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THE CAUSE AND CONSEQUENCES OF ADULTERY Have you ever wondered about the cause of King David’s adultery with Bathsheba (meaning daughter of the oath) in 2nd Samuel chapter 11? David (meaning beloved) had many wives and concubines, among whom Michal (Saul’s daughter, her name meaning who is like God – a feminine variant of the name Michael) had been a favorite. Remember that in 1st Samuel 17:25 the fighting men of Israel tell the young shepherd boy David that the person who defeats Goliath will be award great riches, King Saul’s daughter in marriage and exemption from taxation. Of course. after Goliath’s defeat the promise is not fulfilled, Saul being an ungenerous and man who begrudged David’s victory. However, David does eventually get the King’s daughter. In 1st Samuel 18:17-30 we are told that Michal loved David (v. 20), so Saul conceived a plot to have David killed by the Philistines. He offers Michal to David with the requirement that David kill 100 Philistines and return their foreskins as proof, hoping that the Philistines would overpower and kill David instead. The opposite however happens, and David kills 200 Philistines (v. 27), thereby gaining Michal’s hand in marriage. Seeing that his daughter and all Israel loves David, “Saul was still more afraid of David. So, Saul was David’s enemy continually.” In fact, Michal loves David more than her own father. We know this from chapter 19 where Saul sends messengers to David’s house to arrest him for execution, but David flees before the messengers arrives and Michal puts an image with goat’s hair on its head in David’s bed as a ruse (v. 13). When Saul questions her, she claims (falsely) that David threatened her life, so she let him go. Thus, we can see that her love for David was deep. But circumstances changes that. In 1st Samuel chapter 25, while on the run from Saul David sent messengers to ask a rich man named Nabal (meaning fool) for provisions, but he refuses although David and his men had been protecting Nabal’s sheepherders and livestock from marauders. Abigail (meaning father’s joy) finds out, and before David can mount an attack, she herself sends provisions and David comes to his senses without exacting revenge. When Abigail eventually tells Nabal about the averted attack that he so richly deserved, Nabal’s heart grew cold within him (v. 37) and he died within 10 days. David then takes Abigail to be another of his wives and Saul, hearing of this, takes his daughter Michal away from David and gives her to Paltiel (meaning God is my deliverance). One wonders what Michal must have thought, having once loved David so deeply. In 2nd Samuel 3:6-21, Abner (who had been on Saul’s side) joins David after Saul’s death and from him David demands Michal’s return (v. 13). Abner complies and as Michal is being turned over to David, Paltiel follows behind weeping. Though Abner orders him to return home, one wonders at the grave injustice done to him. Now what Michal does in chapter 6 makes sense. David has the Ark of the Old Covenant returned to Jerusalem. At first the Ark is incorrectly transported in an ox cart and one of the accompanying men, Uzzah, reaching out his hand to steady the cart, is struck dead on the spot (v. 7), so David leaves the Ark at the home of Obed-Jesse for three months (this presages the three-month visitation of the Ark of the New Covenant with Elizabeth in Luke 1:56). But when finally, David brings the Ark into Jerusalem (this time the correct way), he dances before it while wearing only a linen ephod (v. 14). Michal, the woman who had once loved David) sees him in this state and despises him in her heart (v. 16). She confronts him in verse 20 with her disgust, and he responds in verse 21 that it was the Lord who chose him over her father. Verse 23 states that Michal never bore David any children, which means that they were no longer intimate with each other. The love that had once existed between them was gone. Now we are set up for David’s adultery with Bathsheba in chapter 11. We all know the old story: David sees this beautiful woman bathing on the roof of her home, and takes her into his bed, getting her pregnant. Then David tries to cover up his crime by bring her husband Uriah back form the battle field, hoping he will be intimate with her and everything will think the baby is his, but Uriah does not cooperate because the war effort is more important to him than the comfort of home, so David sends him into the thick of the battle where he is killed, after which David marries his wife as though nothing wrong had happened. But the prophet Nathan confronts him. David had broken four of the Ten Commandments: coveting, adultery, bearing false witness and murder. And when David hears Nathan’s parable about the poor man’s pet sheep who was slaughtered by a rich man for guests, David is oblivious to the fact that he and Bathsheba deserved the fate that he said the rich man deserved: death (Leviticus 20:10 and Deuteronomy 22:22-24). David additionally declared that the right man must repay the poor man four times over consistent with Exodus 22:1, and that is exactly what happened to David. David did pay fourfold: his first child by Bathsheba died, and his three other sons (Amon, Absalom and Adonijah) were eventually slain in a scandal of incest and rebellion. The prophet Nathan went further and said that because David committed adultery and murder in secret, God would allow him to be punished openly as his closest friend – his own son – would lay with his women in public as he fled for his life. That happened in 2nd Samuel 16:22 as Absalom laid with David’s concubines in full view of the Israelites. But the saddest thing is the death of Bathsheba’s child one day before the boy would have been circumcised. Just as innocent Paltiel previously suffered the grief of losing Michal whom he obviously loved, so also did an innocent baby suffer death, and this all happened because of sin. People complain that the Judeo-Christian tradition is backwards and overly restrictive, that the God of Christians and Jews just makes demands and never wants us to be happy, and that we are not sufficiently progressive in sexual matters. But look at what happened throughout 1st and 2nd Samuel (the story does not end at chapter 12 when the prophet Nathan confronts David). David just had to take Abigail for his wife when he already had Michal who loves him. That started the ball rolling. Then Paltiel’s life is turned upside down. Then David is despised by Michal and they never have sex again, so David, seeing Bathsheba, surrenders to lust and a baby subsequently dies, yet not just a baby but eventually David’s three other sons as well. God does NOT make rules because He wants to make us miserable. God makes rules to save us from the consequences of our own bad decisions. Yes, God forgave David (read Psalm 51), but the sword never left David’s house (2nd Samuel 12:10). Thus, does Scripture say, “Do not be deceived; God is not mocked, for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap.” At one of my AA meetings early in recovery there was a police officer also in recovery. He had done a crime. His priest and his sponsor told him he had to confess and accept the consequences, which sadly included the shame of jail time. God forgave him his sin (whatever it was), but whenever he told his “story” of recovery, he always talked about these things as a warning of what not to do.  By the way, you may have noticed that in many cases I gave the meaning for the names of the various people involved in this story. If we were to read 1st and 2nd Samuel with the meanings of people’s names inserted in the text instead of the Anglicized names themselves, then I think we would have an entirely different perspective. I will take just one verse – 2nd Samuel 6:16: “Who is Like God, daughter of Desired, looked through a window and saw King Beloved leaping and whirling before the Lord, and she despised him in her heart.” I do not think we get half the meaning out of Sacred Scripture that we should be getting if we were to actually study and meditate on these things, internalizing their lessons so that we can live joyful lives now and be happy with Christ in eternity.