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sees a beautiful woman bathing nearby. The interested David is told that she is Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah the Hittite. As Mel Brooks once put it, “It’s good to be the king.” David has her brought over, they sleep together, and she gets pregnant. Uriah is called back to sleep with Bathsheba in an attempted cover-up, but Uriah refuses: soldiers are supposed to abstain from sex before battle to keep themselves “pure.” Next, David orders Uriah into the front lines and has the rest of the army withdrawn, leaving Uriah vulnerable, and he is killed. After a suitable mourning period, Bathsheba marries David and bears him a son. But through the prophet Nathan, God lets David know he’s done wrong and promises that there will be trouble in David’s own house. As part of the punishment, David and Bathsheba’s first son is struck by God and dies. “The sins of the father…”

David and Bathsheba have another child, who is named Solomon, but their dysfunctional family troubles have just begun.

PLOT SUMMARY: THE RAPE OF TAMAR

David has a son named Absalom and a daughter named Tamar by one marriage. He has another son, his firstborn and heir, Amnon, by still another wife. Amnon wants to sleep with his half sister, Tamar, but she refuses. Amnon doesn’t take no for an answer and rapes her. Waiting two years before striking back at his half brother, Absalom avenges the rape of his sister Tamar by getting Amnon drunk and killing him. Not only is it an act of revenge, but Absalom has moved himself to the front of the line to succeed David by removing the first heir, Amnon.

But Absalom is impatient. Unwilling to wait for David to die, Absalom stages a nearly successful coup. With a small army, he forces his father to flee Jerusalem, leaving behind “ten concubines.” Absalom sets up a tent on the roof of David’s house and sleeps with each of his father’s ten concubines in a symbolic demonstration that he has taken the throne and all that goes with it. With the aid of a group of mercenaries, David finally puts down the rebellion of his son and Absalom is captured. In a scene that must have been told for great comic effect, Absalom is captured when his head, or his hair—depending on the translation—gets caught in a tree and the mule he is riding keeps going. Some commentaries suggest that the “tree” in which Absalom’s head is caught is a euphemism for pubic hair and Absalom is actually caught in flagrante. Against David’s orders, his renegade son Absalom is killed.

A second coup by a “scoundrel named Sheba” is also ruthlessly put down. But the family intrigues of David are not over. David’s reign was a passion play of fraternal conspiracies that equal anything that took place in the courts of Caligula or Nero of Roman infamy.

UNEASY LIES THE HEAD…PART 2

1 & 2 KINGS, 1 & 2 CHRONICLES, LAMENTATIONS

Let a young virgin be sought for my lord the king, and let her wait on the king, and be his attendant; let her lie in your bosom, so that my lord the king may be warm. (1 Kings 1:1-4)

Divide the living boy in two; then give half to the one and half to the other. (1 Kings 3:25 KJV)

Nebuzaradan the captain of the bodyguard, a servant of the king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem. He burned the house of the Lord, the king’s house, and all the houses of Jerusalem; every great house he burned down…. Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard carried into exile the rest of the people who were left in the city and the deserters who had defected to the king of Babylon—all the rest of the population. (2 Kings 25:8-12)

* Was Solomon really so smart?

* What did Solomon’s Temple look like?

* Where is Sheba?

* Was Jezebel really so bad?

* Who was Baal-zebub?

* Is mocking a bald man any reason to kill children?

* Who wrote the “Book of the Law”?

* Why are the stories in Chronicles different from those in other Bible books?

* Was the Exile all that bad?

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If the stories of David in the preceding chapter didn’t disillusion you, buckle your seat belt. Solomon, generally presented as a paragon of wisdom and virtue, was not much better than his illustrious