Power Poisons the Conscience | 2 Samuel 11&12

INTRODUCTION

We now come to 2 Samuel 11. This is one of Scripture’s most painful chapters, especially in David’s story. After many chapters of God’s favour: Enduring Saul’s anger, waiting years, and fighting battles, and David rising to the throne — the narrative turns. The next section records David’s failures and God’s severe fatherly discipline, the consequences of sin alongside mercy. This chapter is the hinge between blessing and chastening. How could a God-chosen man, Spirit-anointed, God-seeking, worshiping man fall into adultery and murder, and delay repentance for months?

CONTEXT

2 Samuel 3:1 (When he was ruling Judah, David was getting powerful.)

David grew stronger and stronger, while the house of Saul grew weaker and weaker.

David starts to accumulate wives and concubines.

2 Samuel 5:10 – David become more and more powerful, because the Lord was with him.

2 Samuel 7 – The Lord has made an irrevocable covenant with David, an everlasting dynasty. Even if David’s decedents sin, the Lord will discipline that individual but the Lord is never going to set David and his dynasty aside like He did for Saul.

2 Samuel 8-10 – David is very successful. David is securing the borders of Israel. He is establishing the kingdom. The Lord is with him.

2 Samuel 11 – David adding another woman. David abusing his power.

In one careless season, the man who once fought giants begins to fall in private.

2 Samuel 11:1

¹In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war, David sent Joab out with the king’s men and the whole Israelite army. They destroyed the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David remained in Jerusalem.

David here seemed to be tired of his assignment from the Lord. It’s hard to persevere. It’s hard to keep going doing what God has given us to do. We sometimes get fatigued and we get tired. So he sends Joab and he just stays behind in Jerusalem.

2 Samuel 11:2

²One evening David got up from his bed and walked around on the roof of the palace. From the roof he saw a woman bathing. The woman was very beautiful,

David is in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The last time someone saw a woman in the developing story (Joshua -Kings, former prophets in the OT), it was Samson in Judges 14. In 16 he saw a Philistine prostitute and he went to her and it led to his demise. We know from the wisdom literature prostitutes are a gateway to death. So in Judges 16 we can expect Samson’s death.

David is the next character in the larger story and it is going to lead to his demise in many ways. The Lord is going to keep his kingship intact but in many ways is going to be a tragedy from this point on.

In 1 Sam. 17, David faces Goliath, he is becoming the Joshua & Caleb who were giant killers.

In 2 Sam. 11, when he saw a woman, David becomes a new Samson. That is not good.

The woman was very beautiful. David was described in 1 Samuel 16 as a handsome man with good eyes. Now here is a woman who is described as beautiful. David’s gaze has fallen on one who was every bit his physical equal. He has met his match as it were. So the question arises: Will he be tempted to use the power that he has now as King to take what he desires. It is very easy for people in power to decide, “that is something I want and I will take it.”

David does a of violations, jumped a lot of walls to reach where he reached:

Wall #1: Did not turn away from temptation

David did not turn away from what he saw. David was tempted.

2 Samuel 11:3

³and David sent (he has the power to send) someone to find out about her. The man said, “She is Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah the Hittite.”

Wall #2: One cannot violate another human being

Her name is Bathsheba. She is got a name, a human being, made in the image of God. He cannot violate another human being.

Wall #3: She was a person with a father

She was the daughter of Eliam. One of David’s mighty men mentioned in 2 Sam. 23. I cannot misuse someone’s daughter who is working for me. Besides she is a daughter of someone. Eliam is the son of Ahithophel, David’s closest advisor. Bathsheba is Ahithophel’s granddaughter.

Wall #4: She is someone else’s wife

She is the wife of Uriah. In 2 Samuel 23, we find out Uriah was one of David’s 30 mighty men. David knew Uriah, probably knew his family as well. She is married. David was told she was a married woman. Now this is a boundary David has not yet crossed. He has collected many wives, many concubines, but not any married woman. There was a Michal, but she actually was married to him first. This is a new violation.

2 Samuel 11:4-5

⁴Then David sent messengers to get her (Hebrew – kidnapping). She came to him, and he slept with her.(David succumbed to the temptation.) (Now she was purifying herself from her monthly uncleanness.) Then she went back home. ⁵The woman conceived and sent word to David, saying, “I am pregnant.”

And now we watch David wanting to hide what has been done. And he’s hiding because he’s probably feeling guilty. Nobody wants to hide their tracks in life or in social media unless they feel a sense of guilt.

Illustration: Imaging the 3-year-old is very fond of sugar. He often takes sugar from the kitchen and eats it and he has been warned by his mom. One day mummy is upstairs and he is tempted to eat sugar. As he is eating mummy comes. What does the child do? Hide the sugar can, right? If we feel guilty, we want to hide it.

David’s Plan A – Get her Husband back to her, make it look normal.

2 Samuel 11:6-11

⁶So David sent this word to Joab: “Send me Uriah the Hittite.” And Joab sent him to David. ⁸Then David said to Uriah, “Go down to your house and wash your feet.” So Uriah left the palace, and a gift from the king was sent after him. ⁹But Uriah slept at the entrance to the palace with all his master’s servants and did not go down to his house.

¹⁰David was told, “Uriah did not go home.” So he asked Uriah, “Haven’t you just come from a military campaign? Why didn’t you go home?”

¹¹Uriah said to David, (This is quite a rebuke 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!”

“Uriah’s loyalty exposes David’s hypocrisy—Uriah won’t enjoy lawful comfort while the ark and army are in tents; David violates another man’s marriage while the army fights.

David’s Plan B – Let’s get him drunk, he will not have full control over his senses.

2 Samuel 11:12-13

¹²Then David said to him, “Stay here one more day, and tomorrow I will send you back.” ¹³At 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.

Even in a drunken state, Uriah had more devotion to his calling. He would stay in a state of readiness. Even when drunk, he knew that. And that is a contrast that we see to David, where he had lost interest in what God had given him to do.

Plan A & B has failed, so David needs to do something else:

David’s Plan C – Kill Uriah in the Battle

2 Samuel 11:14-15

¹⁴In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it with Uriah. ¹⁵In it he wrote, “Put Uriah out in front where the fighting is fiercest. Then withdraw from him so he will be struck down and die.”

The cruel irony of putting death instructions in the hand of the one that is to die—that’s ruthless. Joab knows all that’s in David’s heart, and he has been handed power through this. But also, you know, Joab once murdered a man, Abner. David did not bring the death sentence upon him, David may feel as though Joab owes him a favour due to that.

2 Samuel 11:16-18

¹⁶So while Joab had the city under siege, he put Uriah at a place where he knew the strongest defenders were. ¹⁷When the men of the city came out and fought against Joab, some of the men in David’s army fell; moreover, Uriah the Hittite died. ¹⁸Joab sent David a full account of the battle. (Mission accomplished, but other men died as well.)

2 Samuel 11:23-25

²³The messenger said to David, “The men overpowered us and came out against us in the open, but we drove them back to the entrance of the city gate. ²⁴Then the archers shot arrows at your servants from the wall, and some of the king’s men died. Moreover, your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead.”

²⁵David told the messenger, “Say this to Joab: ‘Don’t let this upset you (let it not be evil in your eyes); the sword devours one as well as another. Press the attack against the city and destroy it.’ Say this to encourage Joab.”

We are greatly disappointed, because those are not the words of a strong leader. A strong leader doesn’t say, “Oh well, people die, let’s keep going.” A strong leader mourns over that and offers condolences to people. It wasn’t only Uriah that died here. We learn that other servants of David died. There was other mothers who lost their sons and other wives who lost their husbands. This was a very, very terrible situation.

David has been known to us up until this point for his kindness and his generosity. We’ve watched him survive hostility and war, having a forgiving spirit. David has had the character where he’s able to get people like Uriah that want to come and be on his team. They have admired him up to this point. And now we have military morale at stake. Biggest problem is that David’s relationship with the Lord has been affected.

2 Samuel 11:26-27

²⁶When Uriah’s wife heard that her husband was dead, she mourned for him. ²⁷After 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 David had done displeased (evil in the eyes of the LORD) the Lord .

David has violated the Law of Moses – Covetousness, Adultery, Murder, Theft and Guilt of capital punishment. God initiates a confrontation, and that’s what we have in Chapter 12:

2 Samuel 12:1-6

¹The Lord sent Nathan to David. When he came to him, he said, “There were two men in a certain town, one rich and the other poor. ²The rich man had a very large number of sheep and cattle, ³but the poor man had nothing except one little ewe lamb he had bought. He raised it, and it grew up with him and his children. It shared his food, drank from his cup and even slept in his arms. It was like a daughter to him.

⁴“Now a traveler came to the rich man, but the rich man refrained from taking one of his own sheep or cattle to prepare a meal for the traveler who had come to him. Instead, he took the ewe lamb that belonged to the poor man and prepared it for the one who had come to him.”

⁵David burned with anger against the man and said to Nathan, “As surely as the Lord lives, the man who did this must die! ⁶He must pay for that lamb four times over, because he did such a thing and had no pity.”

Now the law in itself did not require someone to die because they took an animal, but it did require restitution. But David is so worked up at this that he’s like, “The man should die.”

And isn’t that the way we are? We see someone else do something, and we can get really worked up, but find a way to excuse ourself.

2 Samuel 12:7-11

Then Nathan said to David, “You are the man! (Once Nathan realized that he had David completely where he wanted him to be emotionally, then he said those four words to David: “You are the man.” They’re just looking at each other.) 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. ⁸I gave your master’s house to you, and your master’s wives into your arms. I gave you all Israel and Judah. And if all this had been too little, I would have given you even more. ⁹Why did you despise the word of the Lord by doing what is evil in his eyes? You struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and took his wife to be your own. You killed him with the sword of the Ammonites. ¹⁰Now, therefore, the sword will never depart from your house, because you despised me and took the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your own.’

¹¹“This is what the Lord says: ‘Out of your own household I am going to bring calamity on you. Before your very eyes I will take your wives and give them to one who is close to you, and he will sleep with your wives in broad daylight. ¹²You did it in secret, but I will do this thing in broad daylight before all Israel.’”

David’s violations were centred on adultery and murder, and the consequences for David’s violations are going to repay him in like kind. We are going to see adultery. We are going to see murder. David’s first three sons will be devoured by the sword. Amnon, Absalom, and Adonijah will all perish by the sword very soon. David’s wives will face the peril that it’s talked about here, and the remainder of this book will be fairly terrible.

David’s response:

2 Samuel 12:13-14

¹³Then David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord.”

Nathan replied, “The Lord has taken away your sin. You are not going to die. (David said that man deserves to die, but God says you are not going to die) ¹⁴But because by doing this you have shown utter contempt for the Lord, the son born to you will die.”

2 Samuel 12:18-20

¹⁸On the seventh day the child died.

²⁰Then David got up from the ground. After he had washed, put on lotions and changed his clothes, he went into the house of the Lord and worshiped. Then he went to his own house, and at his request they served him food, and he ate.

David did the same thing like in Ch. 7, worship. David responded the same way whether God was giving him a blessing or God would take one of his child.

We see the hope here:

• David is forgiven of the sin.
• David’s relationship with the Lord to be restored.

2 Samuel 12:22-23

²²He answered, “While the child was still alive, I fasted and wept. I thought, ‘Who knows? The Lord may be gracious to me and let the child live.’ ²³But now that he is dead, why should I go on fasting? Can I bring him back again? I will go to him, but he will not return to me.”

David is saying, “I accept this situation.” We need to we need to accept consequences sometimes.

2 Samuel 12:29

²⁹So David mustered the entire army and went to Rabbah, and attacked and captured it. 

What’s interesting about this battle at Rabbah beginning at the beginning of Ch. 11 and ending at the end of chapter 12, is that the whole business with Bathsheba and with Uriah is sort of a big long parentheses in the middle of that. This parenthesis instructs us and causes us to pause and to consider sin.

CONCLUSION

The story of David is not just a story about lust—it is a story about unchecked power, a hardened conscience, and the mercy of God that confronts and restores.

David’s fall began long before Bathsheba. It began when he stopped guarding his heart, when he became comfortable, when he became entitled, when he stopped doing what God assigned him to do, and when he stopped turning away at the first moment of temptation. Sin never stays small. It grows. It multiplies. It spreads. And cover-up always demands a bigger cover-up—until the sin that was secret becomes a public wound.

But hear this clearly: God did not abandon David, but God did confront David. The Lord sent Nathan. God exposed what was hidden. God named it. God disciplined it. And God offered mercy through repentance. That is the grace of God: Not a grace that ignores sin, but a grace that brings sin into the light so healing can begin.

WARNING FROM DAVID’S FAILURE:

• No believer is beyond temptation. The seeds of unchecked passion can grow. We watched from his time in Hebron, collecting wives, concubines, and his time in Jerusalem collecting wives, concubines. Now he wants someone’s wife. The seeds of unchecked passion blossomed into adultery.
• God Confronts & Disciplines Sin. We cannot hide our sin from God. He will hold us accountable for our behaviour. Humility and repentance are the survival skills that we need when it comes to sin in our life.
• Keep Power in Check. Power can be abused. Power can be a breeding ground for sin and sin once conceived can consume those and try to cover it up.
• God Restores Those Who Repent

How to overcome sin?

1. Turn Away Before Violation.

The best thing to do is to turn away at the point of temptation. We would not have had this story at all had that been the case there. And we’re reminded that temptation is not sin, okay? Temptation is something that you don’t have control over.

ILLUSTRATION

There are a lots of birds out here in our campus. As much as we love birds it was messing up with our gathering area down with bird droppings. So we ended up putting plastic spikes on top where the birds does not come and spoil our gathering area but they are still there 10 feet apart on the trees.

But I can’t control them just showing up but I can put barriers for them not to mess up with me. Temptation is the same way: it just shows up. That is not sin, but don’t feed it.

2. Own Your Sin – Don’t Blame Others

We cannot blame someone else for our sin. When the Holy Spirit shows us that we have sinned and convicts us and says to us, “You are the man,” I have to say, “I am the man/woman.”

Psalm 51 was written by David during this season.

Psalm 51:3-4

³For I know my transgressions,

and my sin is always before me.

⁴Against you, you only, have I sinned

and done what is evil in your sight;

so you are right in your verdict

and justified when you judge.

He affirmed what God said, and that is how we deal with sin in our lives.

3. Respond with Humility and Repentance

Own our sin saying, “Yes, that was me.” And repentance is changing our course.

One need to be broken over one’s sins. We used to call it breaking horses; a breaking means taking the wildness out and being able to direct that.

Psalm 51:17

My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit;

a broken and contrite heart

you, God, will not despise.

If we come to the Lord in brokenness, God will not reject us. He won’t turn away. And this is what opens up the way for us to ask for cleansing, to ask for forgiveness.

Hear all the words of cleansing that David wrote in this Psalm:

• Wash me from my iniquity, v7
• Purge me with hyssop, v7
• Blot out my iniquities, v9
• Create in me a clean heart, and renew a right spirit in me, v10

“For some of you, it may be too late for prevention, but it’s never too late for redemption.”

And that is what David did. He knew the character of God, and he knew he could press in for redemption from this situation.

4. Lean on God’s Mercy

Don’t confuse consequences with punishment. Do not let your past sins cause a constant rift between you and God to the point where now you’re living your life and you think that every single bad thing that happens to you in life is God’s punishment for your sins. Don’t do that.

Now, there were severe consequences in this lesson for David’s sin. To whom much is given, much is required, right? But God also lavished his mercy on David in this moment. And the next child that would be born from David and Bathsheba, would be a great and a wise king who would bring us one generation closer to the real king, to the Messiah. And so God’s grace and his mercy are lavished all over this.

So we need to learn, instead of seeing my life through the eyes of “wrong things equals God punishing me for my past,” we need to learn to say, “Lord, I’m just going to lean into your mercy.” And that’s where David started in this Psalm. Look at verse 1.

Psalm 51:1

Have mercy on me, O God,

according to your unfailing love;

according to your great compassion

blot out my transgressions.

I doubt that there’s one person in here that doesn’t have some sort of consequences in your life from some past sin or season of sin. All of us do. Some door has been closed. Some relationship has been destroyed. Some opportunity has been lost. These are just the physical consequences that we live out in this world. These are not eternal, okay? These are the physical things that we’re living out in this world.

What is our remedy to this?

Exactly where David started: We lean into God’s mercy. And we say, “I know your character. I know your steadfast love. I know you’re abundant mercy. I’m just going to lean into you and trust in your mercy.”