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David Commits Adultery with Bathsheba

11 In the spring of the year, at the time when kings[a] normally conduct wars,[b] David sent out Joab with his officers[c] and the entire Israelite army.[d] They defeated the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David stayed behind in Jerusalem.[e] One evening David got up from his bed and walked around on the roof of his palace.[f] From the roof he saw a woman bathing. Now this woman was very attractive.[g] So David sent someone to inquire about the woman. The messenger[h] said, “Isn’t this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?”

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Footnotes

  1. 2 Samuel 11:1 tc Codex Leningrad (B19A), on which BHS is based, has here “messengers” (הַמַּלְאָכִים, hammalʾakhim), probably as the result of contamination from the occurrence of that word in v. 4. The present translation follows most Hebrew mss and the ancient versions, which read “kings” (הַמֶּלָאכִים, hammelakhim).
  2. 2 Samuel 11:1 tn Heb “go out.”
  3. 2 Samuel 11:1 tn Heb “and his servants with him.”
  4. 2 Samuel 11:1 tn Heb “all Israel.”
  5. 2 Samuel 11:1 tn The disjunctive clause contrasts David’s inactivity with the army’s activity.
  6. 2 Samuel 11:2 tn Heb “on the roof of the house of the king.” So also in vv. 8, 9.
  7. 2 Samuel 11:2 tn The disjunctive clause highlights this observation and builds the tension of the story.
  8. 2 Samuel 11:3 tn Heb “he”; the referent (the messenger) has been specified in the translation for clarity.