It’s been a long time coming, but David finally puts a foot wrong. Well, more than a foot actually.
David and Mephibosheth
2 Samuel 9:1-13
Decisive victories over Ammonite-Syrian forces
2 Samuel 10: 1-14, 1 Chronicles 19:1-15
David defeats Syrian forces
2 Samuel 10: 15-19, 1 Chronicles 19:16-19
David’s prayer for victory
Psalm 20
David’s sin
1 Kings 15:5
David’s adultery
2 Samuel 11:1-5
His attempt at concealment
2 Samuel 11:6-13
Uriah murdered
2 Samuel 11:14-27
The story of Mephibosheth is a lovely one. This crippled man is rescued from obscurity and given a place at the kings table by David’s grace. In this, he acts like God perhaps more truly than in anything else he does. David seems to be going from strength to strength, defeating his enemies decisively on all sides. His trust in God is undimmed: “Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the LORD our God.” Psalm 20:7.
But then for some unknown reason, David stays at home instead of fighting with the army. Listless and idle, he wanders around his palace, and his eye is caught by beautiful Bathsheba. He is the king. He can do whatever he likes, and no one will say a word against him.
So he sends for her, and begins an affair with her. She conceives, and David hastily arranges for her husband to come home, so that the baby will be thought to be his, not the king’s. But Uriah is a man of honour, and will not sleep with his wife while Israel is still at war. Desperate now, David sends him back with secret orders to see him killed.
What has happened to this man? He refused to raise a hand against Saul, when he could have killed him, he did so many beautiful gestures, including showing mercy to Mephibosheth, and now he sends a man to war with orders in his pocket to have him killed. How can his conscience allow him?
Oh David! Have you forgotten everything you ever sang about the Lord?
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