[Handsome Creepy Eel]

Biblical narrative Wrote:

The meaning of the Hebrew form of the name "Bathsheba" is "daughter of the oath". Bathsheba was the daughter of Eliam. Bathsheba was the wife of Uriah the Hittite, and afterward of David, by whom she gave birth to Solomon, who succeeded David as king.

The story of David's seduction of Bathsheba, told in 2 Samuel 11, is omitted in Chronicles. The story is told that David, while walking on the roof of his palace, saw Bathsheba, who was then the wife of Uriah, having a bath. He immediately desired her and later made her pregnant.

In an effort to conceal his sin, David summoned Uriah from the army (with whom he was on campaign) in the hope that Uriah would re-consummate his marriage and think that the child was his. Uriah was unwilling to violate the ancient kingdom rule applying to warriors in active service. Rather than go home to his own bed, he preferred to remain with the palace troops.

After repeated efforts to convince Uriah to have sex with Bathsheba, the king gave the order to his general, Joab, that Uriah should be placed in the front lines of the battle, where it was the most dangerous, and left to the hands of the enemy. Ironically, David had Uriah himself carry the message that ordered his death. After Uriah was dead, David made the now widowed Bathsheba his wife.

David's action was displeasing to the Lord, who accordingly sent Nathan the prophet to reprove the king. After relating the parable of the rich man who took away the one little ewe lamb of his poor neighbor, the king at once confessed his sin and expressed sincere repentance. Bathsheba's child by David was struck with a severe illness and died a few days after birth, which the king accepted as his punishment.

Nathan also noted that David's house would be cursed with turmoil because of this murder. This came to pass years later when one of David's much-loved sons, Absalom, led an insurrection that plunged the kingdom into civil war. Moreover, to manifest his claim to be the new king, Absalom had sexual intercourse in public with ten of his father's concubines, which could be considered a direct, tenfold divine retribution for David's taking the woman of another man.

In David's old age, Bathsheba secured the succession to the throne of her son Solomon, instead of David's eldest surviving son Adonijah. (1 Kings 1:11-31).

The story of David's adultery sets up the context for the penitential Psalm 51 (50), also known as "Miserere" ("Have mercy on me, O God").

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bathsheba

Unlike so many soldiers who come back from today's wars and are soon after greeted with pregnant women saying that the child "might be his", it seems that the old cultures had some kind of regulation saying that a soldier could not go home to his wife immediately afterwards. If they don't have sex for half a year after return from service, there's no way he can be cuckolded. Revolutionary!

And note, it wasn't just his decision that's wise compared to today's Beta soldiers tolerating the fact that their wives had gangbangs with students, it was actually a rule for everyone in the kingdom. A comparative measure today would be state-instituted obligatory DNA paternity tests. I never knew that I'd find this stuff in the Bible.

p.s. in this case, I'd say most of the blame rests on David for shafting his loyal servant in a devious way, given that women didn't have much power those days.