Bathsheba's Charm

I've been thinking about Bathsheba lately. Remember her? She's the woman David spotted while she was bathing on a rooftop and decided that he had to have her for himself. He was the king, and I imagine it would be both hard and foolhardy to deny the king. As a result of their union, Bathsheba conceived a baby. This is where the plot thickens, for you see, she was married to Uriah, one of David's soldiers who was off fighting a war.

To wiggle his way out of the dilemma, David arranged for Uriah to come home, thinking that he would sleep with his wife and thus provide a legitimate reason for her pregnancy. Uriah, however, had too much integrity for that, so the king actually gave orders to send him to the front of the battle hoping Uriah would be killed. The plan worked, and David and Bathsheba were free to marry without shame. No one would be the wiser, right?

But wait, God knew of David's wicked scheme. So did the prophet Nathan. Nathan came to David with a story involving a rich man and a poor man. The rich man had many flocks and herds while the poor man had only one little lamb whom he loved and nourished. The rich man took the poor man's lamb and killed and dressed it for a traveler and spared his own large flock. In telling the story, Nathan made David see that what he had done was the exact same thing. He, the rich king, had taken Uriah's only lamb, Bathsheba. Although David clearly saw his sin and felt sorrow, God was displeased and took the life of his and Bathsheba's child.

I've read this story many times, even studied it in Sunday school classes, but it was only recently that I began to empathize with Bathsheba. Why was she on the rooftop bathing instead of the privacy of her own home? I don’t know the answer to that, but I do know that this wasn’t done in broad daylight. I’m thinking that it was when everyone else was sleeping and that perhaps David was having a bout of insomnia that led him outside to overlook the rooftops of the city.

I’m not sure where I’m going with this except to say that Bathsheba, in my opinion, was not as culpable as the king, and yet she too had to pay a huge price: the death of her husband and of her son. That was somewhat of a revelation to me because previously I had erroneously thought that she and David were “partners in crime.”

My other revelation is that I sense that many, many young women don’t realize the effect they have on men when they dress in provocative ways. They are often simply following the fashion trends of the day and are not deliberately seeking the attention of males. I’m not saying all skimpily dressed women are ignorant of their charms because that’d be false. In fact, many are expert in exhibiting their feminine wiles and attributes to attract male attention.

Still, aren’t there some who are like lambs? Are there some women who are unaware of the sexual interest they attract, those who are sending out signals that they aren’t aware of? Are there times when women are taken advantage of by men who misread their signals?