Читать книгу Women in Battle - Peggy Scarborough - Страница 9

It was with Bathsheba that David sinned. She was the wife of Uriah the Hittite, one of David's most trusted generals. While Uriah was in battle, King David saw Bathsheba bathing on her rooftop and sent for her. Then one day she sent the king word that she was with child. King David sent for Uriah to come home to be with his wife, but Uriah slept in his barracks with his soldiers. Uriah would not be with his wife when he was consecrated for battle. David got Uriah drunk, but still he would not go. So David wrote out the orders that Uriah be put in the front line of the hottest battle. So Uriah, one of David's mightiest men, died in battle.

The prophet Nathan denounced David for his sin with the words. ''Thou art the man." David prayed for forgiveness. Obviously Bathsheba was forgiven by God, then forgave herself. She became David's wife and gave him Solomon and three other sons.

Her greatest strength is seen when she wanted David to make her son Solomon king after his death. Adonijab, David's son by Haggith, was plotting to be king. Nathan the prophet who had denounced David and Bathsheba's sin now plots with Bathsheba to get Solomon king. We read in I Kings 1:17-21 how Bathsheba pleads for David to make Solomon king. Touched by Bathsheba's fervent plea, King David says. "As the Lord liveth ... assuredly Solomon thy son shall reign after me, and he shall sit upon my throne in my stead." Here is the woman once denounced by the prophet now working with the prophet of God. She was made queen mother to sit on Solomon's right side-a place of great authority and prominence.

Early Jewish expositors believe that Solomon wrote Proverbs 31 in honor of his mother Bathsheba. She lives on today as the forgiven warrior who became the ideal woman of Proverbs 31.