Bathsheba found in 2 Samuel chapter 11, a little in 12, and in 1 Kings 1
What's the basic story?
It starts off with a war, and we know that kings are also supposed to go to war, but for some reason, David doesn't and we don't really know why. He's on his roof and he sees a woman in a bath (I thought when I was little that was why she was called Bath-sheba). And this woman's pretty beautiful, so he sends his servants to find out who she is. They tell him that she is Bathsheba, wife of Uriah the Hittite who is in David's army, who is away at war. Because he's away at war, David freely gets Bathsheba and they sleep together. This is the king, so he can do what he wants . .right?
Turns out no, and the evidence of the affair comes about when Bathsheba finds out she's pregnant and she sends word to David. Ah. David's little secret isn't about to be very secret anymore. But, he decides to try and cover his sin with another sin by getting Uriah back from war to ask how it's all going, and send him home to sleep with his wife so it looks like it's Uriah's child. They don't exactly have pregnancy tests or dates for the ETA of the child, so no one would really know the difference. But Uriah doesn't follow the plan, he sleeps outside the palace door with all the other king's officers.
David suddenly panics and is like ahh, he needs to go home! He asks Uriah why he didn't go home, and he says something about how his fellow officers are in tents having a hard time, it seems bit unfair for him to go home and sleep with his wife. David persuades him to stay for another night, and he gets him to the palace to eat and drink. He then gets him drunk but still Uriah doesn't go home. David again panics, so sends a letter to Joab in war telling him to put Uriah in the front line so he will get killed.
Bathsheba's pretty upset about this, but after the period of mourning, she gets married to David and has a son (who is nameless I think?). David's got away with it, the child may be born a few months earlier than suspected but no one will really notice, and he's king so no one's going to do anything. But . .God doesn't like what he's done.
David's friend Nathan then explains to David that he's sinned once in sleeping with Bathsheba, and quite a few times in lying and then killing him. David FINALLY understands that he''s sinned and there's going to be consequences for this. Then the baby became really ill, and David fasted, and he was lying on the floor all night. On the 7th day, the baby died. David comforts Bathsheba, they sleep together and she gives birth to Solomon 9 months later!
How is it significant?
I don't know how much say Bathsheba has, considering David is a king and has power to do pretty much whatever she wants. When he summons her to sleep with him, she probably didn't get any choice. And she probably didn't get any choice whether to marry David. She just had to do it, and get on with it, which is pretty harsh
She probably raised Solomon on her onesies and she lived with the King so I reckon she did have faith. And she raised Solomon as a Godly man, unlike other of David's sons. She uses her position later on in 1 Kings 1 to make sure Solomon is next in line although he's not the eldest, he's the one with the most faith and he does become king.
Anddddd she's in Matthew 1! Because of her wisdom and her ability to make her sons Godly, and using her powerful position, her son become king
How does this apply to me?
Sometimes we're put into bad situations and circumstances without much choice in the matter. But, she has faith in God and things do get better, she gives birth to a son who becomes king and she becomes again in the genelogy of Jesus! This shows her submission even when she knew the king was sinning, and if she hadn't submitted to his commands, things could have turned out very differently - so we should submit but maybe not if we know our future husbands are sinning because we have more of a choice now and we don't us or our future husbands to fall into sin. But we need to be humble and submit, but being wise about it too :)
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