2 Samuel 11:14
Ver. 14. And it came to pass in the morning,.... When David was informed that Uriah did not go to his own house, but slept with his servants, Satan put it into his head and heart to take the following wicked and cruel method:
that David wrote a letter to Joab, and sent [it] by the hand of Uriah; to have him cut off by the sword of the enemy. If Uriah suspected David's criminal conversation with his wife, he was so true and trusted a servant to him, that he would not open his letter to Joab, which had he, it would have betrayed the base design. No one that knows the story of Bellerophon can read this without thinking of that, they are so much alike; and indeed that seems to be founded upon this, and taken from it with a little alteration. Bellerophon rejecting the solicitations of Sthenobaea, who was in love with him, she prevailed upon her husband Praetus to send letters by him to Jobates (a name similar to Joab), the general of his army, which contained instructions to take care that he was killed; who sent him upon an expedition for that purpose {m}.{m} Apollodorus de Deorum Orig. l. 2. p. 70. 2 Samuel 11:15Ver. 15. And he wrote in the letter, saying,.... Giving the following orders to Joab:set ye Uriah is the forefront of the hottest battle: over against that part of the city where the enemy was strongest, and the battle the fiercest, and the stones and arrows were cast the thickest:and retire ye from him; leave him to himself to combat the enemy alone; who seeing him deserted, would sally out upon him, and the few that might be with him, and slay him:that he may be smitten, and die; thus he sought to add murder to adultery, and that in the basest manner, and which he accomplished; and this is often the case, that murder follows adultery, either by way of revenge for it, or in order to cover it, as here. 2 Samuel 11:16Ver. 16. And it came to pass, when Joab observed the city,.... Where lay its greatest strength, and where it was best defended; or besieged it, as the Targum:that he assigned Uriah unto a place where he knew that valiant men [were]; who would not easily give way, and when they saw an opportunity would sally out, Joab cannot be excused from sin, unless he thought that Uriah had been guilty of death, and that David took this way of dispatching him for some political reason; however David was king, and to be obeyed. 2 Samuel 11:17Ver. 17. And the men of the city went out,.... Made a sally out, as Joab expected they would, when they appeared before them at that part of the city where valiant men were:and fought with Joab; at least with part of his army posted with Uriah:and there fell [some] of the people of the servants of David: which made David's sin the more heinous, that several lives were lost through the stratagem he devised to procure the death of Uriah; who could not be placed in a dangerous post alone, and therefore others must be sacrificed with him, as were:and Uriah the Hittite died also; which was the thing aimed at, and the end to be answered by this scheme. 2 Samuel 11:18Ver. 18. Then Joab sent,.... Messengers to David, as soon as Uriah was killed:and told David all the things concerning the war; how the siege had been carried on; what success they had had, good or ill; what their advantages and disadvantages; what men they had lost, and especially in one sally of the enemy upon them, for the sake of which the express was sent. 2 Samuel 11:19Ver. 19. And charged the messenger,.... Gave him a particular direction and instruction what he should say at the close of his narrative, according as he should observe the king's countenance to be:saying, when thou hast made an end of telling the matters of the war unto the king; giving an account of all the events that happened since the siege was begun to that time. 2 Samuel 11:20Ver. 20. And if so be that the king's wrath arise,.... Which might be seen in his countenance, or expressed in his words:and he say, wherefore approached ye so nigh unto the city when ye did fight? as to expose the king's troops to the enemy on the wall, who by stones or darts greatly annoyed them, or sallied out on them, and killed many of them:knew ye not that they would shoot from the wall? they must have known that, and therefore should have kept out of the reach of their shot. 2 Samuel 11:21Ver. 21. Who smote Abimelech the son of Jerubbesheth?.... The same with Jerubbaal, who was Gideon, Jud 6:32; Baal, one part of his name, was the name of an idol, and sometimes called Bosheth or Besheth, which signifies shame, being a shameful idol; Gideon had a son called Abimelech, who was smitten, and it is here asked, by whom?did not a woman cast a millstone upon him from the wall, that he died in Thebez? which should have been a warning not to go too near the wall of an enemy; the history is recorded in Jud 9:52;why went ye nigh the wall? exposing your lives to so much danger, and by which so many lives were lost:then say thou, thy servant Uriah the Hittite is dead also; the whole has not been told, the worst of all is, as the messenger was to represent it, that brave gallant soldier Uriah is dead; this Joab ordered to be told last, as knowing very well it would pacify the king's wrath, and was the agreeable news he wanted to hear. 2 Samuel 11:22Ver. 22. So the messenger went,.... From Joab, from the army before Rabbah:and came; to David in Jerusalem, a course of sixty four miles:and showed David all that Joab had sent him for; all the events of the war hitherto. 2 Samuel 11:23Ver. 23. And the messenger said unto David,.... The particulars of his account follow:surely the men prevailed against us; the men of the city of Rabbah, the besieged there, in one onset they made upon them:and came out unto us in the field; the besiegers that lay encamped there; they sallied out upon them:and we were upon them, even unto the entering of the gate; rallied upon them, and drove them back, and pursued them to the gate of the city. 2 Samuel 11:24Ver. 24. And the shooters shot from off of the wall upon thy servants,.... Arrows out of their bows, or stones out of their engines; the Israelites following them so closely to the gate of the city, came within the reach of their shot from the wall:and [some] of the king's servants be dead; killed in the sally upon them, and by the shot from the wall:and thy servant Uriah the Hittite is dead also; the messenger did not entirely obey the orders of Joab to wait and observe if the king's wrath arose, but was in haste to tell him the last piece of news; perhaps he had some suspicion, from the manner of Joab's telling him what he should say, that this would be acceptable to the king. 2 Samuel 11:25Ver. 25. Then David said to the messenger,.... Whom he dispatched again to Joab upon the delivery of his message:thus shall thou say to Joab; in the name of David:let not this thing displease thee; be not grieved, and cast down, and intimidated at the repulse he had met with, and the loss of so many brave men, and especially Uriah;for the sword devours one as well as another; officers as well as soldiers the strong as well as the weak, the valiant and courageous as well as the more timorous; the events of war are various and uncertain, and to be submitted to, and not repined at, and laid to heart. David's heart being hardened by sin, made light of the death of his brave soldiers, to which he himself was accessory; his conscience was very different now from what it was when he cut off the skirt of Saul's robe, and his heart in a different frame from that in which he composed the lamentation over Saul and Jonathan:make thy battle more strong against the city, and overthrow it; more closely besiege it, more vigorously attack it; assault it, endeavour to take it by storm, and utterly destroy it, razing the very foundations of it: and encourage thou him; which words are either said to the messenger to encourage and animate Joab in David's name, which is not so likely that a messenger should be employed to encourage the general; or rather the words of David to Joab continued, that he would "encourage it", the army under him, who might be disheartened with the rebuff and loss they had met with; and therefore Joab is bid to spirit them up, to carry on the siege with vigour. 2 Samuel 11:26Ver. 26. And when the wife of Uriah heard that Uriah her husband was dead,.... The news of which were soon sent her by David, though it is very probable she knew nothing of the plot to take away his life; and, besides, David chose to have his death published abroad as soon as possible, the more to hide his sin:she mourned for her husband; expressed tokens of mourning by shedding tears, putting on a mourning habit, seeing no company, and this continued for the space of seven days, it may be, 1Sa 31:13; as little time as possible was spent in this way, and the marriage hastened, that the adultery might not be discovered. 2 Samuel 11:27Ver. 27. And when the mourning was past,.... The seven days were at an end, or sooner; for he stayed not ninety days from the death of her husband, which the Jews in later times enjoined {n}, that it might be known whether with child by her former husband, and so to whom it belonged; and because David did not wait this time, Abarbinel charges it upon him as an additional sin:David sent, and fetched her to his house; took her home to his palace to live with him:and she became his wife; he married her according to the usual form of marriage in those days:and bare him a son; begotten in adultery:but the thing that David had done displeased the Lord; or "was evil in the eyes of the Lord" {o}; for though it was not done in the eyes of men, being scarcely or very little known, yet was in the eyes of the Lord, which run to and fro throughout the earth, and sees all things that are done: the adultery he had been guilty of with another man's wife was abominable to the Lord, and for which, according to the law, both he and she ought to have been put to death, Le 20:10; the murder of her husband, which he was accessory to, as well as the death of many others, and the marriage of her under such circumstances, were all displeasing to God, and of such an heinous nature, that his pure eyes could not look upon with approbation: the Jews {p} endeavour to excuse David from sin; from the sin of murder, by making Uriah guilty of rebellion and treason, as before observed; and from the sin of adultery, by affirming that it was the constant custom for men, when they went out to war, to give their wives a bill of divorce; so that from the time of giving the bill they were not their wives, and such as lay with them were not guilty of adultery; but for this there is no foundation: it is certain David was charged with it by the Lord; he himself owned it, and bewailed it, both that and his blood guiltiness, and the following chapter abundantly proves it.{n} Misn. Yebamot, c. 11. sect. 6. {o} hwhy ynyeb ery "malum in oculis Domini", Montanus. {p} T. Bab. Sabbat, fol. 56. 1. Gloss. in ib.
John Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible.