2 Samuel 11:14-27 (CLICK HERE FOR BIBLE VERSES)
Hi GAMErs,
Today’s passage is 2 Samuel 11:14-27. As usual, I encourage you to open your Bible and read the passage yourself first. See what you can glean with the Holy Spirit’s help. Then read the GAME sharing below. Let’s go!
2 Samuel 11:14-27 (NIV)
14 In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it with Uriah.
15 In it he wrote, “Put Uriah in the front line where the fighting is fiercest. Then withdraw from him so he will be struck down and die.”
16 So while Joab had the city under siege, he put Uriah at a place where he knew the strongest defenders were.
17 When the men of the city came out and fought against Joab, some of the men in David’s army fell; moreover, Uriah the Hittite died.
18 Joab sent David a full account of the battle.
19 He instructed the messenger: “When you have finished giving the king this account of the battle,
20 the king’s anger may flare up, and he may ask you, ‘Why did you get so close to the city to fight? Didn’t you know they would shoot arrows from the wall?
21 Who killed Abimelech son of Jerub-Besheth? Didn’t a woman throw an upper millstone on him from the wall, so that he died in Thebez? Why did you get so close to the wall?’ If he asks you this, then say to him, ‘Also, your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead.'”
22 The messenger set out, and when he arrived he told David everything Joab had sent him to say.
23 The messenger said to David, “The men overpowered us and came out against us in the open, but we drove them back to the entrance to the city gate.
24 Then the archers shot arrows at your servants from the wall, and some of the king’s men died. Moreover, your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead.”
25 David told the messenger, “Say this to Joab: ‘Don’t let this upset you; the sword devours one as well as another. Press the attack against the city and destroy it.’ Say this to encourage Joab.”
26 When Uriah’s wife heard that her husband was dead, she mourned for him.
27 After the time of mourning was over, David had her brought to his house, and she became his wife and bore him a son. But the thing David had done displeased the LORD.
On verses 14-27: David has been unable to get Uriah to sleep with his wife Bathsheba whom David had made pregnant. So David comes up with an even more sinister and coldblooded plan: murder Uriah. David writes a letter to his general Joab instructing Joab to place Uriah on the frontlines of battle and then withdraw from Uriah so that he will be easily killed (v15). And guess who David gets to send that letter to Joab? Uriah himself! (v14) To think Uriah was nobly delivering a letter from his king, not knowing that the letter contained instructions for Uriah’s own murder.
David’s plan to have Uriah killed is successful (v17). David acts as if everything is normal (v18-25) and marries the now widowed Bathsheba (v27). While Uriah did not suspect that his king David would commit such a heinous crime, David’s sin did not go unnoticed by God (v27).
What can we learn from this?
1. We may be able to hide our sin from some people, but we cannot hide our sin from God. In the end, the one we must answer to for our sin is not just people, but God Himself.
2. We look at Uriah’s murder and think, “What a senseless and unjust murder.” And truly Uriah did not deserve to die that way. Like Jesus, Uriah was sent by a king to die, even though he was innocent. Although Uriah’s life was cut short, Uriah remains one of the greatest heroes in all the Bible. The fact that Jesus’ genealogy in Matthew 1 would mention Uriah shows how highly the Holy Spirit and the church esteemed Uriah. As Matthew 1:6 says:
Matthew 1:6 (NIV)
6 and Jesse the father of King David. David was the father of Solomon, whose mother had been Uriah’s wife…
In God’s sovereignty, God would weave the life and death of Uriah into the birth of His Messiah. Without Uriah, Jesus would not have come into this world the way that He did. Uriah was fighting and giving his life for David, not realizing that God would use Uriah’s life and death to usher the coming of someone even greater than David; it was Jesus the Son of David! By living life selflessly, humbly and for God’s honour, Uriah became God’s instrument to bring Christ into this world. It goes to show that when you live your life humbly and for God’s honour, God notices and will use your life and even your death to make a much bigger difference than you ever thought possible.
Father God, thank You for using men like Uriah to pave the way for Jesus to come into this world. Thank You for noticing everything — both our worst sins as well as our most faith-filled deeds — and thank You for somehow using them all to write a greater story than we could ever write on our own. In Jesus’ name, AMEN!
opyright © 2022 Justin Lim. All rights reserved.
