As important as the account of David and Bathsheba is to our understanding of power dynamics and abuse, it is one of many such stories of the Bible that pertain to that issue in particular. We need to read and teach the Bible more carefully, and think through how what we say can comfort or crush others, particularly when it comes to sexual sin. The Bible does not whisper about sexual sins, even in relation to the other sins it addresses.

Twitter was abuzz for an entire weekend with apparent newfound exegetical expertise regarding the account of David and Bathsheba in the Bible. The account describes how David sent for Bathsheba, got her pregnant, and afterward had her husband killed.

The Twitter dustup started when Rachael Denhollander corrected a tweet from Matt Smethurst, Managing Editor of The Gospel Coalition, who had written that “David fornicated.” Denhollander replied, “David raped. It’s important we get that right.” She then mentioned this Twitter exchange in her interview with Russell Moore at the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission’s Caring Well conference.

On pages 89-90 of her book, What Is A Girl Worth?: My Story of Breaking the Silence and Exposing the Truth about Larry Nassar and USA Gymnastics, Denhollander relates how a substitute Sunday School teacher asked whether or not Bathsheba bore any responsibility in David’s sin. A female classmate pointed out that Bathsheba could not have refused King David, since he held her life in his hands. But a male classmate immediately spoke up in response and said that Bathsheba could have chosen death instead. Yikes.

Harmful Hermeneutics

Imagine being an abuse survivor and hearing this; hearing that even when a person has complete control over you, and you cannot do anything to fight back, you are still at fault for your sexual abuse. Moreover, think through what this communicates to those who are already afraid to speak up about their abuse. We see how serious an issue our interpretation of this text actually is.

But the seriousness of the consequences in our interpretation is not what Denhollander is driven by in her understanding of the text. Rather, she explained, “To start, when Nathan tells David the parable of the rich man who took the ewe, David is portrayed as stealing, not as two people running off together. Bathsheba is portrayed as an innocent lamb that is slaughtered. This is the *exact* imagery for rape from the OT.” She went on to write, “The evidence is in the imagery used, where blame is placed (not on both parties as the law would require) and in the cultural mandates/power dynamics. It’s clear, when we understand abuse. Getting this wrong is crushing. I talk about this in my book. It IS all over the place. This (and several other serious errors along these lines) are part of why women and victims feel such a deep sense of betrayal from the church. Scripture that protects us is twisted and weaponized to crush with unfounded guilt and shame.”

Immediately, people began to note that Denhollander’s reading is not the majority reading. Complex implications were pointed out, such as the idea that if Joseph had succumbed to Potiphar’s wife, who had control over his life, he would not have been in sin, but a victim of rape. Others noted that God put Bathsheba’s baby to death based on David’s sin. That is, Bathsheba not only suffered rape at the hands of David, and the loss of her husband, but then bore the brunt of the punishment for David’s sin in the sickness and death of her newborn baby boy.

The worst parts of the many exchanges on Twitter were the awful assumptions Christians were making about one another. Some assumed that the minority reading was motivated, not by careful exegesis and study, but by the supposed emotionally-driven and clouded judgment of victimhood. Gross. Others assumed that a rejection of the reading that David raped Bathsheba was evidence of a deep-seated misogyny bent on hurting women and abuse survivors. Ouch. Neither of these were charitable assumptions.

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