Pacesetters Bible School: Bible Questions

Question 13: Bathsheba Whatever happened to Bethsheba? A: I assume you mean what happened to her after the adultery with David, but let me just outline the history of this lady.

David saw her bathing from the roof of his palace (2 Samuel 11:2ff). He eventually sends for her, has sex with her, and she becomes pregnant. (You can read the whole story in 2 Samuel 11:1-12:25.) David needs to do a good political coverup, and so he calls Uriah back from the war and hopes he will sleep with his wife, thus explaining the pregnancy, but Uriah refuses to take pleasures that are denied to the troops in the field. Eventually David arranges to get Uriah killed in battle (though note that David's instructions are not precisely carried out).

Nathan the prophet condemns David's action, and David repents (2 Samuel 12:1-15). The superscription to Psalm 51 tells us that this Psalm of repentance was David's prayer following this rebuke from Nathan. Despite David's repentance, Bathsheba has a son, but the son becomes sick and dies. Bathsheba becomes pregnant again, and has another son, who is named Solomon (2 Samuel 12:24-25). He will eventually become king of Israel. For a time, we hear nothing about Bathsheba in the Biblical record.

She again shows up 1 Kings 1, in which she helps arrange for the succession of her son Solomon to the throne of Israel. Following the successful coronation of Solomon, his brother Adonijah, who had tried to take the throne, asks for one of David's concubines as his wife. He sends his request through Bathsheba. The Bible doesn't tell us whether Bathsheba wanted this request to be granted in this case, or whether she was helping to lay a trap for a rival to her own son, but Solomon's reaction is angry, and he has Adonijah executed.

That is the last we hear of Bathsheba.

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