1At the return of the year, at the time when kings go out, David sent Joab and his servants with him, and all Israel; and they destroyed the children of Ammon and besieged Rabbah. But David stayed at Jerusalem. 2At evening, David arose from his bed and walked on the roof of the king’s house. From the roof, he saw a woman bathing, and the woman was very beautiful to look at. 3David sent and inquired after the woman. One said, “Isn’t this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, Uriah the Hittite’s wife?”
4David sent messengers, and took her; and she came in to him, and he lay with her (for she was purified from her uncleanness); and she returned to her house. 5The woman conceived; and she sent and told David, and said, “I am with child.”
6David sent to Joab, “Send me Uriah the Hittite.” Joab sent Uriah to David. 7When Uriah had come to him, David asked him how Joab did, and how the people fared, and how the war prospered. 8David said to Uriah, “Go down to your house and wash your feet.” Uriah departed out of the king’s house, and a gift from the king was sent after him. 9But Uriah slept at the door of the king’s house with all the servants of his lord, and didn’t go down to his house. 10When they had told David, saying, “Uriah didn’t go down to his house,” David said to Uriah, “Haven’t you come from a journey? Why didn’t you go down to your house?”
11Uriah said to David, “The ark, Israel, and Judah, are staying in tents; and my lord Joab and the servants of my lord are encamped in the open field. Shall I then go into my house to eat and to drink, and to lie with my wife? As you live, and as your soul lives, I will not do this thing!”
12David said to Uriah, “Stay here today also, and tomorrow I will let you depart.” So Uriah stayed in Jerusalem that day and the next day. 13When David had called him, he ate and drank before him; and he made him drunk. At evening, he went out to lie on his bed with the servants of his lord, but didn’t go down to his house. 14In the morning, David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it by the hand of Uriah. 15He wrote in the letter, saying, “Send Uriah to the forefront of the hottest battle, and retreat from him, that he may be struck and die.”
16When Joab kept watch on the city, he assigned Uriah to the place where he knew that valiant men were. 17The men of the city went out and fought with Joab. Some of the people fell, even of David’s servants; and Uriah the Hittite died also. 18Then Joab sent and told David all the things concerning the war; 19and he commanded the messenger, saying, “When you have finished telling all the things concerning the war to the king, 20it shall be that, if the king’s wrath arise, and he asks you, ‘Why did you go so near to the city to fight? Didn’t you know that they would shoot from the wall? 21Who struck Abimelech the son of Jerubbesheth? Didn’t a woman cast an upper millstone on him from the wall, so that he died at Thebez? Why did you go so near the wall?’ then you shall say, ‘Your servant Uriah the Hittite is also dead.’”
22So the messenger went, and came and showed David all that Joab had sent him for. 23The messenger said to David, “The men prevailed against us, and came out to us into the field; and we were on them even to the entrance of the gate. 24The shooters shot at your servants from off the wall; and some of the king’s servants are dead, and your servant Uriah the Hittite is also dead.”
25Then David said to the messenger, “Tell Joab, ‘Don’t let this thing displease you, for the sword devours one as well as another. Make your battle stronger against the city, and overthrow it.’ Encourage him.”
26When Uriah’s wife heard that Uriah her husband was dead, she mourned for her husband. 27When the mourning was past, David sent and took her home to his house, and she became his wife and bore him a son. But the thing that David had done displeased Yahweh.
The genealogy of Matthew departs from the standard recording of the history of a Jewish family line, in that it contains women within the genealogy. Additionally significant is that each of the women has a problematic past, and a couple of the women, even a sordid past. Let us look at each woman in the order in which she appears in the Bible.
Tamar had a number of marriages to the sons of Judah, who each died, and she married another son, based on the levirate law, in which surviving sons must marry a widowed daughter-in-law. When Judah was willing to violate this law, and he denied her right to marry another son, Tamar acted as a prostitute to trick him into bearing two sons to her (Gen 38:27-30), one whose name was Perez, an ancestor of Jesus.
The next woman mentioned is more familiar to the average reader of the Bible. Rahab was the prostitute who hid the two spies when they were inside the city of Jericho (Josh 2:1-21; 6:22-25). Due to her faith (Heb 11:30-31), she was preserved when Jericho was destroyed. What is most significant in the story of Rahab is that she was the mother of Boaz, the person who later married Ruth.
Ruth was not an Israelite, but was rather a woman of Moab, with no claim to an inheritance in Israel, even though she married one of the sons of Elimelech (God is my king) and Naomi (pleasant), and accompanied Naomi back to Bethlehem. Boaz fulfilled his duty as a kinsman redeemer, taking Ruth as his wife. From them comes Obed, who begat Jesse, the father of David the king (Ruth 4:17-22).
Bathsheba is not mentioned by name in the genealogy, but identified as the wife of Uriah the Hittite, who was a faithful soldier in the army of David the King (2 Sam 11:1-27), who died in battle at David's design (2 Sam 11:14-18). One cannot be sure why Matthew chose not to mention her by name, but it may be that this emphasizes that David the king had unlawful sex with another man's wife, and so had not married her before she became pregnant with a son who died as a baby (2 Sam 12: 13-19), even though afterwards she bore king Solomon (2 Sam 12:24-25).
The last woman to be mentioned is Mary (Matt 1:18-25), the virgin who was especially blessed to become the mother of Jesus, God in the flesh. The author is careful to indicate that Joseph was the husband of Mary, but he was not the Father of Jesus, whose physical beginning came through the Holy Spirit.
All of these women were special in the plan of God, and though each were outcasts by human standards they were women of faith according to the Bible, important to the coming of the King Messiah Jesus.