thought it her duty to observe this statute most scrupulously, though she did not shrink from committing the sin of adultery.
Verse 5
When she discovered that she was with child, she sent word to David. This involved an appeal to him to take the necessary steps to avert the evil consequences of the sin, inasmuch as the law required that both adulterer and adulteress should be put to death (Lev 20:10).
Verses 6-8
David had Uriah the husband of Bathsheba sent to him by Joab, under whom he was serving in the army before Rabbah, upon some pretext or other, and asked him as soon as he arrived how it fared with Joab and the people (i.e., the army) and the war. This was probably the pretext under which David had had him sent to him. According to 2Sa 23:39, Uriah was one of the gibborim (“mighty men”) of David, and therefore held some post of command in the army, although there is no historical foundation for the statement made by Josephus, viz., that he was Joab's armour-bearer or aide-de-camp. The king then said to him, “Go down to thy house (from the palace upon Mount Zion down to the lower city, where Uriah's house was situated), and wash thy feet;” and when he had gone out of the palace, he sent a royal present after him. The Israelites were accustomed to wash their feet when they returned home from work or from a journey, to take refreshment and rest themselves. Consequently these words contained an intimation that he was to go and refresh himself in his own home. David's wish was that Uriah should spend a night at home with his wife, that he might afterwards be regarded as the father of the child that had been begotten in adultery. משּׂאת, a present, as in Amo 5:11; Jer 50:4; Est 2:18.
Verse 9
But Uriah had his suspicions aroused. The connection between his wife and David may not have remained altogether a secret, so that it may have reached his ears as soon as he arrived in Jerusalem. “He lay down to sleep before the king's house with all the servants of his lord (i.e., the retainers of the court),and went not down to his house.” “Before, or at, the door of the king's house,” i.e., in the court of the palace, or in a building adjoining the king's palace, where the court servants lived.
Verses 10-12
When this was told to David (the next morning), he said to Uriah, “Didst thou not come from the way (i.e., from a journey)? why didst thou not go down (as men
