No Small Parts - Uriah

July 5, 2020 Sunday Evening Study

Our neighbors - most of you know the Murphys - recently bought a trailer. It is a travel trailer, looks like it is 30+ feet, couple of slide-outs - really nice. Now we love to camp, and we have a trailer - a 30 year old pop-up trailer that so far we have used to mostly disastrous results. I like the Murphy’s trailer. I want a trailer like that - one that I know doesn’t leak, doesn’t take an hour to set up, has lots of room and other amenities. That trailer would be perfect for our family.

So, it seems that the only thing for me to do at this point is drive my truck over to their garage, hitch it up, and take it. I mean, I want it, and I’m the Preacher, so I am clearly very important. Plus, the Murphys have been very welcoming to us - bringing us deserts, helping maintain our lawn, giving us propane - seems only natural that they should be ok with me taking their trailer to do what I want with it.

Yes, this story is ridiculous. But I think most of you can probably see the point I am making. Here I am, a man with a trailer that I chose for our family, and I see what I perceive to be a better trailer for us next door, so I feel I deserve the right to just take it. This is a clear retelling of the story of David and Bathsheba. I chose the Murphys for a reason - most of you them and know the wonderful people they are, and you can imagine the injustice and disappointment they would feel if someone drove off with their trailer. You can empathize with them, because they are real people in your lives.

This is the aim of the series we have been going through - No Small Parts. The idea is to take some of the glossed-over characters in the Bible and make them real, feeling people in our lives. And rather than discussing the Murphys tonight, we are going to look at their counterpart in the story of David - Uriah, first husband of Bathsheba.

You all know the story - David sees a married woman of great beauty bathing on her roof, and he is overcome with lust. He has her brought to him, he lays with her, and gets her pregnant. Now he has a problem, because she is married, and he hopes to hide the infidelity through nefarious means.

First he brings Uriah home from battle to try and get him to sleep with his wife so that there is no suspicion when she shows her pregnancy. When that plan fails, he just has Uriah killed, which opens the door for David to take Bathsheba as his own wife and allow the world to believe that their son was legitimate.

This is a pretty ugly story, all things considered. It is also just as ridiculous as the parallel I made - if I stole the Murphy’s trailer I wouldn’t be able to park it in front of my house - it would be too obvious what I had done. David not only committed the sin he did with Bathsheba, but now he is faced with a whole slew of deceptions necessary to hide his actions and prevent uproar. There is a very poignant lesson about envy that David learns through the prophet Nathan - and in most tellings and preachings about this story, that is where it ends.

What about Uriah? What do we know about him? He is referred to as Uriah the Hittite. Based on the Biblical account, Uriah was probably of the ethnic Hittite minority resident in Israel that had lived in and around the region, "the Land of Canaan", since before the time of Abraham. The Hebrews, upon their entry into Canaan, had been commanded (Deuteronomy 20:16–17) to kill "anything that breathes ... in the cities of the nations the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance," with the explanation that "otherwise, they will teach you to follow all the detestable things they do in worshiping their gods, and you will sin against the Lord your God" (Deuteronomy 20:18). Even so, some of the earlier inhabitants were spared, in some cases for cooperating with the Hebrews (Joshua 2:12–14, 6:23, Judges 1:24–25) in other cases from failure to carry out the extermination order (Joshua 15:63, 16:10, Judges 1:19, 21, 27–36). It is most likely that Uriah’s family was one of those who had converted and cooperated, based on his service to the house of David.

We know that while being called a Hittite, he was not actually a part of the Hittite nation, as that would have made it impossible in that time as a Gentile to marry Bathsheba. The Jewish Talmud teaches that he was either a Hittite who converted to Judaism, or he was a Hebrew who had lived among the Hittite nation - it is not determined which. We know from the law that for Uriah to have been in good standing in David’s army, he would have had to be recognized as a Jew, either by conversion or by birth.

Uriah was more than just a soldier in the army of David. He was considered one of David’s “Mighty Men.” David's mighty men were a group of his best thirty-seven fighters (later expanded to around eighty). Although the lists of his mighty men (2 Samuel 23:8–39 & 1 Chronicles 11:10–47) are given after David has become king, many of them may have been the loyal followers who stayed with him when he was fleeing King Saul. It is very likely that Uriah had a long history with David, and was not just a faceless soldier in a vast army.

At the very least, they fought side by side with him. Uriah's closeness to David is illustrated by how closely he lived to the palace, as often those most trusted by the King would be given leave to build their homes nearest the palace - not only as a show of favor for them, but as protection for the King himself. Consider the nearness of Uriah’s home given that David was able to watch Bathsheba bathe on the roof - it would have to be close indeed. 

Uriah’s position as one of the mighty men at the front battle lines allowed David to formulate and carry out his plot. The Mighty Men of David were well known - by friend and enemy alike - as being the fiercest warriors. They were known by name, and feared greatly, as they were the leaders of the battles and conquests that were unifying the Kingdom. Uriah would always be where the fighting was the fiercest - David’s plan to orchestrate his death in battle was a simple matter.

We learn in this story a significant bit about Uriah’s character as well. We know that he is brave, loyal, and trusted due to his proximity to David. Yet, we learn even more of that from his actions. Before David tries to have him killed he tries to use trickery to get out of the situation. When Bathsheba informed David of her pregnancy, David had summoned Uriah from battle to meet him, suggesting that he go home and "wash his feet," meaning to spend time at home and attend to his wife. Uriah refused, claiming a code of honor with his fellow warriors while they were in battle. It was common for warriors in preparation for battle to abstain from sex, as a practice of discipline. David even feasted him and got him drunk to try and get him to lay with Bathsheeba, and instead Uriah slept in the doorway, refusing to break his code as a soldier. 

After Uriah repeatedly refused to see his wife Bathsheba, David sent him to his commanding officer Joab with a letter that ordered Joab to put Uriah on the front lines of the battle and have the other soldiers move away from him so that he would be killed by enemy soldiers. We don’t know if Uriah could read, but based on his character it is reasonable to believe that even if he could, he did not violate the trust David placed in him and delivered David’s letter unopened. 

Obviously, we know that nobody is perfect. Everyone has sin, and everyone has baggage. We don’t know of Uriah’s struggle with sin, because the Bible doesn’t tell us about that. What we see is a mighty warrior, loyal to his king, brave enough to fight on the front lines, desirable enough to marry a woman of renowned beauty, honorable in spite of his own discomfort, and obedient to the end. Yet he is a part of what is ultimately used as an object lesson about David and his sin. This object lesson was so important because it informed us about the House of David, then Solomon - directly in the genealogy to Jesus. This makes Uriah a vitally important character in the narrative.

There are themes in this story that connect to the Messiah to come - Jesus is the King that rules forever on the throne of David - this is a key part of messianic prophecy and expectation in the New Testament. This is the reason Jesus was called the King of the Jews - the direct line of David.

Also, David himself is a kind of messiah as he is specifically anointed by God to bring unity and to solidify the worship of the Lord in Israel. Further, he is largely considered the greatest king of Israel, and sets the standards for the expectations of a future king that could only be surpassed by Christ - a king that remained completely blameless.

I look at Uriah as part of that parallel as well, if not directly. Here is a man that is, by all accounts, blameless - at least in this situation, and yet he is sacrificed as part of the fallen world establishing the greatness of the throne of Christ. That is a legacy worth remembering.