Scripture Daily

Context No. 4081 of 4322 · 2 Samuel

Context · Reflection

2 Samuel 11:1-5: in context

1At the return of the year, at the time when kings go out, David sent Joab and his servants with him, and all Israel; and they destroyed the children of Ammon and besieged Rabbah. But David stayed at Jerusalem. 2At evening, David arose from his bed and walked on the roof of the king’s house. From the roof, he saw a woman bathing, and the woman was very beautiful to look at. 3David sent and inquired after the woman. One said, “Isn’t this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, Uriah the Hittite’s wife?” 4David sent messengers, and took her; and she came in to him, and he lay with her (for she was purified from her uncleanness); and she returned to her house. 5The woman conceived; and she sent and told David, and said, “I am with child.”

The account of David's great sin opens with a telling detail: it was spring, the time when kings go out to battle, and David sent his army out to war, but David remained at Jerusalem. He was idle, at ease, off duty, when he should have been leading his men in the field. And it was in this idleness that temptation found him.

Rising in the evening, he saw a woman bathing, and the sin that would corrupt so much of his life began. It is worth noticing where the fall started. David was not overtaken while doing his duty; he was at ease, in the wrong place, with time on his hands and his guard down. Idleness and being out of our proper place can leave us exposed to temptation we might otherwise have escaped. Temptation often finds us not in the thick of our God-given work but in the moments of ease, when we are off-guard and out of place. This does not excuse David's sin, which was his own choice; but it warns us to be watchful, especially when we are idle or away from where we ought to be.

Am I watchful in the idle, unguarded hours and careful to be where I ought to be, aware that, like David, we are often exposed to temptation not in our duties but in the moments of ease when our guard is down?

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