Amidst all the fascinating characters and personalities mentioned is Bathsheba. She, like most of them, is only very lightly sketched out. However Wesselius, in an appendix (p349-51) to his article on Joab's execution [Wesselius, J. W. (1990). Joab's Death and the Central Theme of the Succession Narrative (2 Samuel IX-1 Kings II). Vetus Testamentum, 40(Fasc. 3), 336-351.] makes a compelling, albeit as he admits (p351), speculative case for Bathsheba and her family plotting and executing revenge on those responsible for her husband Uriah the Hittite's death.
It is clear to me that Bathsheba is a clever woman (Nicol, G. G. (1988). Bathsheba, a Clever Woman?. The Expository Times, 99(12), 360-363) and, if Rabbinic tradition is correct that King Lemuel is a poetic name for Solomon (eg Apple, R. (2011). The Two Wise Women of Proverbs Chapter 31. Jewish Bible Quarterly, 39(3), 175), then Bathsheba is the author of Proverbs 31, and so is v3 ("Do not give your strength to women, your ways to those who destroy kings) an echo of what she had helped to bring about? She understood, and had control over, what she was doing. With Nicol and contra Tamber-Rosenau (Tamber-Rosenau, C. (2017). Biblical Bathing Beauties And The Manipulation Of The Male Gaze: What Judith Can Tell Us about Bathsheba and Susanna. Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 33(2), 55-72), I think it most likely that she initiated the seduction of David and thus is also, albeit, unintentionally responsible for the death of her husband and some of his comrades.
How to reconcile these two, apparently, conflicting events?
One possible trajectory is that Bathsheba at the start of this story, a noted beauty, married to a great hero, was simply bored. All the young dashing warriors, her husband included, were off at war. Jerusalem had become quiet, dull, provincial. In a word it was no fun! The only really "interesting" male in her immediate circle was the great hero, warrior and a king to boot. Well there's a challenge to a bright but bored and frustrated woman! Adulterous affairs while soldiers were away are hardly unknown (see Todd, L. M. (2011). “The Soldier's Wife Who Ran Away with the Russian”: Sexual Infidelities in World War I Germany. Central European History, 44(2), 257-278. and London, A. S., Allen, E., & Wilmoth, J. M. (2013). Veteran status, extramarital sex, and divorce: Findings from the 1992 National Health and Social Life Survey. Journal of Family Issues, 34(11), 1452-1473.).
Anyway she lights on a very bold scheme to attract the king's attention. While it succeeds it is clear that neither had any serious "long term" intentions. Unfortunately for all, nature intervened in the form of a pregnancy. On this and the subsequent events the Biblical account becomes surprisingly frank. It led to the murder of Uriah and also a number of his fellow soldiers as "collateral damage". Then things become opaque. While Nathan's prophecy is clear,
["Why have you despised the word of the Lord, to do what is evil in his sight? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and have taken his wife to be your wife, and have killed him with the sword of the Ammonites. Now therefore the sword shall never depart from your house, for you have despised me, and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife. Thus says the Lord: I will raise up trouble against you from within your own house; and I will take your wives before your eyes, and give them to your neighbour, and he shall lie with your wives in the sight of this very sun. For you did it secretly; but I will do this thing before all Israel, and before the sun."See 2 Samuel 12:7-14 for the fuller context.]
quite how this actually comes to pass is not explained in any detail. Nathan interestingly is both the putative source of many of these stories (1 Chronicles 29:29 and 2 Chronicles 9:29) and also, and on this point I disagree with Wesselius (see p348), a close confidant of Bethsheba's (1 Kings 1:11-14).
At some point, so Wesselius suggests, the full horror of the events she had unwittingly played a part in setting in motion became known to Bathsheba. At this point she becomes, I would suggest, very conflicted. Guilt leads to a quiet (you can't be open about this for obvious reasons) fury with David and his family. At the same time this allies with a natural desire to see her son, Solomon, who is not favourably placed in the line succession, become king (see Song of Solomon 3v11). Thus we have a supremely potent cocktail of guilt, revenge and ambition. Combine that with her intelligence, connections (she is a member of a very well connected family some of whom become important actors in the events portrayed) and opportunity. All this could, as Wesselius outlines, quite credibly lead to the events portrayed in the latter part of 2 Samuel and beginning of 1 Kings.
Clearly this is only one possible trajectory but, as Wesselius suggests, a very telling and plausible one nevertheless which ties together many of the events and actors in the Biblical account.
I can't help think that so many playwrights have missed a great opportunity here. What could Shakespeare have done with this!? Though he never did use any Biblical stories if I remember correctly. History is indeed often stranger than fiction and what a great lesson we should take from this, even without the conjectured elements. In the words of another great story teller, Scott, "Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive."
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