David and Bathsheba: What the Text Actually Says | Sarah Bowler

So I'm going to have some listeners and viewers that aren't familiar with the story.

Most of them will be, but just so we're all on the same page, talk to us about what is the story of Bathsheba? Yeah,

absolutely.

So 2 Samuel, when you come, there's that section, chapters 10 through 12, and it starts off, David is having a lot of military campaigns against Ammon.

So that's chapter 10.

And then chapter 11 starts off, he sends his military commander Joab back to fight Ammon and the Ammonites, but he stays home.

And that's kind of your first clue.

You don't really know why he stays home, but it's a little unusual.

And so that kind of should pique the reader's attention.

Okay, what's going to happen next? And as he's in his palace in the evening and he's walking on his roof, he's surveying his city and looking over everything.

And he looks down because the palace is up higher than everything else in his city.

And he sees a woman bathing and he's attracted to her.

He finds he's just captivated by her beauty.

And I want to stop here for a moment and just kind of focus on the roof narrative.

Because it's ironic that scripture says he was up on the roof.

But interestingly, we kind of shift that where we think of her as up on the roof.

And I don't quite know when or how, but even as I was researching this, One of the most frequent questions I got from people after they found out what I was studying was, okay, so tell me, why was Bathsheba bathing on top of her roof? And that's where I have to stop and say, Tex doesn't say that.

She wasn't.

Interesting.

Right.

And logically, if you stop and think about it, who's going to carry water all the way up to the roof?

Good point.

You know, and no one's going to get a big metal bathtub and take it up there.

And yeah, so it's kind of a more ironic.

So where is she likely bathing? So according to archaeology and studies, most likely an enclosed courtyard area.