2 Samuel 11:14

David Arranges Uriah’s Death

14 The next morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it with Uriah.

2 Samuel 11:14 Meaning and Commentary

2 Samuel 11:14

And it came to pass in the morning
When David was informed that Uriah did not go to his own house, but slept with his servants, Satan put it into his head and heart to take the following wicked and cruel method:

that David wrote a letter to Joab, and sent [it] by the hand of Uriah;
to have him cut off by the sword of the enemy. If Uriah suspected David's criminal conversation with his wife, he was so true and trusted a servant to him, that he would not open his letter to Joab, which had he, it would have betrayed the base design. No one that knows the story of Bellerophon can read this without thinking of that, they are so much alike; and indeed that seems to be founded upon this, and taken from it with a little alteration. Bellerophon rejecting the solicitations of Sthenobaea, who was in love with him, she prevailed upon her husband Praetus to send letters by him to Jobates (a name similar to Joab), the general of his army, which contained instructions to take care that he was killed; who sent him upon an expedition for that purpose ^F13.

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FOOTNOTES:

F13 Apollodorus de Deorum Orig. l. 2. p. 70.

2 Samuel 11:14 In-Context

12 “Stay here one more day,” David said to Uriah, “and tomorrow I will send you back.” So Uriah stayed in Jerusalem that day and the next.

13 Then David invited Uriah to eat and drink with him, and he got Uriah drunk. And in the evening Uriah went out to lie down on his cot with his master’s servants, but he did not go home.

14 The next morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it with Uriah.

15 In the letter he wrote: “Put Uriah at the front of the fiercest battle; then withdraw from him, so that he may be struck down and killed.”

16 So as Joab besieged the city, he assigned Uriah to a place where he knew the strongest enemy soldiers were.