Devotions
Rev Gav
Fallible
2 Samuel 11.1–17
In the spring of the year, when kings normally go out to war, David sent Joab and the Israelite army to fight the Ammonites. They destroyed the Ammonite army and laid siege to the city of Rabbah. However, David stayed behind in Jerusalem.
Late one afternoon, after his midday rest, David got out of bed and was walking on the roof of the palace. As he looked out over the city, he noticed a woman of unusual beauty taking a bath. He sent someone to find out who she was, and he was told, “She is Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah the Hittite.” Then David sent messengers to get her; and when she came to the palace, he slept with her. She had just completed the purification rites after having her menstrual period. Then she returned home. Later, when Bathsheba discovered that she was pregnant, she sent David a message, saying, “I’m pregnant.”
Then David sent word to Joab: “Send me Uriah the Hittite.” So Joab sent him to David. When Uriah arrived, David asked him how Joab and the army were getting along and how the war was progressing. Then he told Uriah, “Go on home and relax.” David even sent a gift to Uriah after he had left the palace. But Uriah didn’t go home. He slept that night at the palace entrance with the king’s palace guard.
When David heard that Uriah had not gone home, he summoned him and asked, “What’s the matter? Why didn’t you go home last night after being away for so long?”
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.”
“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. 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.
So the next morning David wrote a letter to Joab and gave it to Uriah to deliver. The letter instructed Joab, “Station Uriah on the front lines where the battle is fiercest. Then pull back so that he will be killed.” So Joab assigned Uriah to a spot close to the city wall where he knew the enemy’s strongest men were fighting. And when the enemy soldiers came out of the city to fight, Uriah the Hittite was killed along with several other Israelite soldiers.
Reflect
What??? King David — the one with whom God had made a covenant — fell as low as a human can fall. While Uriah was away serving faithfully the king in battle, David committed adultery with Uriah’s wife, Bathsheba. She became pregnant and David, after failing to trick Uriah into sleeping with her to cover it up, plotted to and succeeded in murdering him!
Lies upon lies. David committed a grave sin and should have come clean. Things only got worse the more he tried to cover things up. Later on he repented and even wrote Psalm 51 as a response, but right now we’re in the story of his sinfulness.
The story serves as a stark reminder of how we hold our leaders (including our pastors) to a higher moral standard; however, is this fair? They are no different to you or I, and it is us that have put them on a pedestal. I’m not, for one moment, exonerating his behaviour. What he did was heinous in the extreme. Just pointing out that when we place people on pedestals they will let us down because they are fallible humans.
All of us are fallible. All of us are bruised. Some of us are broken. When we here of leaders falling we, of course, must hold them accountable for their actions but, perhaps, with an attitude, “there but for the grace of God go I.”
Pray
Holy God
When those I look up to fail and fall,
help me to act with grace and mercy.
May I support and help
those who have been betrayed,
and find it in my heart
to offer forgiveness
and opprtunities for redemption.
Through Jesus Christ my Saviour.
and then