Wednesday 23rd October
Read 2 Samuel 11:11-13
“Uriah said to David, ‘The ark and Israel and Judah are staying in tents, and my commander Joab and my lord’s men are camped in the open country. How could I go to my house to eat and drink and make love to my wife? As surely as you live, I will not do such a thing!’
12 Then David said to him, ‘Stay here one more day, and tomorrow I will send you back.’ So Uriah remained in Jerusalem that day and the next. 13 At David’s invitation, he ate and drank with him, and David made him drunk. But in the evening Uriah went out to sleep on his mat among his master’s servants; he did not go home.” (NIVUK)
How do you read this conversation? The author of Samuel is an exceptional story-teller and has deliberately left us with two ways to read it. One can read Uriah’s response as the noble and humble reply of a man who loves his people, his king and their God. Unstainable by impropriety. In fact the perfect example of how David himself should think and behave. Even after deliberately being made drunk he remains upright.
One can also read it as the shrewd response of a man who knows that he has been betrayed and cuckolded by his king. A crafty response that points out that he, Uriah, was with David’s people, fighting Israel’s enemies, relying on the God of Israel and His laws (embodied in the ark) and not making love to his wife. The oath Uriah swears is just as ambiguous. Literally, Uriah states ‘your life and the life of your soul if I will do this thing’ – in other words Uriah may be implying that he knows that he holds David’s life in his hands…
Either way one reads it, and I lean towards the second, it is clear that God’s hand lies behind Uriah’s responses – for He will not let David off the hook. David’s delusions that he can weasel his way through this sin relied on disregarding God. We do well to always remember that is a fool’s errand.
