Fr. Mike breaks down David's tragic downfall as he commits adultery with Bathsheba and kills her husband, Uriah the Hittite. We learn that David's road to grave sin began with small acts of disobedience and selfishness. Today's readings are 2 Samuel 11, 1 Chronicles 14-15, and Psalm 32. For the complete reading plan, visit ascensionpress.com/bibleinayear. Please note: The Bible contains adult themes that may not be suitable for children - parental discretion is advised.
Chapter 1: What is the Bible in a Year podcast about?
Hi, my name is Father Mike Schmitz, and you're listening to the Bible in a Year podcast, where we encounter God's voice and live life through the lens of Scripture. The Bible in a Year podcast is brought to you by Ascension. Using the Great Adventure Bible Timeline, we'll read all the way from Genesis to Revelation, discovering how the story of salvation unfolds and how we fit into that story.
Today, it is day 129. Man, oh man, this is so good. We're reading 2 Samuel chapter 11. So up to this point, David has been a solid, solid guy. And 2 Samuel chapter 11, we're going to see a descent. And then in 1 Chronicles chapters 14 and 15, as well as we're praying Psalm 32, as you all probably already know, the translation of the Bible that we are reading from.
is the Revised Standard Version, Second Catholic Edition. I am using the Great Adventure Bible from Ascension. To download your own Bible in a Year reading plan, you can visit ascensionpress.com slash Bible in a Year. And if you have not yet subscribed to this podcast, you can just click on Subscribe, and then you'll be subscribed, and you can follow along every single day, and it will find you.
You don't have to find it. That's great. As I said, today is day 129, reading 2 Samuel chapter 7, 1 Chronicles, both chapters 14 and 15, and we are praying Psalm 32. The second book of Samuel, chapter 11. David commits adultery with Bathsheba.
Chapter 2: What leads to David's downfall in 2 Samuel 11?
In the spring of the year, the time when kings go forth to battle, David sent Joab and his servants with him and all Israel, and they ravaged the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David remained at Jerusalem. It happened late one afternoon when David arose from his couch and was walking upon the roof of the king's house that he saw from the roof a woman bathing, and the woman was very beautiful.
And David sent and inquired about the woman. And one said, Is not this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite? So David sent messengers and took her, and she came to him, and he lay with her. Now she was purifying herself from her uncleanness. Then she returned to her house, and the woman conceived, and she sent and told David, I am with child.
Chapter 3: How does David attempt to cover his sin with Bathsheba?
So David sent word to Joab, send me Uriah the Hittite. And Joab sent Uriah to David. When Uriah came to him, David asked how Joab was doing and how the people fared and how the war prospered. Then David said to Uriah, go down to your house and wash your feet. And Uriah went out of the king's house and there followed him a present from the king.
But Uriah slept at the door of the king's house with all the servants of his Lord and did not go down to his house. When they told David, Uriah did not go down to his house. David said to Uriah, have you not come from a journey? Why did you not go down to your house? Uriah said to David, the ark and Israel and Judah dwell in booths.
And my Lord Joab and the servants of my Lord are camping in the open field. Shall I then go to my house to eat and to drink and to lie with my wife? As you live and as your soul lives, I will not do this thing. Then David said to Uriah, Remain here today also, and tomorrow I will let you depart. So Uriah remained in Jerusalem that day and the next.
And David invited him, and he ate in his presence and drank, so that he made him drunk. And in the evening he went out to lie on his couch with the servants of his Lord, but he did not go down to his house. David has Uriah killed. In the morning, David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it by the hand of Uriah.
Chapter 4: What are the consequences of David's actions against Uriah?
In the letter, he wrote, set Uriah in the forefront of the hardest fighting and then draw back from him that he may be struck down and die. And as Joab was besieging the city, he assigned Uriah to the place where he knew there were valiant men. And the men of the city came out and fought with Joab. And some of the servants of David among the people fell and Uriah the Hittite was slain also.
Then Joab sent and told David all the news about the fighting, and he instructed the messenger, When you have finished telling all the news about the fighting to the king, then, if the king's anger rises, and if he says to you, Why did you go so near the city to fight? Did you not know that they would shoot from the wall? Who killed Abimelech, the son of Jerubasheth?
Did not a woman cast an upper millstone upon him from the wall, so that he died at Thebes? Why did you go so near the wall? Then you shall say, Your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead also. So the messenger went and came and told David all that Joab had sent him to tell.
The messenger said to David, The men gained an advantage over us and came out against us in the field, but we drove them back to the entrance of the gate. Then the archers shot at your servants from the wall. Some of the king's servants are dead, and your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead also.
David said to the messenger, Thus shall you say to Joab, Do not let this matter trouble you, for the sword devours now one and now another. Strengthen your attack upon the city and overthrow it, and encourage him. When the wife of Uriah heard that Uriah, her husband was dead, she made lamentation for her husband.
And when the morning was over, David sent and brought her to his house and she became his wife and bore him a son.
But the thing that David had done displeased the Lord. The first book of Chronicles chapter 14, David established in Jerusalem.
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Chapter 5: How is David established in Jerusalem according to 1 Chronicles?
In Hiram, king of Tyre sent messengers to David and cedar trees, also masons and carpenters to build a house for him. And David perceived that the Lord had established him king over Israel and that his kingdom was highly exalted for the sake of his people Israel. And David took more wives in Jerusalem, and David begot more sons and daughters.
These are the names of the children whom he had in Jerusalem. Shemua, Shobab, Nathan, Solomon, Ibhar, Elishua, Elpelet, Nogah, Nepheg, Japhia, When the Philistines heard that David had been anointed king over all Israel, all the Philistines went up in search of David. And David heard of it and went out against them. Now the Philistines had come and made a raid in the valley of Rephaim.
And David inquired of God, Shall I go up against the Philistines? Will you give them into my hand? And the Lord said to him, Go up, and I will give them into your hand. And he went up to Baal-perazim, and David defeated them there. And David said, God has broken through my enemies by my hand like a bursting flood. Therefore the name of that place is called Baal-perazim.
And they left their gods there, and David gave command, and they were burned. And the Philistines yet again made a raid in the valley. And when David again inquired of God, God said to him, You shall not go up after them. Go around and come upon them opposite the balsam trees.
And when you hear the sound of marching in the tops of the balsam trees, then go out to battle, for God has gone out before you to strike the army of the Philistines. And David did as God commanded him. And they struck the Philistine army from Gibeon to Gezer. And the fame of David went out into all lands, and the Lord brought the fear of him upon all nations.
Chapter 15, The Ark Brought to Jerusalem David built houses for himself in the city of David, and he prepared a place for the ark of God and pitched a tent for it. Then David said, No one but the Levites may carry the ark of God, for the Lord chose them to carry the ark of the Lord and to minister to him forever.
And David assembled all Israel at Jerusalem to bring up the ark of the Lord to its place which he had prepared for it.
And David gathered together the sons of Aaron and the Levites, the sons of Kohath, Uriel the chief, with a hundred and twenty of his brethren, and the sons of Merari, Asaiah the chief, with two hundred and twenty of his brethren, of the sons of Gershom, Joel the chief, with a hundred and thirty of his brethren, Of the sons of Elizabethan, Shemaiah the chief, with 200 of his brethren.
Of the sons of Hebron, Eliel the chief, with 80 of his brethren. Of the sons of Uziel, Amenadab the chief, with 112 of his brethren. Then David summoned the priests Zadok and Abiathar, and the Levites Uriel, Asaiah, Joel, Shemaiah, Eliel, and Amminadab, and he said to them, You are the heads of the fathers' houses of the Levites.
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Chapter 6: What events lead to the Ark being brought to Jerusalem?
So the Levites appointed Heman, the son of Joel, and of his brethren Asaph, the son of Berechiah, and of the sons of Merari, their brethren, Ethan, the son of Cushiah, and with them their brethren of the second order, Zechariah, Jaaziel, Shemiramoth, Jehiel, Uni, Eliab, Benaiah, Maasaiah, Metathiah, Eliphelahu, and Micniah, and the gatekeepers Obed-Edom and Jeiel.
The singers, Himam, Asaph, and Ethan, were to sound bronze cymbals. Zechariah, Aziel, Shemiramoth, Jehiel, Uni, Eliab, Maasaiah, and Benaiah were to play harps according to Alamoth. But Metathiah, Eliphilehu, Mekniah, Obed-Edom, Jeiel, and Azaziah were to lead with lyres according to the Sheminith. Chenaniah, leader of the Levites in music, should direct the music, for he understood it.
Berechiah and Elkanah were to be gatekeepers for the ark. Shebaniah, Josaphat, Nethanel, Amasai, Zechariah, Benaiah, and Eleazar, the priests, should blow the trumpets before the ark of God. Obed-Edom and Jehiah were to be gatekeepers for the ark.
So David and the elders of Israel and the commanders of thousands went to bring up the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord from the house of Obed-Edom with rejoicing. And because God helped the Levites who were carrying the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord, they sacrificed seven bulls and seven rams.
David was clothed with a robe of fine linen, as also were all the Levites who were carrying the ark, and the singers, and Chenaniah, the leader of the music of the singers. And David wore a linen ephod. So all Israel brought up the ark of the covenant of the Lord, with shouting to the sound of horn, trumpets, and cymbals, and made loud music on harps and lyres.
And as the ark of the covenant of the Lord came to the city of David, Michal, the daughter of Saul, looked out of the window and saw King David dancing and making merry, and she despised him in her heart.
Psalm 32, the joy of forgiveness, a Psalm of David, a Maskell.
Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputes no iniquity and in whose spirit there is no deceit. When I declared not my sin, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me. My strength was dried up as by the heat of summer.
I acknowledged my sin to you and did not hide my iniquity. I said, I will confess my transgressions to the Lord. Then you forgave the guilt of my sin. Therefore, let everyone who is godly offer prayer to you at a time of distress in the rush of great waters. They shall not reach him. You are a hiding place for me. You preserve me from trouble. You surround me with deliverance.
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