Description

Reference No.: 78J/ D410

Origin: France - Aubusson

Period: 19th century

Provenance: Private Collection

Composition: Wool and silk

Dimension: W 100 x H 0.98

Bathsheba Hebrew: בַּת־שֶׁבַע, Baṯ-šeḇaʿ, Bat-Sheva or Batsheva, "daughter of Sheba" or "daughter of the oath" was the wife of Uriah the Hittite and later of David, according to the Hebrew Bible. She was the mother of Solomon, who succeeded David as king, making her the Gebirah (queen mother). She is best known for the Biblical narrative in which she was summoned by King David, who had seen her bathing and lusted after her.

David's initial interactions with Bathsheba are described in 2 Samuel 11. While walking on the roof of his palace, David sees a beautiful woman bathing. He inquires about her, discovering her identity as the wife of Uriah. Still desiring her, David later has sex with Bathsheba, impregnating her.[4][5][6] David E. Garland, together with his wife Diana, regards David's actions as an example of rape in the Hebrew Bible.

While the army was on campaign, David summoned Uriah in the hope that Uriah would have sex with Bathsheba, and in turn be convinced that the child she would eventually bear belonged to him. However, Uriah was unwilling to disregard rules applying to warriors on campaign,[8] preferring to remain with the palace troops rather than sleep in his own bed.

David and Bathsheba depicted in an anonymous 17th-century painting

After repeated efforts to convince Uriah to sleep with his wife failed, David gave an order to his general Joab that Uriah should be placed on the front lines in battle, where he would be in much greater danger. Additionally, David had Uriah himself carry this message back to the army. Uriah was ultimately killed during the siege of Rabbah, and Bathsheba mourned him. Then, David made her his wife, taking her into his house where she gave birth to his child.

David's actions displeased God, who sent the prophet Nathan to reprove the king. In relating a parable describing a rich man who took away the lamb of his poor neighbor, he incited the king's righteous anger, and Nathan then analogized the case directly to David's actions regarding Bathsheba. Nathan declared that God would punish the house of David for Uriah's murder and the taking of his wife. In turn, he would let someone close to David seize all David's wives, and having him lie with them in broad daylight for everyone to see. David at once confessed his sins, expressing sincere repentance. Shortly after Bathsheba's first child by David was born, God struck it with a severe illness. David pleaded with God to spare his child, fasting and spending the nights lying in sackcloth on the ground, but after seven days the child died. David accepted this as his punishment, and then went to the house of God to worship him.

David and Bathsheba would later have another son, Solomon. In David's old age, Bathsheba secured Solomon's succession to the throne instead of David's older surviving sons by other wives, based on promises David made to her. Nathan's prophecy came to pass years later when another of David's sons, the much-loved Absalom, led an insurrection that plunged the kingdom into civil war. To manifest his claim as the new king, Absalom had sex in public with ten of his father's concubines (2 Samuel 16), considered to be a direct, tenfold divine retribution for David's taking of another man's woman in secret.

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