Samuel 11:10–17 (ESV)

When they told David, “Uriah did not go down to his house,” David said to Uriah, “Have you not come from a journey? Why did you not go down to your house?” Uriah said to David, “The ark and Israel and Judah dwell in booths, and my lord Joab and the servants of my lord are camping in the open field. Shall I then go to my house, to eat and to drink and to lie with my wife? As you live, and as your soul lives, I will not do this thing.” Then David said to Uriah, “Remain here today also, and tomorrow I will send you back.” So Uriah remained in Jerusalem that day and the next. And David invited him, and he ate in his presence and drank, so that he made him drunk. And in the evening he went out to lie on his couch with the servants of his lord, but he did not go down to his house.

In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it by the hand of Uriah. In the letter he wrote, “Set Uriah in the forefront of the hardest fighting, and then draw back from him, that he may be struck down, and die.” And as Joab was besieging the city, he assigned Uriah to the place where he knew there were valiant men. And the men of the city came out and fought with Joab, and some of the servants of David among the people fell. Uriah the Hittite also died.

Watch David slide down the slippery slope. In yesterday’s reading, David doesn’t go to war like he’s supposed to. Then he pulls his lazy butt out of bed in the evening (!) and sees Bathsheba bathing outside. He inquires as to who she is and finds out that she’s the wife of one of his mighty men, Uriah the Hittite (see 2 Samuel 23:39). Despite this, he fetches her and gets her pregnant. Then he tries to cover this up by getting Uriah to come home from the war and spend the night with Bathsheba. That doesn’t work because Uriah doesn’t want to defile himself, which would prevent him from returning to his band of brothers.

In today’s passage, David gets increasingly desperate. He tries getting Uriah drunk, thinking that’ll weaken him and then he’ll sleep with his wife. When that doesn’t work, David panics and devises a plan to get Uriah killed. He instructs Joab to do his dirty work. That means Joab knows all about David’s plan.

He may not know why David wants Uriah dead, but he knows enough.

To cover up his adultery, David commits murder. That just makes it worse. Nothing is covered up.

This should scare us. David didn’t change; he just let his guard down. He got lazy. He forgot who he is.

In each step that David took down the slippery slope, he was thinking like an atheist. All his spiritual learning, all his heart for the LORD, was pushed aside by his ego and then by stress. He got distracted.

Christians would benefit from some of the same training as martial artists. Martial arts students are taught to deal with the unexpected psychological and physiological aspects of conflict by practicing "conflicts" in controlled situations. Christians can do this by examining our own struggles and failures in the light of spiritual warfare. We forget that we have a competent enemy. We’re more vulnerable than we realize.

We need training.

These weekday DEEPs are written by Mike Slay. The Saturday ones are written by Matt Richardson. To subscribe click here:  https://www.ailbe.org/resources/community

The weekly study guides, which include questions for discussion or meditation, can be downloaded here: https://www.ailbe.org/resources/itemlist/category/91-deep-studies

Scripture taken from the English Standard Version. © Copyright 2001 by Crossway. Used by permission. All rights reserved.