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then, when all else had failed, the dispatch of the murderous missive by Uriah's own
hands, followed by the contest, with its foreseen if not intended consequences, in
which Uriah, one of David's heroes and captains, who never turned his back to the
foe (2 Samuel 23:39), fell a victim to treachery and lust.
It was all past. "The wife of Uriah" - as the text significantly calls Bathsheba, as if
the murdered man were still alive, since his blood cried for vengeance to the Lord -
had completed her seven days' hypocritical "mourning," and David had taken her to
his house. And no worse had come of it. Her husband had simply fallen in battle;
while the wife's shame and the king's sin were concealed in the harem. Everything
else was prosperous. As the siege of Rabbah can scarcely have lasted a whole year,
we assume that also to have been past. The undertaking had not been without serious
difficulty. It had been comparatively easy to penetrate through the narrow gorge,
and, following the "fish-stocked stream, with shells studding every stone and
pebble," which made "Rabbah most truly 'a city of waters,'" to reach "the turfed
plain," "completely shut in by low hills on every side," in which "the royal city"
stood. This Joab took. But there still remained "the city itself," or rather the citadel,
perched in front of Rabbah on "a round, steep, flat-topped mamelon," past which the
stream flowed rapidly "through a valley contracted at once to a width of five
hundred paces." As if to complete its natural defenses, on its other side were valleys,
gullies, and ravines, which almost isolated the citadel.^300
But these forts could not hold out after the lower city was taken. Only it was a feat of
arms in those days - and Joab, unwilling to take from the king the credit of its
capture, sent for David, who in due time reduced it. The spoil was immense -among
it the royal crown of Ammon, weighing no less than a talent of gold,^301 and
encrusted with precious stones, which David took to himself.
The punishment meted out to those who had resisted was of the most cruel, we had
almost said, un-Israelitish character, not justified even by the terrible war which the
Ammonites had raised, nor by the cruelties which they seem to have practiced
against helpless Israelitish mothers (Amos 1:13), and savoring more of the ferocity
of Joab than of the bearing of David - at least before his conscience had been
hardened by his terrible sin. And so David returned triumphant to his royal city!
A year had passed since David's terrible fall. The child of his sin had been born. And
all this time God was silent! Yet like a dark cloud on a summer's day hung this
Divine sentence over him: "But the thing that David had done was evil in the eyes of
Jehovah" (2 Samuel 11:27). Soon it would burst in a storm of judgment. A most
solemn lesson this to us concerning God's record of our deeds, and His silence all the
while. Yet, blessed be God, if judgment come on earth - if we be judged here, that
we may "not be condemned with the world!" (1 Corinthians 11:32). And all this time
(^)