2 Samuel 11:11-21

11 Uriah replied, “The Ark and the armies of Israel and Judah are living in tents, and Joab and my master’s men are camping in the open fields. How could I go home to wine and dine and sleep with my wife? I swear that I would never do such a thing.”

12 “Well, stay here today,” David told him, “and tomorrow you may return to the army.” So Uriah stayed in Jerusalem that day and the next.

13 Then David invited him to dinner and got him drunk. But even then he couldn’t get Uriah to go home to his wife. Again he slept at the palace entrance with the king’s palace guard.

14 So the next morning David wrote a letter to Joab and gave it to Uriah to deliver.

15 The letter instructed Joab, “Station Uriah on the front lines where the battle is fiercest. Then pull back so that he will be killed.”

16 So Joab assigned Uriah to a spot close to the city wall where he knew the enemy’s strongest men were fighting.

17 And when the enemy soldiers came out of the city to fight, Uriah the Hittite was killed along with several other Israelite soldiers.

18 Then Joab sent a battle report to David.

19 He told his messenger, “Report all the news of the battle to the king.

20 But he might get angry and ask, ‘Why did the troops go so close to the city? Didn’t they know there would be shooting from the walls?

21 Wasn’t Abimelech son of Gideon killed at Thebez by a woman who threw a millstone down on him from the wall? Why would you get so close to the wall?’ Then tell him, ‘Uriah the Hittite was killed, too.’”

2 Samuel 11:11-21 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO SECOND SAMUEL 11

This chapter begins with the destruction of the Ammonites, and the siege of Rabbah their chief city, 2Sa 11:1; and enlarges on the sins of David in committing adultery with Bathsheba, 2Sa 11:2-5; in contriving to conceal his sin by sending for her husband home from the army, 2Sa 11:6-13; in laying a scheme for the death of him by the hand of the Ammonites, 2Sa 11:14-25; and in marrying Bathsheba when he was dead, 2Sa 11:26,27.

Footnotes

• [a]. Or at Succoth.
• [b]. Hebrew son of Jerub-besheth. Jerub-besheth is a variation on the name Jerub-baal, which is another name for Gideon; see Judg 6:32 .