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2Sa_11:4 And David sent messengers, and took her; and she came in unto him, and he lay with her; for she was purified from her uncleanness: and she returned unto her house.
Ver. 4. And David sent messengers, and took her.] Unbridled lust, like the wild fig, will soon mount over the wall, and break out into unclean practices. It is a law of the members in a double sense, &c. It is, as Reuben, the eldest child of old Adam’s strength. It is the butter which the devil presenteth in so lordly a dish, that the soul spieth not; the hammer and nail in his hand, till he have driven it into the temples. Cavete.
And she came in unto him.] Not so well fortified as she ought against such a temptation: as the window of her house had before been too open, so now the window of her ark was not so well shut, but that the waters of wickedness entered into it. She resisteth not David’s unchaste motion that we read of, no not in word; but too easily consenteth. So did not Susanna, Lucretia, or that other Roman lady, who being taken from the table by Augustus the emperor into a chamber, and afterwards brought back again, her eyes were very red, and her hair all disordered. {a}
And he lay with her.] Wherein he received a foul foil, saith Mr Bradford, {b} and in this sin lay long asleep, as many do now-a-days: God give them good waking! The best of God’s children, saith another, may not only be drenched in the waves of sin, but lie in them for the time: and perhaps sink twice to the bottom. This and other foul faults in David the Holy Ghost hath recorded, not to encourage any to do the like, but as sea marks, that they may avoid these rocks, against which such a choice vessel dashed, and had surely split and perished, had not God’s grace and Holy Spirit, as a timely gale of wind, blown him off, and reduced him into his right course by unfeigned repentance.
For she was purified from her uncleanness,] i.e., Her monthly flows; and so was the more apt to conceive with child. Or, And when she had purified herself from her uncleanness, she returned home; that is, from that legal uncleanness contracted by her carnal copulation with David, - yea, though he had been her own husband. See Exo_19:15 Lev_15:18 1Sa_21:4. But doth Bathsheba make conscience of ceremonial, and none of moral purity? Or, doth David’s deceitful heart make him think that he may the more safely lie with Bathsheba, because she was purified?
And she returned unto her house.] But a far worse woman than when she went out of it, and with a sting in her conscience: for transit voluptas, manet dolor.
“ Habet omnis hoc voluptas,
Stimulis agit fruentes, &c.
Laeta venire Venus, tristis abire solet. ” - Boet. {c}
{a} Sueton.
{b} Serm. of Rep.
{c} Lib. iii. metr. 7.