How far should our loyalty go? Even if someone is anointed by Yahweh and we know that they are anointed, but they gave instructions that we know are morally wrong, should we still do it out of loyalty and their anointing?
2 Samuel 11:15 – In the letter he wrote, “Put Uriah on the front line where the fighting is heaviest. Then abandon him so that he’ll be struck down and die.”
The sad funny thing is: Uriah showed how loyal he was. I know that good came out of this story, but it always hurt my heart what happened to Uriah. I believe he was a good man and would be in heaven. So would David. I wonder who that greeting would go?
Then there is this:
2 Samuel 11:27 – When her mourning was over, David sent for her and brought her to his home, and she became his wife. Then she gave birth to a son. But the Lord considered David’s actions evil.
You can be anointed and still do evil in Yahweh’s eyes. You can be a man after Yahweh’s heart and still do something evil in his sight. Yahweh didn’t play favourites and say that because he loved him he will let it slide. He loved him and still told him, “You wrong for that.”
2 Samuel 12:24-25 – Then David comforted his wife Bathsheba. He went to bed with her, and she later gave birth to a son. David named him Solomon. The Lord loved the child 25 and sent a message through the prophet Nathan to name the baby Jedidiah [The Lord’s Beloved].
SIDENOTE: We often cast Bathsheba as the bad one, but I don’t. Not that she was right, but like Joab, was following instructions. Still wrong. But so often we rarely consider what she also lost because of David’s actions. Her husband, her reputation and then her son.
I have one question though unrelated to Bathsheba. Why do we know Solomon as Solomon if Yahweh asked for him to be called Jedidiah?
2 Samuel 14:27 – Absalom had three sons and one daughter. His daughter Tamar was a beautiful woman.
Absalom had a daughter named Tamar. The lust he had for his sister seems even creepier now. Tamar: Palm Tree
2 Samuel 20:3 – When David came to his palace in Jerusalem, he took the ten concubines he had left to look after the palace and put them in a house under guard. He provided for them but no longer slept with them. So they lived like widows in confinement until they died.
I don’t know if I would have survived the way women were treated. David knew that one of the ways that someone would try and claim kingship includes sleeping with the king’s wives/concubines and he left them there. And then discarded them. Sadments.