David Raped Bathsheba: Why It’s Important that We Allow for This Interpretation
And then everything broke loose.
She said it two weeks ago at the Caring Well conference from the Southern Baptist Convention, talking about how to recognize sexual abuse. But after she said it, a pastor from Chicago tweeted this (and I replied):
Are you also saying that it’s impossible for a sexual assault victim to ever speak authoritatively on gender dynamics issues because they’re clouded?But you can, because you’re not biased? How is that not revictimizing the abused, by painting them in a corner?— SheilaGregoire (@sheilagregoire) October 5, 2019
Jacob, Rachael’s husband, called him out on this. He did an amazing job on Twitter last week defending Rachael and showing how a completely valid (and I think most faithful to the text) interpretation of Scripture is, indeed, that David raped. And many others jumped in, too, so it was quite a firestorm.
I’d like today to summarize those arguments about David raping Bathsheba, and then sum up why this debate matters.
So let’s go over some of the elements of the narrative in the David and Bathsheba story, found in 2 Samuel 11-12, that suggest the encounter was rape.
1. David was not where he was supposed to be.
The framing of this story, before anything else unfolds, was that David was not where he was supposed to be:
In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war, David sent Joab out with the king’s men and the whole Israelite army. They destroyed the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David remained in Jerusalem.
2 Samuel 11:1
The story opens with David in the wrong.
2. Bathsheba was performing ritual bathing after her purification from menstruation.
In verse 4, the text says that “she was purifying herself from her monthly uncleanness.” This tells us a few things: she wasn’t pregnant already; and she was a devout follower of the law. The story opens with David in the wrong–and Bathsheba being a faithful believer.
Also, many have said that she should not have been bathing there; that she was deliberately enticing David. However, many scholars argue that bathing in one’s courtyard was normal. It would have been private–except from the palace. David’s palace was on a hilltop, where he could overlook the city. She was going about her normal business, in her own home. He was snooping.
3. He sent for her and “took” her
David sent messengers for her. And you can’t say no to a king!
People on Facebook were saying that because she didn’t cry out, it wasn’t rape, and because it wasn’t violent it wasn’t rape. They were pointing to Deuteronomy 22, where the rape codes say that if you’re raped in a city, you have to cry out to charge someone with rape, whereas if you’re raped in the country, you don’t. Since Bathsheba was in a city, then to believe this was rape, she would have had to cry out.
However, the point of that Old Testament passage is a simple one, that Scott Coley deals with wonderfully in this twitter thread (click on the little blue bird to see the whole thread):
Nothing, @DennyBurk ? Alright, I’ll tell you what I think. I think no one was stoned (per Deut. 22:23-24) because David was the king. https://t.co/QSSj3k0F97—
