To the Chief Musician. A Psalm of David when Nathan the prophet went to him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba.
Psalm 51:1 NKJV
That is the introduction to Psalm 51, King David’s prayer of repentance. Descriptive and to the point, unlike David’s prayer where he only refers to his conduct as ‘sin’ but doesn’t name it.
Is it possible that David knew that God knew that it wasn’t just the adultery he was guilty of but Uriah’s murder as well? In case you were wondering, yes, David the king of Israel conspired with his trusted army commander to have Uriah placed at the most vulnerable place where he would be attacked and killed by the enemy.
Some people go to extreme and depraved lengths to get what they want, like committing murder to cover your adultery because you don’t want to lose your mistress, and don’t want to face the consequences.
I read an article online years ago about the circumstances surrounding David and Bathsheba, that there was a possibility that David forced himself on her. Read this article for more: Source: Andrews University https://digitalcommons.andrews.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1174&context=jats
However the interaction began, it doesn’t minimize David’s sin, and the Lord God reminded him of that when He sent Nathan the prophet to rebuke David.
From that one illicit relationship, came the downfall of the House of David, when his own children and family turned against him, and subsequent rulers, starting with Solomon committing abhorrent acts against the LORD God Almighty.
Solomon, David’s son with Bathsheba, and his heir had hundreds of wives and concubines. Hundreds. Does one man really need that many wives? It sounds demonic and not the conduct I expected from one who was called wise. Okay, he returned a baby to it’s mother, but, come on, even more than one wife is too much for any normal man to handle.
Back to David’s prayer of repentance. David only talks about his actions but doesn’t wipe the slate clean, so to speak. He repents but does not ask the Lord to abolish that sin and it’s consequences from his bloodline. We can see the sin repeated over generations.
And that is a lesson for us; no matter how a sin began, we must repent of it and ask the Lord to completely remove its scars and residues from our life and bloodline so that our family is not tainted with the same sin.