Bathsheba
Of
the four Old Testament women who appear in Matthew’s genealogy, it is striking
that the two who were foreign born were able to exercise more control over
their choices than the two who were born into Judaism. This is coincidence.
There are strong and confident Hebrew women throughout the Old Testament, and
Tamar and Bathsheba show great resilience and do the best that they can with
their circumstances. But they were born into a culture which was very strongly
hierarchical, and found themselves intimately connected with the most powerful
men in Judaism. We have seen how Tamar used her wit to ensure that she got the
treatment she deserved. Bathsheba is, perhaps, even more of a victim than Tamar,
but like Tamar she made the best of her circumstances.
Bathsheba
(referred to in 1 Chronicles 3:5 as Bathshua) was married to Uriah, a Hittite
who had settled in Jerusalem and served in the army of King David. When she
went into the private courtyard of her house for the ritual bathing that
followed her monthly period, she would have expected to be completely private.
The events that followed were born of David’s lust and greed. The abuse of his
power in his treatment of both Bathsheba and Uriah were an alarming sign of the
kind of ruler that David could become. In all these events, Bathsheba was never
in a position to say no.
David’s
only honourable act was to marry Bathsheba and make her his queen. Bathsheba
was one among many wives, but she seems to have held a position of honour and
of trust. It was her son who David chose to succeed to the throne, even though
David had a number of older boys.
The
role of Bathsheba as Queen in intervening on behalf of Solomon gives us an idea
of her character as a survivor. When the great prophet Nathan thought David
would not listen, it was Bathsheba who could make him see reason. Her wisdom
and authority as Queen, and her respect for her as his wife, gave her the
ability to make David act decisively in a way he had often failed to do before.
However, when Bathsheba makes her last appearance in 1 Kings 2: 13-19 to speak
to her son Solomon, now King, her authority has gone. Solomon is willing to
respect her enough to give her an audience and listen to her words, but not to
grant her request.
Read 2
Samuel 11: 1 – 12: 25;
1 Kings 1; 11- 31
Consider
In John 8: 36, Jesus says
‘If the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed’. History has shown that
this freedom might not be the freedom to go where you want to go or do what you
want to do. Still today people are imprisoned, tortured or killed because they
are less powerful than others. In some places men with guns have the power to
arbitrarily punish those who do not share their viewpoint. Across the world,
people who are poor lose their freedom to people who have the power of money.
Stop The Traffik continues to document thousands of cases of young girls and
boys who are taken from their families to become slaves in domestic situations
or the sex industry against their wills.
Summoned to the King,
Bathsheba would have known that her life and Uriah’s depended on what she did.
In the presence of a man known to be a strong warrior, she hardly had a choice.
Had she not become pregnant, Uriah would have been safe; instead she lost both
husband and child.
She remained at the palace, bore
David four sons and was a trusted advisor to her husband. She was trusted by her husband’s other sons,
who might have been considered her enemies (see 1 Kings 2: 13-19). Somehow
through it all she seemed to have a still centre, a sense of calm. Perhaps,
despite it all, she was a woman who knew the freedom that comes with true faith
– freedom of the heart.
Question
1) How
would you define true freedom? Is it possible to be free while being captive?
2) Scholars
have argued about Bathsheba’s motives in giving in to David’s advances. How do
you see her? Did she have a choice? If so, was it an acceptable one?
3) Bathsheba
would not have had any power or authority as David’s queen. She even needed his
permission to come into his presence and have a conversation with him. What do
you think that the stories we have tell you about the kind of Queen Bathsheba
was, and the kind of woman that she became?
4) Bathsheba,
like most of the women in Matthew’s list, was probably very young, maybe even
still a teenager, when the main events of the story happened. How do we support
the young and the vulnerable women – and men – in our communities, especially
our church communities? Is there more we can do to help them grow into mature
faith?
5) What
does it mean to be free as a 21st century Western Christian? How can
we share that freedom with others?
The Scarlet Thread
Matthew refers to Bathsheba
as ‘the wife of Uriah’ in the genealogy. Is it important that Uriah is
mentioned, that Bathsheba is not remembered only as the wife of the great King
David – from whom claims to royal status for Jesus came – but as the widow of a
loyal Hittite soldier too? Is it important that we remember Bathsheba as a
victim as well as a Queen? If so, why would Matthew want us to remember things
which would detract from Jesus’ royal status, and remind the reader that Jesus’
illustrious ancestor was an adulterer and a killer?
When you reflect on
Bathsheba, the fourth of the women Matthew marks out as important in the line
that led to Jesus, what do you think marks her out? Why does her presence in
Jesus’ story matter? Keep a note of your thoughts and ideas, so that
Bathsheba’s thread can be linked with the other women whose stories we are
studying.
No comments:
Post a Comment