Did King David Commit Adultery or Assault?

Did King David commit adultery with Bathsheba, or did he assault her? That's just one of the questions we'll be answering on today's edition of CORE Christianity.

You can also post your question on our Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or our YouTube channel, and you can email us your question at questions at COREChristianity.com. Here we are just about a week away from Christmas, and, Adriel, I was hoping you'd wear your Santa hat to work today, but you decided not to. I don't know. Yeah, I left it at—I mean, I have so many at the house, and I can't believe I forgot it. I bet, Bill, that you're wearing a Santa hat right now. You've probably been wearing it all week. Yeah, an elf costume. It's an elf costume.

Please stay indoors. All right. Well, let's start off with a question that we received from one of our listeners. This is from Paul, and Paul says, Dear Pastor Adriel, I was listening to your show and heard you talk about Advent. However, I was wondering what your understanding of Advent may be. Is Advent the same as Christmas? I thought Advent was preparation for Christmas, getting ready for the birth of Christ. What is the difference?

Yeah, you're right. I mean, typically, Advent—I mean, it comes from the Latin word, Adventus, which means coming, and it's the period of time leading up to Christmas, if you will, the birth of Jesus, where different Christian traditions will meditate on, think about the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, both his first Advent, the Incarnation. So oftentimes, there will be passages going to prophecies in the Old Testament that predicted the coming of Jesus, even the preaching of John the Baptist, the angelic visitation, so on and so forth, but also not just the first coming of Jesus, but also setting our eyes on his second coming, the second Advent of Jesus Christ. And so not every church Christian tradition talks about Advent, does that sort of church calendar thing, but for the ones that do, it's the season leading up to Christmas, and so you're right on. I mean, I just think it could be a sweet thing to do, to consider all of the prophecies in the Old Testament especially, that so clearly pointed forward to the coming of the Messiah with great specificity, and so it's one of the things I think that actually can bolster our faith in Christ. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. Our phone lines are open. If you have a question about the Bible or the Christian life, you can call us right now, 833-843-2673.

That's 833-THE-CORE. Each day on this program, we receive calls from people who are wrestling with some pretty tough issues. In fact, people sometimes call concerned that they've lost their salvation, they've done something so terrible that they've lost their standing before God. And here at The Core, our mission is to help answer those tough questions, but the fact is we can't do it without your support.

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So if you would consider that at the end of the year, we would really appreciate it. Well, let's go to an email that came in from one of our listeners, and she says, my question is regarding David and his sin toward Bathsheba in 2 Samuel 11. Was it adultery or was it assault?

I've heard many different opinions on this particular topic. Yeah, one of the most tragic stories in all of the Bible. I remember when I was reading through 1 and 2 Samuel with my children, and up until this point, David is sort of depicted as this great hero, this mighty deliverer, and then he sins in this horrendous way. And I remember my kids just being shocked. Really?

Him? That kind of thing. And so this is a great tragedy. I mean, there is obviously sin here, and David is judged because of it by the Lord. God takes this very seriously, but the question is, what exactly took place there? Is this just an adulterous affair, or is it more than that? Is this an assault, a sexual assault? I want to give you just the definition of rape in the dictionary.

It's an unlawful sexual activity, and usually carried out forcibly or under threat of injury against a person's will or with a person who is beneath a certain age or incapable of valid consent because of mental illness, mental deficiency, intoxication, and consciousness or deception. I think this helps to, as we're considering 2 Samuel 11, this passage of scripture, I think it helps to illuminate, if you will, what's taking place here. We're told in verse 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. 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? So David is watching her. In one sense, you could even say praying on this woman. He goes and finds out who she is, and then we read in verse 4, 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, and the woman conceived, and she sent and told David, I am pregnant. Now just on surface reading of the text, that phrase in verse 4, through David sent messengers and took her, the word take there can mean to seize. It's used in other contexts in the Bible to refer to instances where an individual was sexually assaulted. You think of Genesis chapter 34 verse 2 referring to the assault of Dinah. There are other words that the Hebrew Bible can use.

So there's this sort of broad semantic range. Some people will say, Well, we don't know that he forcibly, he forced himself on her. Maybe she was open to this advance from the king. But the reality is, and this is something a lot of people don't consider when they're thinking about these kinds of things, it's just the power differential between David and Bathsheba, this woman who is in a very vulnerable position.

She's at home alone. Her husband, who works for the king, if you will, is gone. He's fighting David's battle. David sends messengers. Imagine a group of guys showing up at your house, and they take Bathsheba to bring her to the king. She's got to be wondering, Well, what in the world could the king want with me? Maybe my husband has died in battle.

I'm not sure what's going on. And David takes advantage of his position of power, of his authority as the king of Israel, and his spiritual authority as the shepherd of Israel. He's called the care for Israel, in particular the vulnerable, like this woman Bathsheba.

And instead, he uses his power to, in one sense, to force himself onto her. And so I don't have any problem with saying that this is an assault. Too often when we think about the heroes in the past, we want to minimize or downplay their sin, their failures, the heinousness of it.

We don't have to do that. God takes this very seriously, and that's very clear from what we see throughout the scriptures, and especially as David is confronted, it becomes very clear David is told by Nathan the prophet, You deserve to die because of what you've done. Now, God extended mercy to David, but there were consequences for his sinful behavior, serious consequences, obviously, that resulted in the death of their child. And so I don't see any issue with describing what took place in 2 Samuel 11 in that way. I mean, the other big question is, could Bathsheba, in this position of vulnerability, as she's being summoned by the king, could she really even consent? Did she have the ability to say no because you have this person who's in this great position of power, who's sending his royal guard, if you will, to bring you in, and you're in this very vulnerable position?

I mean, she's just obviously caught off guard, and so it was a great tragedy. Again, we don't want to minimize the sins of the patriarchs and the fathers and those who have gone before us, but we also know that God forgave David, even though there were consequences. And so I think that's the best way, and that's how I'd understand the passage. Thank you for that question. Tough situation, and of course, God's grace is amazing, and to think that he extends his grace to even people like that who made those kinds of sinful acts, it gives hope, I think, to all of us. Elaine is calling in from Wichita, Kansas, and has a question related to David and something he says in the Psalms.

Elaine, what's your question? I'd like to know what David meant in Psalm 51 when he prayed, against thee and thee only have I sinned. Yeah, after everything I just said there, right? I mean, it's very obvious that Bathsheba is being sinned against in this very grievous way, and so is David just sort of forgetting all about that? So Psalm 51, and what's interesting about this is this was, if you just read what comes at the very beginning of the choir master, a psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet went to him after he had gone into Bathsheba, in other words, this was when he was confronted by Nathan the prophet because of his sin. And his response is to cry out to God for mercy. He says, Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love, according to your abundant mercy. Blot out my transgressions, wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Verse four, against you, you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment. The way I take this, Elaine, is that David is realizing that when we sin, even against another person, those sins are still first and foremost sins against a holy God.

I mean, you think about what John says in 1 John. How can we say we love God and yet hate our neighbor? If we hate our neighbor, we can't say that we love God.

How we treat the people around us says something about our belief in God, says something about our relationship to the Lord. And so I think what he's highlighting here is the fact that not, I would say, that he did not sin against Bathsheba. I think it's very clear that he did and Uriah and so many others. And I don't know that David would deny that.

I don't think he's trying to deny that here. I think he's focusing on the fact that first and foremost, sin is an offense to God himself. That when we sin against each other, we have to go to the Lord because a sin against another person is a sin against God. And so that's the way I would take verse four there of Psalm 51.

And of course, he's crying out to the Lord throughout this chapter, verse seven. Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean. Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness. Let the bones that you have broken rejoice. Hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquities. That disciplined him again. David says, my bones are broken within me.

There was this great discipline. And so he knows he sinned against the Lord and that's what's being highlighted there in verse four. Thank you for that question. Thank you, Elaine, and thanks for listening to Core Christianity. If you have a question about the Bible or the Christian life, our phone lines are open right now.

In fact, you can ask us a question about doctrine or theology or your Christian walk, what's going on in today's culture and how your Christianity impacts that, intersects with that. We'd love to hear from you. Here's the phone number. It's 833-843-2673. We'll be taking calls for the next six or seven minutes or so.

So hop on the phone, 833-THE-CORE. Let's go to Brian in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Brian, what's your question for Pastor Adriel? Yes, the Sadducees is trying to trap Jesus and the question about the seven brothers that married the same woman because they died and had to leave. The other kids had to marry the woman so they could have a child for the first guy that married them. Now when we die and go to heaven, Jesus said that you don't marry or are given into marriage, but the ones that are married now, do we still have our wife? Or is it just something that we're going to know them but we aren't going to know them as a wife?

Brian, this is just a great question, one I've thought about, my wife has thought about, and we've talked about together. It's not entirely clear because that verse right there in Matthew chapter 22, the chapter you're referring to in verse 30, Jesus said, For in the resurrection, that is in the new creation, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. I tend to think that the marriage relationship that we have here on earth, which is a type, if you will, a shadow of the marriage supper of the Lamb, the marriage between Christ and his bride, as Paul says in the book of Ephesians, the relationship is going to be different.

When my wife and I talk about this, we think, oh man, well that doesn't sound great. We love each other. But what we can say is our relationships in heaven are going to be perfect. So whatever that looks like, whatever your relationship with your spouse now looks like, it's going to be even better, even if it's not the exact same thing. There's going to be perfect love, perfect peace, perfect everything in the new creation. And so nobody's going to say, oh man, I just wish heaven was a little bit different. And while we don't know exactly what it's going to be like, we do know it's going to be better than everything we could ever think or imagine. And so, as I said, my tendency is to think we're not married or given in marriage in the new creation, as Jesus said very clearly there, but that does not mean that we're going to be missing out.

It's going to be far better than anything we could ever imagine. And so we give thanks to the Lord for that. Thanks for the question.

Great question. Thanks, Brian. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. You can leave us a voicemail anytime, 24 hours a day, and we'd love to hear from you. You can even call this weekend if you'd like and leave us a message at 833-843-2673.

Here's a voicemail we received from one of our listeners named Kendra. I really like the game Cornhole. I've actually gotten pretty good at it. Even more so, a local A player has approached me offering training. I enjoy competing in tournaments in our area. My goal is to possibly get to ESPN at least once. Is this the same thing as gambling?

Am I doing something wrong? Hey, Kendra, thank you for that question. If you're ever in San Diego and you want a challenger to Cornhole, I would be happy to. We could organize something. I'd probably lose. I mean, I've played a few times, and I don't think I'm that good, but I'm decent. Oh, okay. Anyways, is this the same thing as gambling? I don't see why it would be.

I don't think so at all. I think there's freedom here, obviously, right? I mean, I think the only verse of scripture that I would commend to you here is Paul's words in 1 Corinthians 10, verse 31. Whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. I would say to you, Kendra, if this is something you can do to the glory of God, you enjoy it. It gives you joy.

It's a blessing for you. I would say go for it. In my mind, there's no sin involved here. Now, if it became something where you were so consumed with Cornhole that you weren't going to church and all the tournaments were on Sunday and so you couldn't be a part of a worshiping body and that kind of thing, well, then I would say, yeah, that's probably an issue and you'd want to reconsider. As it stands, it sounds to me like this is just something you enjoy, a fun game or sport, and so I would say do it, and God bless you. I hope you get to ESPN, too, and we get to watch you and to say, hey, that's Kendra from Core Christianity. God bless. What about pickleball? I wonder if that's something that God would have a problem with.

What do you think? I have no idea what pickleball is. Oh, man. What is pickleball? It's kind of like tennis. How about the normal sports, man, like baseball and football and soccer? What are you bringing in pickleball?

Yeah, I assume it's fine. Does it involve pickles in some ways? No, it does not.

It does not. All right, let's go back to the phones. Jean is on the line from Columbia, Missouri. Jean, what's your question for Pastor Adriel? My question is what constitutes abuse that is serious enough to consider divorce?

Hi, Jean. Thank you for that question, and I was assuming there are different kinds of abuse, and I think that this is true. I mean, there is physical abuse oftentimes, right? The evidence of that can be very clear, but there are other kinds of abuse as well. There is verbal abuse, emotional abuse, financial abuse. There are different kinds of abusive behaviors, and so I think really, I mean, if you're having these thoughts, these kinds of questions, a couple of things.

One, I think seeing an abuse counselor can be really helpful for a couple, especially if both of them are willing to see an abuse counselor, but that can help to give some clarity on the situation and certainly involving the people that are close to you in your life. Jean, are you a part of a church? Is this something that you're able to talk about with your pastors and elders? I am.

I have just started, probably in the last six months. The person that I'm married to is involved in ministry, so he's very well known, and so talking to someone isn't always feasible. Yeah, and Bill, I want to get your thoughts here as well. When there's a situation of abuse like this, I think, one, it is important to shed light on the situation, so maybe there where you're at. I don't know exactly what the circumstances are, but if it's something where there's no one to go to in your immediate church because this individual is in a position of authority and ministry, finding help outside of that context. Certainly, I think, bringing it to light there as well, but you really need support and people who are going to be around you and provide accountability, provide care, even provide protection. It's a tragic situation, any situation of abuse, but especially when you have that spiritual component as well. We were just talking about David and how seriously God takes this. I think you should pursue an abuse counselor, accountability within the church, and if that church isn't set up to where they're holding this individual, the person that you're with who's in ministry accountable, then you're going to have to find it outside.

Bill, would you add anything there? Well, I think you mentioned the personal safety issue. I mean, if there is harm involved, she does need to go, and there are places that you can find where you can find a safe house, an organization where you can be protected. And then I would say if it's a ministry situation, you go to a higher authority. If you can't go to somebody in the church, you go to the denomination, you go to someone who's a leader in that region, and that may be the next step, the next recourse that she takes.

Yeah. There's an organization called GRACE, stands for Godly Response to Abuse in a Christian Environment, and they have, Gene, a lot of really good resources. Their website is www.netgrace.org, and they might even be a group that you would want to contact and just get some more information. Personally, I do think that there are situations of abuse that do warrant, not just physical abuse, but other kinds of abuse that do warrant a severing of the relationship.

There needs to be accountability, and this needs to be brought into the light. And let me just say, Jesus loves you and is for you and cares for you. So check out those resources, and may the Lord bless you and be with you. When you contact us, please let us know how you've been encouraged by this program, and be sure to join us next time as we explore the truth of God's Word together.