Sixth Day of Christmas: Bathsheba, the Ancestor of Jesus

The last woman to receive a special mention in Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus is Bathsheba, though she is not mentioned by name. Bathsheba was the wife of Uriah the Hittite, an immigrant living in Israel in the time of King David. She conceived a child through the adulterous attentions of the king, who then arranged the death of her husband so he could marry her.

For the purposes of Matthew’s genealogy, Bathsheba’s adultery is the pertinent detail. Like Tamar and Rahab and Ruth, she had sexual impropriety in her past that every reader of Matthew’s book would remember. Matthew includes her to again draw attention to the way God has used women in his plans for Israel, even if they had scandalous histories.

But Bathsheba is different than Tamar and Rahab and Ruth, too. Matthew never mentions her by name. He calls her “the wife of Uriah.” This is, of course, to remind everyone of the sordid details of her marriage to David, but he could have just as easily said “Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah.” He doesn’t. Her name is never mentioned.

Bathsheba appears in three stories in the Bible. The first is the story of David’s adultery and murder, and the subsequent death of the child born to Bathsheba. The second story appears decades later, when David and Bathsheba’s son Solomon is in danger of being cut off from the throne by his older half-brother. The third is after Solomon’s succession to the throne, when Bathsheba makes a dangerous request on behalf of the older half-brother.

In these stories, Bathsheba’s personality never emerges. In the affair with David, she is merely an object acted upon by the king, so much so that some interpreters read their affair as a coerced act. In the two later stories, she merely repeats the words that other men put into her mouth.

Some interpreters want to read the last story as a kind of coming of age for Bathsheba. In it, Adonijah, who wants to be king, persuades Bathsheba to ask King Solomon for permission to marry the former king’s concubine. In a society where a current king inherited the old king’s harem, this is a declaration of political aspirations. When Bathsheba asks Solomon for this, Solomon resolves to kill Adonijah. Some interpreters argue that Bathsheba knew this would be the result, and was goading her son into protecting himself. If so, it would be her first and only act of self-assertion in the text.

I don’t buy that argument. Bathsheba consistently only does as she is told. The only insight into her thoughts and feelings we are given is that she mourned the death of her first husband, and that she needed comfort after the death of her first child. Other than her feelings for husband and child, Bathsheba is a blank.

Even Matthew never mentions her name.

I want to find a way to include Bathsheba in this great drama of women who acted courageously in hope and faith, and were used in God’s redemptive plans. Obviously Bathsheba was used in God’s plan: her son was the most prosperous king in Israel’s history, and she is an ancestor of Jesus. But nothing in the stories about her suggests courage or hope. She was the pawn of other men.

In terms of the text, Bathsheba never comes into her own. She never steps out of the shadow of the prominent characters around her. Scripture often uses minor characters to add complexity and depth to a story, and the motives of even minor characters is revealed in their speech, but Bathsheba remains undeveloped.

I do not want to be Bathsheba, undeveloped and unknown, her name not even mentioned where it might be most relevant. God wants something more of us than to quietly do what we are told. God wants our courage and our hope and our faith. The inventiveness of Tamar and the savvy of Rahab and the perseverance of Ruth - these are qualities subtly praised by the biblical writers in their narration. Nothing Bathsheba ever does warrants this kind of tribute.

God can use anyone. Our flaws cannot thwart God’s purposes. God used Bathsheba. But I always come away with the feeling that God used her in spite of herself, and possibly without her knowledge. Jesus’ preaching in the Gospel of Matthew uses metaphors about risk and faith and hope and courage that could easily be applied to the other women of his family tree. The pearl of great price or the servants with the ten talents fit the actions of Tamar or Rahab or Ruth. But not Bathsheba.

Bathsheba did what she was told. That is all.