FALSELY ACCUSED

CHAPTER 5

I SAMUEL 13

“At first I thought it was infatuation     But wooh, it’s lasted so long

Now I find myself wanting     To marry you and take you home, woah”*

In this chapter we are going to contrast David’s correct behavior toward the Lord with what not to do, how not to act.  So let’s glance at someone who makes David David and who would make any of us look pretty good by comparison, and that’s David’s arch rival, Saul.

BAD SAUL, BAD SAUL (What ya gonna do?)  Chapter 13 of I Samuel finds Saul looking like he has nowhere to run to, baby, nowhere to hide.  His son, Jonathan, had fought and won over a garrison of Philistines, and now the Israelites are terrified of retaliation.  And with good cause – the Philistines have already begun to gather their considerable forces:  thirty-thousand chariots, six-thousand horsemen and people which were so vast they seemed to the Hebrew children as the sand on the sea.

Fearful and disorganized, the armies of Saul begin to flee and to hide themselves in any place other than where the attack was sure to take place:  where Saul, their king was.  Samuel was to come after a seven day wait and offer sacrifices unto the Lord prior to the battle.  This was always done and when God was with Israel, the victory was secure.  But instead of reflecting on this, Saul is chewing his fingernails.  Impatience takes over, so the king does what I have done far too many times—he relies on his own reasoning power:  I had better take things into my hands and do something!  It’s all up to ME!

I believe that it is here God is ready to show the men of Israel the utter senselessness of putting their confidence in man by demanding to have a king.  They needed God’s help when they had no king…now they have one, and nothing has changed.  The seven days was not completely over…because what transpires now happens on the seventh day.  Saul did not wait long enough.  Worry had set in.  Faith was not in this picture.

So Saul, rather than tarrying one more hour, which would have given Samuel time to get there, goes ahead and does a very presumptuous thing:  he himself offers the sacrifice that is Samuel’s and only Samuel’s to offer.  Every Hebrew boy growing up had been fully schooled in the Law.  So this is done both out of both fear and pride.  The people are trembling, hopeless, and looking to Saul.  Instead of pointing them to their God, Who has forever been faithful, he takes matters upon his own shoulders.

As soon as he is done with the sacraments, Samuel shows up.  Saul is quick to salute him with respect and genuine courtesy.  Samuel, no doubt with a discerning eye, sees the guilt and anxiety on the king’s face.  Next he asks the question of accusation, “What has thou done?”  This reminds me somewhat of the Garden of Eden where God calls out to Adam and Eve, “Where are you?”  God knows, but wants them to answer to their own guilt of disobedience.  Samuel heard from God regularly and precisely.  Scripture says that “None of his words fell to the ground”.  Sometimes when we are accused it’s only because we are so very obviously guilty!  Try as we may, our faces give us away, particularly when we are in the company of spiritual giants that can read us like a book.

Once his guilt is established he begins, much as we so often do, to point the finger.  First, it’s the people who were scattering from him…they have forced his hand.  After all, at this point, only 600 remained!  Then, as long as he’s naming names, he tells Samuel, “You weren’t here!  What do you expect when you can’t be counted on?”  Reminds me of Adam telling God, “It’s the woman YOU gave me” as though God is to blame for the apple eating fiasco.  Next in line for blame is the Philistines.  “They have gathered themselves and will be here any time now.”  His fourth and last place of blame is himself.  But he does it, not in sincerity, but in a manipulative way.  “I forced myself…”  Which translates that, “Hey, I knew better, I tried not to…but what else could I do?  I had to…there was no other choice left.”  How it must grieve the Lord when He is not a choice!  Saul had been brought up hearing stories of how Gideon had conquered an army of Midianites that were so numerous it seemed as though they were a ‘swarm of locusts’ with only three hundred men.

But Samuel surveys the situation and he is having none of it.  Had Saul repented in earnest, perhaps his judgment would not have been as severe.  Now, however, along with the finger-pointing, Saul shows himself to have not the fear of God, but the fear of man, requesting that Samuel help him save face in front of the people by accompanying him for the worship ceremony.  Can you imagine going to the altar of God simply for the purpose of show?  So seeing nothing but excuses, Samuel knows that the nation will not survive for long with this man as king and takes Saul’s office away from him.

Many times when we are accused, we are guilty.  This series of writings is about when that is not the case, but perhaps we need to always remember that it’s quite easy to see another’s guilt and very, very difficult to see our own.  What is precious to the Lord is a humble and meek spirit.  We need this kind of spirit so that we can and will ask ourselves when we are accused, “Is this true?”  Without humility, we will only defend ourselves.  It is the Lord who makes the best defender of his children.  But enough of how not to act.  Let’s look at someone in II Samuel who showed us a truly meek and gentle spirit even when the situation was challenging.

We all know about Bathsheba, the woman whose name fits her perfectly.  But now let’s try to erase the scene from her housetop bath to later in life.  In this scenario, she is old as is David.  In fact, David is so old (how old is he?) that he no longer has any bodily warmth and is confined to bed.  His servants, worried about him, conclude that a good source of body warmth is from another body.  But they didn’t stop there.  No!  They imagine what would really do the trick to perk things up a bit is to find a beautiful, young virgin to slip into bed with the king and get his blood flowing again.  Probably these attributes are simply what they themselves would have desired.

The scripture is clear in I Kings 1 that David did not engage in any hanky-panky with this woman.  She was, however, good for the heat he needed to keep him alive.  So there he lay, in his last days, with the most gorgeous young woman they could find in all the land of Israel.  And the Word says that she loved him and ministered unto him faithfully.  If only they had had electric blankets!

But back to Bathsheba, his wife.  Back in her prime, she had had a courageous and faithful first husband.  David had sent this man, Uriah, away into battle.  After the bath scene, David had sent for Bathsheba in order to spend a night of sexual pleasure, a request that could not be opposed.  He impregnated her and had Uriah killed upon finding this out to cover his tracks.  He married Bathsheba only because of the pregnancy which had resulted.  All these facts could have easily made her resentful, bitter and vengeful.  He had disgraced her and disrupted her life, the life she had always imagined as a young girl growing up in the land of Israel – being married, having your husband’s children, growing old together as a family.  That was destroyed in a moment only due to the lust of a man who was not in battle himself, but had stayed home and had time on his hands.  Perhaps he missed the battle.  Nothing to make a man feel more masculine than a fierce, bloody fight.  So wandering onto the rooftop, it was easy to have this feeling aroused by the sight he saw.

Before you start blaming the woman, let’s look at the Law and the lay of the land.  First of all, women would ‘spot wash’ themselves at all times of the month, but were commanded that at the end of their monthly cycles to fully wash, head to toe, almost in a ritualistic way to ensure complete cleanliness.  Also, the Israelites who lived within the gated city walls had to live in large family groups.  Bathsheba would have had in-laws there within the dwelling and it was not as if there were separate rooms…that is not how they were built.  There may have been nieces, nephews or other family members all together in the communal room.  To disrobe in this room would not have been modest!

So the rooftop was the place women would do this all over scrubbing.  Water had to be hoisted up to the roof, which acted as a handy room for this and other functions as an extension of the family dwelling.

David, the scripture says, had already gone to bed and had gotten up to go outside and look around.  This tells us it was at least dusk, making the view somewhat muted.  For all we know he may have regularly gone out at this time of day to view various other women as they bathed!  But this indicates Bathsheba’s modesty in waiting till nightfall was setting in.  I want to clear up some of the ideas that this adultery was in any way Bathsheba’s fault.

In this capital city, the king’s dwelling was the tallest and in the dead center of town…all his higher officers were surrounding his palace for protection much like our president is surrounded by high level security people.  So even though the king should have been out with his men, leading them in battle, he had something that is not a good idea for boys or men – time on his hands.  I do believe that this dilemma is what facilities so many men to become addicted to porn.  In other words, get those kids signed up for baseball!  Wear them out with lots of activities and get them so tired they won’t have time to fiddle around.  My own personal theory!

So here he is, not where he ought to be.  He has his choice of wives he could be sleeping with.  Perhaps it was the guilt of not being with his men that he held in such high regard, knowing they were in the midst of not having regular meals, being assaulted, not knowing their immediate future, etc. that made him restless.  Remember, as a young boy, he used his abundant time alone out tending sheep to praise God and play music to Him on his harp.

The soldiers in charge of collecting Bathsheba would not and could not ignore or disobey the command to bring her.  And she certainly could not refuse.  I think of all the integrity that David had established in his reign.  How he mourned Saul though Saul had tried repeatedly for years to kill him.  How he mourned for even Saul’s youngest son who, by man’s standards, certainly had rights to the throne that David was anointed to take; but, though Samuel had anointed him years before, he refused to move against him.

I wonder at how very easy it is to, in one weak moment, let years of righteousness and faithfulness be torn away for a person’s life.  That is why we must arm ourselves daily with spiritual weapons and why we must take every thought captive. It’s not the first thought that comes, or the second or third usually.  But the first thought LEADS US TO that second one that LEADS US TO that third one.  Catching our first inclination to sin is so, so much easier than the next or the next.  David didn’t do that…he dwelt on how beautiful Bathsheba was, how he was king, how no one needed to know.

But Someone did, in fact, know.  That Someone was God who sees all.  And that Someone had helped David defeat larger and better equipped enemies over and over again as well as keeping Saul’s many attempts on his life from succeeding. So in this lust filled evening he let down the truest Friend he’d ever had.

I know it is very hard on men to look away from beautiful women.  But let’s take a quick glance back into Genesis at Joseph.  He was a young man being tempted daily by his master’s wife to lay with her.  He could have reasoned that he’d been taken from his family where he would have surely had at least one wife, plus riches being the favorite son of Jacob.  He could have used his logic that, after all, he was given no wages for the day-in and day-out chores he did so well.  Again, reasoning can get us into lots of trouble.  Faith is a better path.

So let’s fast forward to dentures and walkers and see what is happening with the elderly couple of David and Bathsheba.  Bathsheba has an important message to remind David of.  David had promised that her son, Solomon, would inherit the throne.  But another of his sons, Adonijah, has been promoting himself to take over the moment David kicks the bucket.  Knowing that David’s death is imminent, Adonijah has gathered men, horses and chariots to run through the city to declare just that to the nation of Israel.

Bathsheba seeing this is distressed about this soon take-over, knowing that it does not bode well for other sons of David…in fact, likely they may all be slaughtered so that Adonijah cannot be disposed from the throne.  She and Nathan, the prophet, discuss things and it is at this point she comes into the room where David and Miss Beauty Queen are cuddled up in one another’s arms.  (Barf!)

So, ladies, could you keep your cool?  Could you, in this very life and death matter, continue to show hubby the respect and love that is needed here to appeal to him and remind him of his promise?  Really?  Remember it’s a sin to lie.  BE HONEST!

So for all the nay sayers that condemn Bathsheba saying she was partly to blame, take a second look at this dignified and respectful wife, who simply asks him to take care of the decree to ensure Solomon will reign.  David does just that and, because of it, Israel soon has a mighty and just king to rule them.

I often wonder how it would have gone if Bathsheba would have lost her cool and belittled her husband, all scrunched up with cutie pie instead of her.  Would David have said, “She’s giving me a head ache; get her out.”  But knowing the seriousness of the situation, Bathsheba put herself aside and saved the day.

 

What a contrast to Saul’s actions when accused correctly.  Bathsheba, though doubtless she was looked at as a scarlet woman when she first arrived pregnant at the palace, and though she must have mourned Uriah as she walked through those hallways with her belly showing her shame, overcame the looks and sneers of the other wives that had married David the ‘right’ way.   And though David was devastated when the baby of their unholy union died, don’t you know that had to be like a death toll in Bathsheba’s own heart as well.

Still, with grace and wisdom and thinking about the country her children, grandchildren and great grandchildren would be living in, she overcame her thoughts of self-interest and showed us that, with God’s leading, He CAN and WILL do mighty things in our worlds too.  We may not live to see consequences of all the little acts that we do that sap our energy and sometimes stab at our hearts.  But God never lets acts of love and obedience fall to the ground.  He is faithful!  He is able!

Prayer

Lord, make me like Bathsheba.  Help me to not worry about who says what about me.  Help me to know You always see the truth in my own situation.  Jesus, I do not want to be a Saul, self-protective and explaining away what others see as inadequacies.  I don’t want to be like a politician that manipulates how people think of me.  But, OH, how I want You to see and know me fully.  And if there be in wicked ways in me, Oh God, I ask that You lovingly and patiently work with me to change.  I love You so very much!  Amen.

 

youtube.com/watch?v=lb3_495nXxo

*SAM COOKE lyrics are property and copyright of their owners.  “You Send Me” lyrics provided for educational purposes and personal use only.

*Coyright 2000-2016 AZLyrics.com

*Recorded by various artists including ‘Sam and Dave’.