David and Bathsheba: Sexual Violence and the Abuse of Power
Sojourner Truth was an ex-slave, tall, self-possessed and capable of holding a crowd spellbound. During the mid-nineteenth century, she was a frequent speaker at both anti-slavery and pro-women’s rights events.
In 1858, Truth gave a series of speeches in Indiana. The third of these speeches proceeded smoothly and seemed to be well-received, until, as the meeting was about to adjourn, a group of pro-slavery men tried to undermine Truth by claiming that her voice was masculine. It was a common tactic used against female speakers—question their authenticity by questioning their gender; imply that they were really men in disguise. In this case, the men knew that part of what made Truth so compelling was her identity as an formerly enslaved woman who spoke out of her own experience. The charge that she was a man was meant to discredit her anti-slavery message.
Some in the pro-slavery faction demanded that Truth prove her gender by privately exposing her breasts to the women in the audience, out of sight of the men. Many people were appalled at the very suggestion and chaos broke out in the meeting. Truth silenced the crowd with a tongue lashing in which she declared that she had served as wet nurse to many a white baby when she should have been suckling her own children, and those children, despite suckling at a black breast were far better men than her accusers. And then she settled the issue by giving the proof they demanded, but on her own terms. She unbuttoned her dress and revealed her breasts to not just the women but to the whole assembly. It was a symbolic reenactment of the disrobing of a enslaved person on the auction block. She thus shamed not herself, but her accusers by proving them liars and, as James Howell points out, reminding them that the slavery they supported dehumanized children of God like herself. [Painter, 138-140 & Howell, 114] She spoke truth to power and revealed the sinful reality of the situation.
Much like Sojourner Truth, Bathsheba spoke truth to power in a way that left no doubt about the sinful reality of the circumstances which had been thrust upon her. When she confronted David with the words “I am pregnant,” it was more than a statement of plain fact. Oh, I suspect there is a plea for help in these words. After all, she is pregnant by someone other than her husband. In her society, the revelation of such a fact would spell disaster for a woman. Nonetheless, I detect something more in those two brief Hebrew words, something greater than desperation.
I hear defiance and accusation: “I’m pregnant, your majesty—and you are the man. This is your fault. You thought you could take what you wanted and then go on about your life with no repercussions. Well, the chickens have come home to roost—behold the consequences of your actions—I’m pregnant…with your child!” Her words are like a finger pointing to David and the truth.
Bathsheba has every right to accuse, to speak an inconvenient and unwanted truth to power. David has abused his power as king, to say the least. He has used his authority not for the good of the nation or to guarantee justice for one of his subjects. Instead, he has used his position for his own personal pleasure and in doing so ignored, nay trampled on the dignity of another human being.
There is a grasping self-focused feel to his actions toward Bathsheba. Just listen to the verbs in the Hebrew of verse four: David sent, he took, he lay. She was an object to him, an object to be used as he saw fit. There is no romance in this story, no love, no indication of mutuality. There are no recorded words between the two, though surely something must have been said. This lack of dialogue focuses our attention on the nature of the act: for David this was just an exercise of power to fulfill his lust. And when he is done, he simply dismisses her. It is no accident that she is most commonly identified simply as “the woman”—in David’s eyes she is not a person with her own identity, she has been dehumanized. [Walter Brueggeman, First and Second Samuel, Interpretation, p. 273]
It’s a scenario that we see played out over and over in our world. This afternoon, our book club will discuss Fredrick Backman’s Winners, the third book in the Beartown trilogy, which focuses on the trails and successes of a Scandinavian hockey town. One of the running story lines is the devastating effects, on both individuals and entire communities, of rapes committed against two young ladies by classmates who happen to be hockey stars. Earlier this week I read of multiple accusations of sexual assault and rape by two brothers who are high powered players in the New York real estate scene. [Debra Kamin, “These Brothers Were Real Estate Hotshots. And Predators, Some Women Say.” The New York Times, July 24, 2024, accessed on the Times app.] I don’t know the truth of the accusations—though false allegations of rape are rare: several years ago, I saw statistics demonstrating that false accusations of murder are more common than false accusations of rape. Research indicates that well over 90% of accusations of sexual assault are true. [“False Reporting: Overview,” a paper published by the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, 2012, p. 2] Often it seems we know the names of perpetrators of sexual misconduct and assault better than the name of the woman or the women. The details may differ, but the essence of the various sordid stories are the same: men in positions of authority abusing their power to take advantage of women.
And what of “the woman” in our scripture? What was her role? It’s hard to see what choice she had. David is king. The power imbalance couldn’t be much greater. As Johanna W. H. van Wijk-Bos observes, “ a women who was subject to the king… could hardly deny him her body.” [Reading Samuel, 190] His desire jeopardized everything she held dear: husband, family, honor, even her life. The king has the power to take it all away and who can stop him? At best, she goes along with David’s desire because she sees no other safe course of action. If she says no, if she protests, who will intervene to stop the king? And what will happen to her or, perhaps in her mind worse yet, what will happen to her husband? She has little, if any, choice. She consents under duress, which is not ever a free decision. Consent must be given freely. One cannot consent under duress.
At worst, David forces himself on her. There is quite a bit of debate among Western scholars about the nature of David’s actions. Some have treated the relationship between David and Bathsheba as consensual adultery, but this ignores David’s power over her as king. Others have suggested that Bathsheba was trying to seduce David, but this argument often has the feel of an attempt to absolve David by shifting the blame to the woman and does so by ignoring that fact that bathing on in one’s own courtyard was both normal and normally very private as no one could see a person in their courtyard, unless one was looking from the elevated position of the roof of the palace.[1] In contrast to these competing Western interpretations, Gerald West reports that in a study of Southern African women’s responses to the stories of 1 and 2 Samuel, “most of the African women readers are adamant—Bathsheba was raped. David is the subject of the verbs in 11.1-4….Bathsheba is the object here.” [quoted in Jensen, 1 & 2 Samuel, Belief, 216]
Too many women have similar stories. Too many can say, “Me too: I’ve been harassed, pressured, abused, even raped.” Many have spoken up in recent years, but research suggests most sexual assaults still go unreported. Too many women have been hurt. One is too many. This must stop.
According to Genesis chapter 1, both men and women are made in the image and likeness of God. Both genders have equal dignity and equal value, because both bear the divine image and both can reflect the character of God—both can love and give and care and live in community. Both are rational, intelligent beings, who have free will and can thus make reasoned choices about what they do or do not do. The implication of this essential equality is clear: women are not lesser beings than men, and certainly not objects to be used for men’s satisfaction.
This equal dignity is also affirmed by the incarnation of Christ, in which God becomes human. Richad Amesbury and George Newlands observe, “Incarnation…points to the reality of the involvement of God with human bodies. What happens to bodies is important to God, who…has shared human embodiment in every range of experience. [Here,] we find the [Christian] resources for a universal conception of human dignity: human beings participate in God’s image, because God [in Jesus] participates in humanity as a victim of human rights abuse….[Incarnation suggests] “that God’s goal is fulfilled in the flourishing of human personhood. Incarnation is God’s affirmation of the value, in the perspective of God’s love, of every human being.” [Amesbury and Newlands, Faith and Human Rights: Christianity an the Global Struggle for Human Dignity, Fortress Press, 2008, pp. 112-113] Every human being—male, female, transgender; however we understand and define ourselves—has incalculable value to God. Every person has immeasurable worth. Further, any violence against a human is violence against the one who is God incarnate, Jesus Christ.
Our reading concluded by skipping forward to the end of the chapter to God’s judgement of events. A more literal translation of the Hebrew reads, “And the thing that David had done was evil in the eyes of the Lord.” [Alter, The David Story, 256] What could be more clear? The objectification, the abuse, and the dehumanizing use of another human being is evil in the sight of God.
So what can we do? For starters, we can listen to women and take them seriously. We can try to imagine what the experience must have been like for them instead of trying to dismiss their stories by shifting the blame back to them. Our book club selection, The Winners, illustrates how taking women seriously can make a difference. The first young woman to be raped in the trilogy, Mia, is not believed by the police or most of the town—she’s scorned and insulted. But she is believed by her family and by close friends. They become a source of support and strength for Mia in what is an excruciatingly difficult time. In the end, a witness comes forward and confirms her story, vindicating her to some degree in the public eye. Because of the support she receives, Mia is able to endure the derision, able to move forward into the future and to begin to thrive again, in spite of what happened and the enduring scars. [Much of this takes place in the first book, Beartown, thought the struggle to move forward continues through the remaining two books.]
The case of Ruth, whose rape is the second we learn of, is very different. The police doubt her story and her classmates make fun of her. But worse yet, her family doesn’t believe her, or at least doesn’t want to deal with the possibility the rape actually happened. They offer no support. Nor does she have friends who are there for her in her hour of need. And no witness ever comes forward; the only other person who knows what happened is too scared for his own safety to ever say a word. As a result, Ruth’s story, unlike Mia’s, ends tragically. It is so important to listen to women and take seriously their claims of sexual violence. It can make all the difference in the world.
Additionally, we can demand justice. Too many abused women are told they must forgive by church leaders, but nothing is done to stop the abuse. Too many acts of abuse, harassment and even rape are not reported, dismissed as boys being boys, or as misunderstandings. The “boys will be boys” excuse is ridiculous and insulting to men. It not only normalizes inappropriate and immoral behavior, it also suggests that men cannot control themselves, that we are not rational beings with free will. But men do have moral agency and can choose how and when to exercise their biological drives. Such excuses, such explaining away, discourages women and witnesses from reporting crimes and, worse yet, leaves the perpetrator to free to harm others.
Further, we can teach our boys that women are fellow human beings, equal to men in dignity and worth and not objects of conquest to be used for men’s sexual satisfaction. All people are made in the image of God and beloved by God, and thus should be treated with respect, treated as we ourselves would want to be treated, treated as valuable and important.
And we can speak up when we see abuse and harassment. As the editors of the Christian Century pointed out in late 2017 during the early days of the #MeToo movement, “Ultimately, patterns of abuse will change only when toxic constructions of masculinity are replaced by practices of empathy and mutuality. That change can begin tin the workplace, advocates say, with men calling out coworkers on speech and behavior that’s offensive—speaking up in the moment, naming the reality of what has happened in the presence of the harassed and the harasser.”
The editors conclude, “Power is good or bad according to the purposes for which it is used. Is it used for self-aggrandizement or for the flourishing of others? [Recently], survivors of abuse have overcome stigma to speak about the assaults they have endured. They have used the power of their voices to help others flourish. Their example should inspire the rest of us to do the same.” [https://www.christiancentury.org/article/editors/how-metoo-calls-everyone-fight-sexual-harassment-and-assault; November 3, 2017]
And when we do so, when we join the struggle against sexual harassment and sexual violence, when we actively affirm the equal dignity and value of both women and men, when we work for justice for every woman, then we can rest assured that the thing we are doing will be pleasing in the sight of God.