by Angela Hunt
More than once I snapped at him; more than once I apologized. I tried to explain that he had done nothing to cause my distress, but my own words—you’ve done nothing—accused him yet again. Was I barren because of something he hadn’t done?
I wanted to be patient. I wanted to believe that Adonai would bless us in due time, but how was I supposed to conceive a son who would influence Israel if my husband went away to war?
During the month before Uriah’s departure, I went into his arms every night, urging him to love me with all his might, tempting him with mandrakes and perfumed garments and his favorite foods in case the failure for conception lay in a lack of effort or desire on Uriah’s part.
And in case the problem lay with Adonai, I did my best to earn His favor, too. Recalling the story of how Hannah prayed fervently in order to win the Lord’s favor and conceive a son, every morning I climbed the steep path to the Tabernacle and sat outside the tent of meeting, praying that Adonai would hear and grant my petition. I prayed in the blazing sun, determined to show HaShem that my desire was sincere and my intention pure. I prayed aloud whenever a priest appeared, hoping he would remark upon my prayers and assure me that God would grant me a son in the coming year.
I poured myself out in every way I knew and still my courses flowed, even on the day of Uriah’s departure.
Elisheba and Amaris remained in the house while I walked my husband to the courtyard gate. I tipped my head back to look into his eyes. “I wish you didn’t have to go.”
“But you know I must.”
“Be careful.” I locked my arms around his waist. “I have just lost my father. I can’t lose you, too.”
Uriah gave me a warrior’s confident smile. “I am skilled, Bathsheba. I can handle myself.”
“I know, but . . . well, sometimes unexpected things happen.”
“Do not fret yourself.” He ran his broad hand over my head, smoothing my hair. “Joab is a wise commander, and Adonai is with him. This battle, when it finally comes, will be ours. Right now the army is only laying siege, and that means many hours of sitting and waiting. So don’t worry. Be well.”
I studied his eyes, searching for any sign of regret that he was leaving or sorrow that we hadn’t yet conceived, but all I saw was love, confidence, and conviction. So I pressed my cheek to his chest and prayed that Adonai would keep him safe from harm. Then, finally, I released him.
I don’t know what Uriah thought of my tears. He might have thought them an extravagant display of how much I would miss him, but we had become so entwined that I’m sure he read the truth in my eyes. I would miss him certainly, but my barren belly had become my overarching concern. If something happened to him, I might never bear a child, unless some other man took pity on me and married me. If I never had another husband, I would become a woman like Elisheba, a nurse to other women’s children, a servant with no family of her own.
Worst of all, if something happened to Uriah, the prophet’s words would be proven false and HaShem a liar. And that I could not bear.
Five months passed, long weeks of waiting and praying and fretting over my husband’s safety amid the stupidity of war. At the end of yet another womanly cycle, Elisheba extended her hand and helped me from the cushion where I had spent the past week complaining. The time of niddah always frustrated me, because my courses normally flowed for only three days, yet the Law constricted my movements for a full week.
“Time to relax,” Elisheba told me, placing her arm on my shoulders.
“I can’t relax.” I chafed under her gentle touch. “Uriah remains away from me, and another month has gone by. How am I supposed to bear a son when my husband is never here?”
“Do not fret, child. HaShem knows the desires of your heart, and He knows what is best. So come with me—we will let Amaris play her harp while I draw your bath. And while you soak in the mikvah, you will resign yourself to the will of Adonai. You will pray for your husband’s safety and smile in the sure knowledge that you will have a son when the time is right.”
I exhaled a heavy sigh and pretended acquiescence, though my heart groaned within me. I was not yet twenty and I yearned for my dreams with the frantic impatience of youth. Though something in me knew Elisheba was right, my strong will was not ready to surrender.
The house felt empty without Uriah, and so did my bed. I missed his company and his warmth, and every four weeks I felt nothing but frustration and sorrow during the time of my uncleanness.
“Why couldn’t Uriah have stayed home a few more months?” I asked, my voice tinged with whining. “No one would have blamed him if he tarried until I conceived. Grandfather is an important man in the king’s court, and he could have asked permission for Uriah to remain in Jerusalem. I should have gone to Grandfather in tears. I should have begged him to make sure Uriah remained at home another month—no, six months more.”
“And what would your husband have thought of all this tearful begging?” With an effort, Elisheba lifted the large pitcher we used to haul water from the well. “He would have resented your interference, and in time he would have resented you. A man like Uriah does not want special favors; he takes pleasure in doing his duty. He would not want to remain at home, living at ease and in luxury while his comrades slept on the battlefield.”
I thrust my lower lip forward in a pout. “But if he loved me, he would have asked. No man wants to leave an unhappy woman at home—”
“That’s where you’re wrong, child. Any man would choose to leave an unhappy woman at home, because no man wants the sound of a whining wife in his ears.” She braced her free hand on her hip. “So tell me—why has the happiest young wife in Israel become the most miserable?”
The question hammered me. Why? Because I wanted the son I’d been promised. And I wanted my husband. I was tired of waiting for them.
My blood ran thick with guilt as those thoughts took shape in my mind. My husband was attending to duties that both fulfilled and defined him. I had fallen in love with a warrior, a man just like my father. I knew what being a soldier’s wife entailed.
So why had I become more concerned about my own happiness than my husband’s? I had been telling myself that Uriah wanted a child as much as I did, but the desire to hold a son clearly tormented me more than it did him, and something in me resented the inequity.
I turned, not wanting Elisheba to see the guilt on my face, and heard the soft groan of the leather door hinge as she went for water. Amaris leaned on her crutch and studied me, her head tilting as her gaze met mine. “Are you all right?” she asked. “You don’t seem at all like yourself.”
“I’m not,” I snapped, too frustrated to exercise my usual patience with my sister. “I want a baby, but everything and everyone seems to be working against me. My husband has gone away without a word of complaint, Adonai is deaf to my prayers, the priest at the Tabernacle ignores me, and Elisheba insists on lecturing me.”
I knew my accusations were unfair, but rather than listen to a rebuke from a child, I turned and walked into the garden at the back of the house. The air was sweeter outside, perfumed with flowers, and something in the quiet helped calm the thunderstorm in my heart. I gulped deep breaths and then looked up. The sunset had spread itself like a peacock’s tail, bright and brilliant, across the western skies. Golden rays feathered across the balustrade on the roof of the royal palace, then streamed out to paint the tips of our cypress trees with yellow light.
Uriah had said we would stand together in this garden, so why wasn’t he with me when I needed him?
“Are you in a better temper now?” Elisheba joined me, the water pitcher on her hip and a forgiving smile in her eyes. “Let me rub your shoulders, child, and let the mikvah wash away your sorrows. You’re only upset because you miss your husband, but in time you’ll feel better. Besides, who’s to say he won’t be home as soon as the victory is won? The siege may not last nearly as long as you fear. And if a child is part of Adonai’s plan for you, then a child you wil
l have, and do not doubt it.”
Her words patted my heart like soothing raindrops, and the clean, cool water sloshed into the trough with a bracing sound.
Perhaps she was right. Perhaps I would feel better with the start of a new month. And each passing day was one less I would have to wait for my beloved to come home.
I gave Elisheba what I hoped was a repentant smile, then unbelted my tunic as the gentle sound of Amaris’s harp streamed through the window.
Chapter Ten
Nathan
I HAD NO SOONER SAT TO SHARE THE EVENING MEAL with my wife and daughters when I heard Adonai’s voice: Come outside.
No warning this time, no premonition or sense of approaching disaster. Only a clear and insistent voice.
I gave Ornah an apologetic look and stood, then walked out of the house and waited. The voice gave me no further instruction, so I walked over to the spindly fig tree and sat in its shade. I leaned against its narrow trunk and waited for Adonai to tell me what He wanted me to know.
A communication from the Lord of Hosts almost always sent a tremor scooting up the back of my neck, so I waited with heightened senses and a thumping heart. Within a moment of being seated, an inky blackness crept over my field of vision, blocking out the familiar sights of my neighbor’s house. I blinked, but could not dispel the darkness or focus my eyes.
So this time Adonai would not speak with words, but with images. I was about to see something the Lord wanted me to see.
I sat motionless and waited for the vision to unfold.
The blackness moved, re-forming itself into a familiar landscape. Though I could feel solid earth beneath me and the fig tree against my spine, my eyes informed me that I had been swept up by an eagle, a cormorant, or the very hand of Adonai. We flew over the Kidron Valley and the hills of Jerusalem, the city walls passing beneath my dangling legs. We did not zig and zag along the established paths, but flew straightway to the summit. Looking to my right, I saw the Tabernacle’s fluttering curtains. Beneath me, the rectangle of David’s stone palace. To my left, the twisting streets where the residents of Jerusalem had built their homes. Then Adonai lowered me until the flat rooftop of the royal palace sprawled only a short distance beneath my sandaled feet. Servants had erected a tent there, and after a moment the king stepped out from beneath that tent, yawning as if he had been asleep.
HaShem lowered me until my eyes were level with the king’s, but though I hovered directly in front of him, he did not acknowledge me in any way. By some working of the Ruach HaKodesh, I must have traveled in spirit only.
I glanced around, but no one else stood near the king. So why had I been brought here? Would I appear before the king in a moment, or would he never see me? If I materialized, how was I supposed to explain my presence?
Adonai offered no answers, so I breathed deeply and waited. The king yawned again before calling an order to a servant standing near the doorway. The man quickly disappeared, then returned with a cup of wine.
Sipping from his cup, David walked to the edge of the rooftop and studied the city, where buildings were springing up like mushrooms. Many houses on the palace’s south side were still under construction, and the sound of hammering reached my ears even though the hour was late. Something in the sight must have pleased him, for he crossed his arms in a pose of great satisfaction.
Then he shifted his position and turned slightly, peering down at a row of homes within shouting distance of the palace wall. I studied David as he studied his city. Why was the king in Jerusalem when his army had gone to Rabbah? David was known for courageous military exploits, and I had every reason to believe he thrived on the challenge of battle strategy. So why had he remained behind?
An image focused in my memory—on my last visit to David I had relayed a message from the Lord, a promise that Adonai would secure David’s kingdom forever. Was the king now so confident in his success that he no longer felt the need to personally invest in Israel’s military campaigns?
I frowned and considered the question. If David considered Adonai’s last message an eternal reprieve from a king’s duties of work, worship, and righteous war, he had forgotten the nature of HaShem. The Lord of Hosts loved David, but like a good father He chastened His children when they went astray. Surely Adonai had not given His promise in order to lull David into complacency. A complacent man would eventually neglect the Lord, because he would depend upon HaShem’s promise and not HaShem himself.
I bit my lip and scrutinized the king’s countenance. From where I watched, the rays of the setting sun tinted his hair with red-gold highlights, painting him like a man ablaze. He had aged since claiming the throne of Israel, and looked as if he had lived hard in each of his thirty-nine years. Laugh lines radiated from the corners of his eyes like cracks, and time had etched deep grooves from the edges of his nostrils to his red beard. But his hair had not yet gone white, nor had it measurably thinned.
David’s posture shifted abruptly as he bent from the waist and lowered his forearms to the balustrade. He leaned into open space, and for an instant I feared he would fall. Then I glimpsed his face and saw this was no careless king. He wore the expression of a man who has not eaten in days, and his eyes had gone from dreamy and contemplative to black and dangerous. His expression—dare I say it?—was that of a man overtaken with the mindless fervor of a stallion in rut.
Alarmed, I looked down on the city to see what had caused this abrupt change in his countenance. My gaze skimmed rooftops and gardens, houses and pathways, and then I spied two women in a tree-lined courtyard. One sat in a mikvah, her back to me. Her hands gripped the sides of a stone trough while her servant poured fresh water over her hair and shoulders. But even though the younger woman’s face was not visible, the glimpse of slender shoulders, the gentle tapering of ribs to a narrow waist, the flare of feminine hips . . . my own loins began to stir. I turned away, realizing I had no business gazing at any woman in that manner. I looked at the king and saw that he had not averted his gaze. Instead of turning aside or closing his eyes, he remained focused on the tantalizing sight. He then straightened and signaled for the guard at the door.
My hope—my confidence—in Israel’s anointed king shriveled as the guard hurried to answer his master’s command.
“See that house?” David pointed to the courtyard below. “Make note of it, go inquire, and return straightway to tell me who that woman is.”
With only a brief downward glance, the guard jogged away while David bent again, devouring the sight of the woman as she stood, accepted a robe from her servant, and left the garden, her long wet hair streaming over her back like silk ribbons.
My viewpoint abruptly shifted, as if the giant hand or bird holding me aloft had jerked me to another position. I saw the guard hurrying down the rooftop stairs, crossing the paved courtyard, and exiting through the palace gates. I lowered my heavy eyelids, not needing to see anything else.
What was I supposed to do with this knowledge?
My stomach clenched as my heart overflowed with angst and despair. “Why have you shown me this vision?” I asked the darkness. “What am I to do with this knowledge? Is this something that might happen, or is it something that has happened? And if it has happened, how can I confront the king? He holds the power of life and death in his hands, and I saw the look in his eyes just now—he is not in a mood to be reasonable.”
When I lifted my head, I found myself sitting beneath my spindly tree with only the whisper of fig leaves to disturb a stillness as deep as a Sabbath morning.
Chapter Eleven
Bathsheba
I HAD JUST SLIPPED A PLAIN TUNIC OVER MY HEAD when we heard a pounding at the courtyard gate. Elisheba’s wide eyes met mine, then she hurried to the front door and opened it, reflexively ducking when she saw the tall guard standing outside the house. With one glance the man took in Elisheba, me, and Amaris, then his gaze settled on me. “The king summons you,” he said, gesturing with a hairy hand. “Do not delay, b
ut come at once.”
“The king?” My heart filled with fear as I turned to Elisheba. “Do you think something has happened to—?”
“At once!” the guard repeated.
“I have just dressed for bed,” I tried to explain, “yet if the king wants to see me, I will dress properly. I can’t go to him like this, with wet hair and no shoes—”
“Now!” The guard stepped forward and crossed our threshold, something he would never have done if Uriah had been home. While Elisheba stared in disbelief, with trembling fingers I lifted a cloak from a wall hook and threw it over my shoulders. My thoughts scampered in such panic that I couldn’t remember where I left my shoes, so I slid my feet into a pair of tattered papyrus sandals. They were not fit for an audience with the king, but at least I wouldn’t have to lace and fasten them.
When I reached the doorway, the guard gripped my arm with surprising force and half led, half dragged me along the cobbled street toward the palace. The sun had hidden itself behind the horizon, so we scurried through shifting shadows as my neighbors gathered around their cook fires to enjoy the evening meal. I found myself grateful that few of them would witness my frantic journey to the king’s house. Something terrible must have happened to Uriah, something so horrible that the king had returned to Jerusalem to personally explain how my husband died.
My escort glanced at me when we reached the palace gate, then whispered to the guard on duty. Without a word, that man stepped aside and let us pass.
We walked across the large paved courtyard, past a building with several doors, and finally through a long passageway that ended in a flight of narrow stairs. The guard gestured for me to precede him, so I did, carefully lifting my tunic so I wouldn’t trip.
When we reached the top of the stairs, I found myself standing on the wide roof I’d observed from my garden. A colorful canopy had been erected against a wall to provide shade from the slanting sun. Potted plants stood around the periphery as a sort of screen, I supposed, to offer a measure of privacy from the servants and guards.