Then she returned to her house. ⁵ And the woman conceived, and she sent and told David, “I am pregnant.”

This is one of those biblical accounts that troubles us from more than one direction. We all know people who were unable to resist temptation and ended up damaging marriages and families. And we also know of situations where, at least outwardly, life seems to have been pieced back together — even appearing better than before. But as a good friend of mine says, divorce is the gift that keeps on giving. She says that from experience, having lived through the pain of a fractured family and the challenges of a blended one.

I also know of pastors who have fallen into sexual sin and made a shipwreck of their ministry and marriage — and others who have recovered, at least in part. But sexual sin carries deep and lasting consequences. As Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 6:18, “Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body.”

In David’s case, this begins in part because he does not go out to war at the time when kings normally do. In the ancient Near East, kings typically went to battle in the spring, when the winter rains had passed, roads were dry, and armies could move and be supplied more easily.

David, however, did not go out. He stayed home. With time on his hands, he walked on the roof of his palace — with a clear view toward Uriah’s house. Whether this was the idle wandering of a bored man or something more, the text does not say. It does show, however, that David was not seeking the Lord in that moment.

David did not go out. He walked on the roof. He saw Bathsheba. He brought her into his palace. He committed adultery. And we know how the story unfolds — the murder of her husband and, eventually, the death of the child.

When we neglect our calling and lose focus in our daily walk, something begins to shift. God has given us a purpose — to declare the glories of him who called us out of darkness into his marvelous light. When we drift from that purpose, we are not simply idle; we are exposed. And in that space, temptation often finds its opportunity.

We can thank God that our Savior — Jesus, the Son of David — faced every temptation known to man and yet remained faithful. He then offered himself on the cross as the atoning sacrifice for the sins of the world — for us, who like sheep have gone astray. This is never an excuse to let our guard down, but it is a deep comfort for those who have fallen.

Perhaps that is why we find such deep meaning in the words of Psalm 51 and sing, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me…” This was David’s song of repentance — and it remains an invitation for each of us to return daily to God in repentance and faith.

Click on the graphic below to watch the Bible Project video summary of the book of 2 Samuel.