"In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war, David sent Joab out with the king's men and the whole Israelite army. They destroyed the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David remained in Jerusalem." (2 Samuel 11:1) I believe I've said before that whenever the Bible uses the word "but" in regard to something a person does, it's often in a negative connotation. In this instance it seems clear that the author believes David should have been with his troops but he wasn't. When the word "but" is used in regard to something God does, it's usually used in a positive connotation. For example, things can be going very badly for one of the Bible characters or for Israel as whole but God takes action on their behalf and turns the situation around.
In David's case, the fact that he is at home and not out with the army leads him to make a series of bad decisions. These bad decisions begin with him seeing a sight he didn't expect to see and reacting in the wrong way to this unexpected sight. "One evening David got up from his bed and walked around on the roof of the palace. From the roof he saw a woman bathing." (2 Samuel 11:2a) In this fallen world we can't always help seeing something that isn't good for us to see. What we can help is how we react to what we see. When from his high vantage point on the palace roof David spots an unclothed woman, he has the option of turning away from this sight. But he doesn't.
The woman is very beautiful and very shapely. David keeps standing there looking at her and thinking lustful thoughts about her. This prolonged looking and thinking leads to him taking the next step. "The woman was very beautiful, and David sent someone to find out about her." (2 Samuel 11:2b-3a) David doesn't know who she is. He doesn't know whether she's married or single. He already has a number of wives and concubines in disobedience to the Lord's command for kings not to take many wives, but at this point he may be thinking that if she isn't already married he can offer to make her part of the royal harem and then he can lawfully sleep with her.
David didn't turn his eyes away from her and that led him to asking about her. But now he has another opportunity to let the matter go. The person he sent to find out about her returns with the news that she is a married woman. "The man said, 'She is Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah the Hittite.'" (2 Samuel 11:3b) We'll learn later in the book of 2 Samuel that Eliam is one of David's mighty fighting men.
Finding out that she's a married woman doesn't dissuade David from his ungodly course of action. Uriah, as we'll find out later in the book, is also one of David's fierce and loyal warriors. Even if David had no regard for the institution of matrimony at all, and even if he didn't know that the word of God forbids adultery, David should have respected Uriah enough not to consider anything improper with his wife. But David has looked at her too long. He has thought about her too long. He has visualized in his mind what he would do if he were alone with her. He sends for her. "Then David sent messengers to get her. She came to him, and he slept with her." (2 Samuel 11:4a)
Did David think he could just spend a few hours in this woman's company without making sexual advances toward her? Some scholars have suggested that, in his boredom and sleeplessness, he intended only to wine and dine and converse with this beautiful woman. I'm not discounting the possibility that he really believed he wasn't going to sleep with her. But if David thought he could spend the night in the presence of the current object of his lust without committing adultery, he was wrong. He played with fire by putting himself in a position to sin. He put Bathsheba in a position to sin too; I don't believe that he forced himself on her. I think she willingly went to bed with him but I also think that if any other man in Israel had asked her to come alone to visit him in his house, she'd have been outraged by the very idea of it. She'd have refused to go without even having to think about it. But this is the king of Israel! And David, as we've been told before, is a handsome man. He is probably in his late forties to around fifty by now, but how many male Hollywood stars around that age are still incredibly handsome? A lot! I think David is still incredibly handsome too, along with still being in impressive physical condition. In my opinion, Bathsheba would probably not have been disloyal to her husband with anyone else but the king. Both of them are to blame for what happened but in my opinion the blame is not quite equal. He is in a position of great authority and influence and I feel that gave him an unfair advantage where seduction is concerned.
The author of 2 Samuel is careful to let us know that Bathsheba could not have been in the early days of a pregnancy when she went to the palace. She had just finished having her monthly period. The bath that David happened to see her taking may have been a ritual bath, but that is an irrelevant point in the scheme of things. The main reason the author says what he says next is so we will know, without a doubt, that when she realizes she's conceived a child it cannot be anyone's child but David's. "(Now she was purifying herself from her monthly uncleanness.) Then she went back home. The woman conceived and sent word to David, saying, 'I am pregnant.'" (2 Samuel 11:4b-5)
Several weeks go by before David receives this message and he thinks he's gotten away with committing adultery. He may not have even thought any more about Bathsheba, or about their passionate night together, since she left his palace. Now he receives this message because Bathsheba thinks, since he is the king, he can fix the situation for her. And indeed he tries to fix it. Her husband has been away with the army, fighting the Ammonites, but in tomorrow's text David sends for him immediately on the pretext of wanting to find out how things are going with the war. I don't know whether this strikes Uriah as odd, since David could have sent for literally anybody in the army to ask about the fighting. He could even have just sent a messenger from Jerusalem to Rabbah to see how things are going. He didn't have to call one of his top fighting men away from the front lines. But David wants Uriah home so Uriah can sleep with Bathsheba. Then Bathsheba can pass the baby off as her husband's.
David's plans will go horribly wrong, not once but twice. Time is wasting. The pregnancy isn't advanced enough to be evident but it's quickly becoming too advanced to fool a man who can count, and we have no reason to think Uriah could be fooled into thinking a full-term child is a preemie. As a last resort, David commits a sin I believe he could never in a million years have envisioned himself committing. In fear that the truth will come out if Uriah cannot be tricked, and in fear that Uriah will demand justice for the sin that's been committed against him, David sets him up to be killed in battle. David doesn't kill Uriah with his own hands but he might as well have. He's responsible for the death of this good and honorable man.
You may have heard the expression, "It doesn't hurt to look," in regard to married people gazing lustfully on people they find attractive. But David's case proves this isn't true. Looking does hurt. Looking leads to thinking and then thinking leads to acting. Many a man and many a woman has fallen into this trap.
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