The Pulpit Commentary — 2 Samuel — Section 265

HOMILETICS. Vcrs. 1-17.-The facte are: 1. During the prosecution of the war arrainet Ammor. in the spring, David remains in Jerusalem. 2. Walking one evening on°his house-top, he sees o. woman washing herself, and observes her beauty. 3. Curiosity being Awakened, he sends to inquire after her, and learns that she is the wile of Uriah. 4. Sending a royal message to her, she, MA loyal subject, waits upon him, whereupon he commits adultery. 5. Di~covering in the course of a little time that the fact would come to light, he sends for Uriah from the war, under pretext of gleaning information concerning it, but really that, by Uriah's sojo1.1rn with his wife, the fact may be con- cealed. 6. Uriah, possibly suspicious of WTong, excuses himself from doing as David desires, on the plea. that military duty and patriotism required of him absolute absten- tion from domestic pleasures. 7. Failing in the first attempt, David makes him drunk, in hopes that, when stupid, he would go to his home; but in this also he fails. 8. Subse- quently he sends him back to Joab, with a secret instruction that be would set him in such a positionfs to ensure his death, which instruction Joab faithfully carries out. Tlie beginnings of great sins. By universal consent the deed of David here recorded is regarded as a. great sin-a. very great sin, because it was a breach of the command- ment which guards the purity of human life, and because committed by one blessed with more than ordinary privileges, and in an abuse of regal authority over a. probably unsuspicious subject. The deed is ever base and criminal, but that such a. man should commit the crime when God was prospering him in all his affairs, when his people were bravely risking their lives in defence of their country, and afrer he had spent so long and blessed a life in feliowship with God, is one of the marvels and mysteries of bnman nature. In the narrative we have set forth the origin and progress of the sin, so far as relates to its ostensible character. Scripture gives us outward facts in their natnra.l order. But we know that in one outward fa.et of human life there a.re involved many mental and moral movements, and these are connected in the continuity of life with antecedents which, in part at least, account for their occurrence. It is not difficult, by bringing our knowledge of the laws of mental and moral movement to bear on the facts here recorded, to get a clue to the real beginnings of this great sin, and of great sins in general. I. INTENSE ABSORPTION IN PRO!'PEROUS AFFAms DIMINISHES THE ENERGY THAT OTHERWISE WOULD GO TO SPIRITUAL CULTURE. Man, considered physiologically and physically, is a. store of energy, and he can give out only what he possesses. The totality of his thoughts and acts is the outcome, and generally speaking the measure, of his store. What portion of it is spent in excess in one direction is just so much ta.ken from another, direction. 'l'he usual law of forces here applies. For some time David had been intensely absorbed in consolidating his power. The a.mount of work involved in all the changes he initiated a.ud brought to completion most have beeo far in excess of what falls to a.n ordinary monarch, and this in proportion to the utter dis- organization of affairs under Saul and Ishbosheth. Such an absorption most probably trenched upon the nervous and moral energy he had at one time concentrated directly on the culture of the spiritual life. Some few men seem gifted with the faculty of sudden transitions of energy, so that, while intensely absorbed in business or secular studies at one moment, they can, by a.n act of will, become equally absorbed at once in religious pursuits. Possibly David was one of these; but even in their case they cannot escope the weakening effect on the finer sensibilities of a protracted absorption in purely temporal affairs, especially if they are very prosperous. We see many instances of this in the lives of professedly religious men. 11. HABITS OF LIFE MAY UNCONSCIOUSLY BE FORMED WHICH GENERA.TE A CLASS OF FEELINGS PROVOCATIVE OF TEMPTATION. Habits grow in silence and too slowly to be noted, and every unconsciously formed habit brings with it it-s corresponding cla8s of feelings, which also, rising gradually, are apt to obtain an unobserved permaneoce in life. 'l'he usages of Eastern courts in reference to polygamy acted in a subtle way on David's life, so that he gradually formed the habits peculiar to that abnormal form of domestic life, and we need no Divine revelation to inform us of the class of inferior feelings that would thereby be surely though slowly engendered. The man in modern  170 THE SEOOND BOOK OF SAMUEL. [on. xr. 1-27,