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Context No. 2479 of 4322 · 2 Samuel

Context · Reflection

2 Samuel 11:22-27: in context

22So the messenger went, and came and showed David all that Joab had sent him for. 23The messenger said to David, “The men prevailed against us, and came out to us into the field; and we were on them even to the entrance of the gate. 24The shooters shot at your servants from off the wall; and some of the king’s servants are dead, and your servant Uriah the Hittite is also dead.” 25Then David said to the messenger, “Tell Joab, ‘Don’t let this thing displease you, for the sword devours one as well as another. Make your battle stronger against the city, and overthrow it.’ Encourage him.” 26When Uriah’s wife heard that Uriah her husband was dead, she mourned for her husband. 27When the mourning was past, David sent and took her home to his house, and she became his wife and bore him a son. But the thing that David had done displeased the LORD.

The messenger brings David the news he arranged for: the fighting was fierce, and among the dead is Uriah the Hittite. David sends back a chillingly casual word for Joab: do not let this trouble you, the sword devours one as well as another; press the attack. Then he waits out Bathsheba's mourning, brings her into his house, and she bears him a son. The chapter ends with one flat sentence: but the thing that David had done displeased the LORD.

Listen to how calm David is. He has engineered a man's death to cover his sin, and he coaches Joab not to feel bad about it, the sword devours one and another, as if it were simply the fortune of war. He has talked himself into serenity. And then the narrator, refusing the spin, adds the verdict David left out: it displeased the LORD. We are frighteningly able to rationalize a wrong until it feels normal, even reasonable. God is not taken in by the story we tell ourselves.

What wrong have I talked myself calm about, until it felt normal, that still plainly displeases the LORD?

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