Nathan confronts David over Bathsheba and Uriah
United Kingdom · Draft · BSB
Content revision: b2a6ac6996dda3e0 · No editorial review date recorded
Date: David’s reign · During the siege of Rabbah
David takes Bathsheba, Uriah’s wife, and arranges for Uriah to die in battle after his attempt at concealment fails. Nathan exposes David’s wrongdoing. David confesses, but the household suffers lasting consequences, including the death of the child.
The narrator and Nathan place responsibility on David; this is not a story that blames Bathsheba for the king’s abuse of power. Forgiveness does not erase the harm. Solomon’s later birth and the capture of Rabbah also appear in chapter 12, which covers more than one moment.
Primary Scripture
11:1 In the spring, at the time when kings march out to war, David sent out Joab and his servants with the whole army of Israel. They destroyed the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah, but David remained in Jerusalem.
11:2 One evening David got up from his bed and strolled around on the roof of the palace. And from the roof he saw a woman bathing—a very beautiful woman.
11:3 So David sent and inquired about the woman, and he was told, “This is Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah the Hittite.”
11:4 Then David sent messengers to get her, and when she came to him, he slept with her. (Now she had just purified herself from her uncleanness.) Then she returned home.
11:5 And the woman conceived and sent word to David, saying, “I am pregnant.”
11:6 At this, David sent orders to Joab: “Send me Uriah the Hittite.” So Joab sent him to David.
11:7 When Uriah came to him, David asked how Joab and the troops were doing and how the war was going.
11:8 Then he said to Uriah, “Go down to your house and wash your feet.” So Uriah left the palace, and a gift from the king followed him.
11:9 But Uriah slept at the door of the palace with all his master’s servants; he did not go down to his house.
11:10 And David was told, “Uriah did not go home.” “Haven’t you just arrived from a journey?” David asked Uriah. “Why didn’t you go home?”
11:11 Uriah answered, “The ark and Israel and Judah are dwelling in tents, and my master Joab and his soldiers are camped in the open field. How can I go to my house to eat and drink and sleep with my wife? As surely as you live, and as your soul lives, I will not do such a thing!”
11:12 “Stay here one more day,” David said to Uriah, “and tomorrow I will send you back.” So Uriah stayed in Jerusalem that day and the next.
11:13 Then David invited Uriah to eat and drink with him, and he got Uriah drunk. And in the evening Uriah went out to lie down on his cot with his master’s servants, but he did not go home.
11:14 The next morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it with Uriah.
11:15 In the letter he wrote: “Put Uriah at the front of the fiercest battle; then withdraw from him, so that he may be struck down and killed.”
11:16 So as Joab besieged the city, he assigned Uriah to a place where he knew the strongest enemy soldiers were.
11:17 And when the men of the city came out and fought against Joab, some of David’s servants fell, and Uriah the Hittite also died.
11:18 Joab sent to David a full account of the battle
11:19 and instructed the messenger, “When you have finished giving the king a full account of the battle,
11:20 if the king’s anger flares, he may ask you, ‘Why did you get so close to the city to fight? Did you not realize they would shoot from atop the wall?
11:21 Who struck Abimelech son of Jerubbesheth? Was it not a woman who dropped an upper millstone on him from the wall, so that he died in Thebez? Why did you get so close to the wall?’ If he asks you this, then you are to say, ‘Your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead as well.’”
11:22 So the messenger set out and reported to David all that Joab had sent him to say.
11:23 The messenger said to David, “The men overpowered us and came out against us in the field, but we drove them back to the entrance of the gate.
11:24 Then the archers shot at your servants from the wall, and some of the king’s servants were killed. And your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead as well.”
11:25 Then David told the messenger, “Say this to Joab: ‘Do not let this matter upset you, for the sword devours one as well as another. Strengthen your attack against the city and demolish it.’ Encourage him with these words.”
11:26 When Uriah’s wife heard that her husband was dead, she mourned for him.
11:27 And when the time of mourning was over, David had her brought to his house, and she became his wife and bore him a son. But the thing that David had done was evil in the sight of the LORD.
12:1 Then the LORD sent Nathan to David, and when he arrived, he said, “There were two men in a certain city, one rich and the other poor.
12:2 The rich man had a great number of sheep and cattle,
12:3 but the poor man had nothing except one small ewe lamb that he had bought. He raised it, and it grew up with him and his children. It shared his food and drank from his cup; it slept in his arms and was like a daughter to him.
12:4 Now a traveler came to the rich man, who refrained from taking one of his own sheep or cattle to prepare for the traveler who had come to him. Instead, he took the poor man’s lamb and prepared it for his guest.”
12:5 David burned with anger against the man and said to Nathan: “As surely as the LORD lives, the man who did this deserves to die!
12:6 Because he has done this thing and has shown no pity, he must pay for the lamb four times over.”
12:7 Then Nathan said to David, “You are that man! This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: ‘I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you from the hand of Saul.
12:8 I gave your master’s house to you and your master’s wives into your arms. I gave you the house of Israel and Judah, and if that was not enough, I would have given you even more.
12:9 Why then have you despised the command of the LORD by doing evil in His sight? You put Uriah the Hittite to the sword and took his wife as your own. You have slain him with the sword of the Ammonites.
12:10 Now, therefore, the sword will never depart from your house, because you have despised Me and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your own.’
12:11 This is what the LORD says: ‘I will raise up adversity against you from your own house. Before your very eyes I will take your wives and give them to another, and he will lie with them in broad daylight.
12:12 You have acted in secret, but I will do this thing in broad daylight before all Israel.’”
12:13 Then David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the LORD.” “The LORD has taken away your sin,” Nathan replied. “You will not die.
12:14 Nevertheless, because by this deed you have shown utter contempt for the word of the LORD, the son born to you will surely die.”
12:15 After Nathan had gone home, the LORD struck the child that Uriah’s wife had borne to David, and he became ill.
12:16 David pleaded with God for the boy. He fasted and went into his house and spent the night lying in sackcloth on the ground.
12:17 The elders of his household stood beside him to help him up from the ground, but he was unwilling and would not eat anything with them.
12:18 On the seventh day the child died. But David’s servants were afraid to tell him that the child was dead, for they said, “Look, while the child was alive, we spoke to him, and he would not listen to us. So how can we tell him the child is dead? He may even harm himself.”
12:19 When David saw that his servants were whispering to one another, he perceived that the child was dead. So he asked his servants, “Is the child dead?” “He is dead,” they replied.
12:20 Then David got up from the ground, washed and anointed himself, changed his clothes, and went into the house of the LORD and worshiped. Then he went to his own house, and at his request they set food before him, and he ate.
12:21 “What is this you have done?” his servants asked. “While the child was alive, you fasted and wept, but when he died, you got up and ate.”
12:22 David answered, “While the child was alive, I fasted and wept, for I said, ‘Who knows? The LORD may be gracious to me and let him live.’
12:23 But now that he is dead, why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I will go to him, but he will not return to me.”
12:24 Then David comforted his wife Bathsheba, and he went to her and lay with her. So she gave birth to a son, and they named him Solomon. Now the LORD loved the child
12:25 and sent word through Nathan the prophet to name him Jedidiah because the LORD loved him.
12:26 Meanwhile, Joab fought against Rabbah of the Ammonites and captured the royal fortress.
12:27 Then Joab sent messengers to David to say, “I have fought against Rabbah and have captured the water supply of the city.
12:28 Now, therefore, assemble the rest of the troops, lay siege to the city, and capture it. Otherwise I will capture the city, and it will be named after me.”
12:29 So David assembled all the troops and went to Rabbah; and he fought against it and captured it.
12:30 Then he took the crown from the head of their king. It weighed a talent of gold and was set with precious stones, and it was placed on David’s head. And David took a great amount of plunder from the city.
12:31 David brought out the people who were there and put them to work with saws, iron picks, and axes, and he made them work at the brick kilns. He did the same to all the Ammonite cities. Then David and all his troops returned to Jerusalem.
Related Scripture
Deuteronomy 5:17–21 · teaching
The commandments forbid murder, adultery and coveting a neighbor’s wife.
Location evidence
Jerusalem is the setting of David’s actions and Nathan’s confrontation; Uriah dies at Rabbah. Neither a bathing place nor a palace room is located by the marker.
Event map marker: Identified site; [longitude, latitude] = [35.234167, 31.776667]. This is a teaching marker, not an exact event venue.
Jerusalem: Identified site. Coordinates [longitude, latitude]: [35.234167, 31.776667]. Classification source: editorial.
OpenBible.info: Jerusalem (CC BY 4.0)
Rabbah (Amman): Identified site. Coordinates [longitude, latitude]: [35.9343, 31.9547]. Classification source: editorial.
OpenBible.info: Rabbah (Amman) (CC BY 4.0)
OpenBible.info: Jerusalem (CC BY 4.0)
For the class
How does Nathan help David see an injustice that David has concealed from himself?
Interpretation and reuse
Narrative order is a reading arrangement, not a proven chronology. Dates retain their stated uncertainty. An identified locality does not establish the exact venue or prove an event. Region extents and routes are illustrative, not surveyed boundaries or ancient roads. Draft material has not completed editorial review.
Record source: editorial (content/authored/united-kingdom.json)
Place coordinates from OpenBible.info Bible Geocoding Data, CC BY 4.0.
Teaching stops, summaries and regional extents are original editorial content of this atlas.
Berean Standard Bible (BSB), public domain. https://berean.bible/licensing.htm