PART 3: A MOST HONORABLE MAN: BIBLE STUDY "MY LITTLE WHITE LAMB"

David, the mighty king, has commanded the attentions of anotherman's wife and he has gotten her pregnant. He should be confessing this to God and seeking how to make it right to Uriah, but like many today, he begins a coverup.

When he learns Bathsheba is expecting he sends his Field Commander Joab, an order to send Uriah back home. Maybe, just maybe that's a good thing; maybe David is going to confess to this warrior, try to make things right with him. What Joab made of this request we don't know, but David was his King so Joab did as he was requested.

Joab sent Uriah to David’s palace, and David asked him, “Is Joab well? How is the army doing? And how about the war?” Then David told Uriah, “Go home and clean up.” Uriah left the king’s palace, and David had dinner sent to Uriah’s house. (2 Samuel 11:6-8)

When Uriah arrives it looks like this may be exactly what David has in mind, to coffess to Uriah and try to make amends.. He invites Uriah in and asks him how the war is going. He sends Uriah to his home to freshen up, rest and be with his wife, and beyond this, he even sends a big delivery of meat to the man as a gift. Ain't that King David a sweet guy?

The next morning David is surprised to learn Uriah didn't go home. The man spent the night sleeping in David's doorway, so he asks why.

 But Uriah didn’t go home. Instead, he slept outside the entrance to the royal palace, where the king’s guards slept.

Someone told David that Uriah had not gone home. So the next morning David asked him,

"Haven't you just come from a distance? Why didn't you go home?"

Uriah said to David, "The ark and Israel and Judah are staying in tents, and my master Joab and my lord's men are camped in the open fields. How could I go to my house to eat and drink and lie with my wife? As surely as you live, I will not do such a thing!"

Then David said to him, "Stay here one more day, and tomorrow I will send you back.

So Uriah remained in Jerusalem that day and the next. At David's invitation, he ate and drank with him, and David made him drunk. But in the evening Uriah went out to sleep on his mat among his master's servants; he did not go home. (2 Samuel 11:10b-13 (NIV))

It just gets worse and worse for David, don't'cha think? Do you see what David's real motive is here? He didn't call Uriah from the front to try and make amends for sleeping with his wife. David is trying to get Uriah to go home and have sexual relations with Bathsheba so they can claim the baby is his. The problem for David is Uriah is too honorable a man to fall into the trap. He's not going to enjoy any creature comforts when his fellow troopers are camping on a battlefield, which remember is where David should have been.

Are you starting to wonder just how low David can sink?

He can sink a lot lower, my friends, a lot lower.

Uriah stayed in Jerusalem that day. Then the next day, David invited him for dinner. Uriah ate with David and drank so much that he got drunk, but he still did not go home. He went out and slept on his mat near the palace guards. Early the next morning, David wrote a letter and told Uriah to deliver it to Joab. [The illustration at the top of this lesson.] The letter said: “Put Uriah on the front line where the fighting is the worst. Then pull the troops back from him, so that he will be wounded and die.”(2 Samuel 11:13-15)

David sends Uriah back to the front and places in Uriah's hand his own death sentence. Again Uriah shows his honor, he never peeks at the letter addressed to his commander, Joab. And what does the letter say?  It orders Joab to send Uriah, the honorable and faithful warrior, to the fiercest fighting on the front, to where the enemy is the strongest, and then to pull back and leave Uriah alone without backup.

Joab must have been scratching his head over this, but good soldier that he is, he obeys. Perhaps he believes God has directed David to do this.

Joab had been carefully watching the city of Rabbah, and he put Uriah in a place where he knew there were some of the enemy’s 

best soldiers.  When the men of the city came out, they fought and killed some of David’s soldiers—Uriah the Hittite was one of them.

Joab sent a messenger to tell David everything that was happening in the war. He gave the messenger these orders:

When you finish telling the king everything that has happened, he may get angry and ask, “Why did you go so near the city to fight? Didn’t you know they would shoot arrows from the wall?  Don’t you know how Abimelech the son of Gideon was killed at Thebez? Didn’t a woman kill him by dropping a large rock from the top of the city wall? Why did you go so close to the city walls?”

Then you tell him, “One of your soldiers who was killed was Uriah the Hittite.”

The messenger went to David and reported everything Joab had told him. He added, “The enemy chased us from the wall and out into the open fields. But we pushed them back as far as the city gate. Then they shot arrows at us from the top of the wall. Some of your soldiers were killed, and one of them was Uriah the Hittite.”

David replied, “Tell Joab to cheer up and not to be upset about what happened. You never know who will be killed in a war. Tell him to strengthen his attack against the city and break through its walls.”

When Bathsheba heard that her husband was dead, she mourned for him. Then after the time for mourning was over, David sent someone to bring her to the palace. She became David’s wife, and they had a son. (2 Samuel 11:16-27)

 Uriah dies. It appears he died in gallant battle. In truth, David murdered him.

David went to this extent to cover up his own deeds. Uriah would never question how Bathsheba came to have a child now, because he is dead. If anyone else would ask, why look, Uriah was home on leave, obviously he went into his wife and it's his child. Nobody would ever know the truth.

Except God always knows the truth and so Nathan is sent to tell David about a man who had a little lamb.

NEXT TIME: SURELY THE MAN WHO DID THIS DESERVES TO DIE