The Long History of David's Sin

Reflections on David and Bathsheba (2)

When David sins with Bathsheba, he is not manifesting inclinations that are foreign to him. His sin with Bathsheba openly manifests habits which have been developing for his entire life-story. Until this point, those habits have been “venial” sins. He is still counted as a man after God’s own heart. Yet the reality is that the venial sin and the mortal sin are not disconnected. A single cancerous cell will not kill you, but it will multiply until it does. Until it spreads through the whole body, it can be fought and overcome. But once it spreads, one must pass through death to enter into new life. This is what we see in the story of David’s sin with Bathsheba. David has, by this point in his life, acquired the habit of acquiring for himself whatever woman he pleases. Though Michal delivers David from the hand of Saul in 1 Samuel 19, David forgets about her, taking new wives in 1 Samuel 25. Likewise, while David is a prince under Philistine vassalage in 1 Samuel 27, he acquires the habit of decimating a city and eliminating its residents in order to protect his own reputation among the Philistines (1 Samuel 27:11) rather than trusting in God’s hand to protect him. The author of Samuel reports these stories to us without comment- the reader, without closer attention to the text, does not know the ultimate significance of these acts in David’s heart. But these habits come into the open air in 2 Samuel 11 where David is utterly stripped of pretense and excuse.