Bathing beauty or bimbo?

. . . David was the father of Solomon, whose mother had been Uriah’s wife . . . – Matthew 1:6 (NIV)

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, says the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. – Isaiah 55:8–9


Although she’s one of five women having the honor of being in mentioned in Jesus’ genealogy, unlike the other four, Bathsheba’s name is not given. Matthew simply refers her to as “Uriah’s wife.”

In my humble opinion, she’s worse than Tamar and Rahab. She can’t even hold a candle to Ruth, whose story is like a polished diamond in the coal mines of the Old Testament. They had what Bathsheba lacked—brains, guts and heart.

When we first encounter Bathsheba, she’s taking a bath—in an uncovered courtyard of a house in the middle of Jerusalem, where anyone standing on a nearby rooftop (which were flat in those days) could see her. Perhaps that was her intention. You see, the courtyard where she was bathing was in plain sight of the rooftop of King David’s residence. Scripture tells us Bathsheba was very beautiful.

Now King David already had seven wives, including Saul’s daughter Michal, the wife of his youth, and Abigail, the spunky, quick-witted widow of Nabal. (Read this great story in 1 Samuel 25.) Nevertheless, he summons Bathsheba, knowing both her husband and her father are members of the elite group of warriors known as “David’s mighty men.”

She could have said no. She knew the commandments as well as King David did. But she didn’t.

You know the story. As soon the seven days of mourning for her husband Uriah are up, Bathsheba marries King David. The baby conceived in adultery dies soon after birth.

Fast forward to the end of David’s life. As he lay on his deathbed, his son Adonijah plans to usurp the throne. David’s chief prophet approaches Bathsheba with a plan.

“Go in to King David and say to him, ‘Didn’t you promise me my son Solomon would be king after you? Then why has Adonijah become king?’”

She does as told. Solomon is crowned that very day (1 Kings 1:11–39). OK, so she secured the throne for the king God had planned. But it wasn’t her idea.

The last time we see Bathsheba, she’s the queen mother. The relentless Adonijah uses her in a plot to wrest the throne from Solomon.

“Ask him to do one thing for me,” Adonijah tells her. “Give me Abishag the Shunammite as my wife.”

“Very well,” she says, clueless what this meant.

She should have known. Abishag was a part of David’s harem, and only the succeeding king had the right to possess the previous king's harem. Marriage to Abishag was as good as giving Adonijah the throne. Good thing Solomon saw through the scheme.

Bathsheba possessed great physical beauty, but little else. If it had been up to me, I would have chosen Abigail, who had more character, intelligence and spunk, for the honor of being an ancestor of the Messiah.

But God didn’t ask for my opinion.

Bathsheba bore David four sons, which included Solomon and Nathan. The wise and wealthy Solomon became one of Jesus’ ancestors through Joseph, his earthly father. Nathan’s line produced Mary, Jesus’ mother (Luke 3:31).

Bathsheba—bathing beauty or bimbo?

Does it even matter?

What matters is that God chose her, not because of anything she did, but because of His own purpose and grace (2 Timothy 1:9 NIV) to fulfill a promise He made to David: “Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me; your throne will be established forever” (2 Samuel 7:16 NIV).

This promise was fulfilled with Jesus’ birth, death and resurrection.

Bathsheba’s story is one of mercy and grace. Mercy, because she didn’t get the punishment she deserved for her adultery and her part in David’s conspiracy to murder her husband. Grace, because she received something she didn’t deserve—a place in the bloodline of Jesus Christ.

Mercy and grace—isn’t that what God’s all about?

“Thy steadfast love, O LORD, extends to the heavens, thy faithfulness to the clouds”( Psalm 36:5). Remind me of this, dear God, when I question Your love for and Your faithfulness to me. Amen.

Special-Tea: 2 Samuel 11:1–12:24

Famines, funerals, and families

. . . Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab, Boaz the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth, Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of King David. – Matthew 1:5–6 (NIV)

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. – Romans 8:28 (NIV)

Eleven hundred years before Jesus’ birth, there lived Bethlehem of Judea an Israelite named Elimelech. A famine struck the land, and Elimelech took his wife, Naomi, and two sons, Mihlon and Kilion, to Moab, a land east of the Dead Sea where grain was abundant.

Now Moab wasn’t on Israel’s friends list. In fact, they were bitter enemies. (For the whole sordid story, read Genesis 19:30–36, and Numbers 22–25.) But Moab was where the food was, so . . .

The sons took Moabite wives, Orpah and Ruth. In time Elimelech died. Then Mahlon and Kilion also died. All this in the span of a decade.

There were no career paths or jobs outside the home for women at that time. No Social Security, no IRAs. Unless she was well off, a widow faced a future of poverty and had to depend on the charity of relatives. Naomi, whose name means “pleasant,” determined it was time to return home, where the famine was finally over, and where her late husband had relatives. Orpah and Ruth would accompany her.

Along the way, however, Naomi realized her daughters-in-law’s plight: As Moabite widows living in Israel, they had little, if any, chance of ever remarrying. The “kinsman-redeemer” practice of levirate marriage, in which the widow marries her dead husband’s brother to produce a son in his name so the family line doesn’t die out, wouldn’t help them. Naomi was too old to have any more sons.

“Go back home,” she urged them. There they could remarry, have children, and not face a life of poverty.

Orpah, in tears, kissed Naomi goodbye and returned to her pagan homeland. But Ruth made a surprising choice.

“Don’t urge me to leave you,” she said. “Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the LORD deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but death separates you and me” (Ruth 1:16–17 NIV).

Naomi’s faithfulness to God while living in a heathen nation had made an impact on her daughters-in-law, whether she realized it or not. But now she wondered if this was how God rewarded faithfulness.

“Could this be Naomi?” the womenfolk exclaimed when she returned to Bethlehem.

“Don’t call me Naomi,” the grieving woman said. “Call me ‘Mara’ (Mara means bitter), for the Almighty has made my life very bitter. I went away full, but the LORD brought me back empty.”

You know the rest of the story. How Ruth “just happened” to glean in the fields belonging to a wealthy relative of her late father-in-law. How Boaz redeemed Elimelech’s inheritance, taking Ruth as his wife. And how Naomi’s life became full again when she bounced her new grandson, Obed, on her knee.

She didn’t know that this grandson would be an ancestor of the Promised Messiah. All she knew was that God had turned her mourning into dancing, her sorrow into joy—just like God.

According to tradition, the Field of Boaz, where Ruth gleaned after the harvesters, where Boaz first set eyes on Ruth, is the field where, eleven hundred years later, an angel appeared to shepherds and made a startling birth announcement. And the house where Boaz took Ruth to be his wife, a millennium later, was the site of a stable where a virgin from Nazareth gave birth to the Son of God.

Have you, like Naomi, cried out in the depths of grief, disappointment, and pain? “God, how could You let this happen? Haven’t I been faithful?”

Just wait. Like Naomi, God works in all things for your good (Romans 8:28). He will turn your bitter, crushing losses into joy unspeakable. He promised. And God always keeps His promises.

All you have to do is believe.

When disappointments and sorrows and trials come and linger, remind me, Dear Lord, of Your promise—that You will work ALL things for good. Amen.

Special-Tea: Ruth

Of prostitutes and promises

. . . Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab . . . – Matthew 1:5 (NIV)


. . . was not even Rahab the prostitute considered righteous for what she did when she gave lodging to the spies and sent them off in a different direction? – James 2:25 (NIV)


By faith the prostitute Rahab, because she welcomed the spies, was not killed with those who were disobedient. – Hebrews 11:31 (NIV)



The year: circa 1400 BC. The place: Jericho, the most fortified city in the land of Canaan.

Having served their sentence of 40 years in the wilderness, the Israelites were knocking at Jericho’s gates. Even though God’s chosen people were still on the other side of the Jordan River, the inhabitants of Jericho, 10,000 strong, were terrified. They’d heard all about how the Red Sea miraculously parted so the children of Israel could walk through on dry ground, and how the pursuing Egyptians drowned. They’d heard about how the Israelites, a fugitive nation with little or no military training, had annihilated the Amorite kingdoms of kings Sihon and Og.

And now, here they were, just across the river, poised to strike. Yep, the citizens of Jericho were shaking in their sandals.

But the Israelites didn’t know this. Not until Joshua, their leader, sent two spies to the city. It should come as no surprise that these men ended up in the house of the only person in Jericho who would protect them—a prostitute by the name of Rahab.

When the king sent his heavies to Rahab’s house to arrest the spies, she said they’d already left.

“If you hurry,” she told them, “you can catch up with them.”

Then she went up to the roof, where the spies were hiding under stalks of flax laid out for drying.

“I know that the LORD has given this land to you and that a great fear of you has fallen on us, so that all who live in this country are melting in fear because of you,” she said, adding that they’d heard what had happened at the Red Sea and to the two kings. “Everyone’s courage failed because of you, for the LORD your God is God of heaven above and on the earth below.”

Her words jogged their memory: “I will put the terror and fear of you on all the nations under heaven,” God had promised not too long before. “They will hear reports of you and will tremble and be in anguish because of you” (Deuteronomy 2:25 NIV).

Rahab then asked for protection for her and her family when they conquered the city. The spies promised, tying a scarlet cord in the window that would identify her house to the invading Israelites.

You know what happened. The walls of Jericho fell down flat, the Israelites conquered and burned the city, and Rahab and her family were saved.

But did you know that Rahab, the former harlot, married Salmon, who is believed to be the son of Caleb, one of the two spies who came back with a good report 40 years earlier? The union of their son Boaz and Ruth produced Obed, the grandfather of King David, an ancestor of Jesus the Messiah.

This is a story of faith and faithfulness: the remarkable faith of Rahab, which distinguished her for the future “Hall of Faith” (Hebrews 11), and the faithfulness of God, who always keeps His promises.

Take note: Jericho fell a few weeks after the flax was harvested—in March, the time of the Passover. The crimson blood of the Passover lamb represented a promise, a covenant, between God and the Israelites. The scarlet cord in Rahab’s window identified the one to whom a promise was made.

Fast forward 1,400 years, to the night one of Rahab’s descendants, a man named Jesus, held up a cup of wine, and proclaimed, “This is My blood of the new covenant . . .”

This blood, the blood of God’s only Son, fulfilled the promise He made at the dawn of civilization, when the sin of our first parents created a chasm between them, and hence all mankind, and a loving Creator.

If Rahab—a common prostitute who lived in a nation whose wickedness aroused God’s wrath and marked them for total destruction—could believe the promises of a God she’d only heard of at the risk of her life, how can we, who have God’s Word and His Spirit, not also believe?

Come, thou long-expected Jesus, born to set thy people free. From our fears and sins release us; let us find our rest in thee. Israel’s strength and consolation, hope of all the earth thou art. Dear desire of every nation, joy of every longing heart.*

*From “Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus,” by Charles Wesley.

Special-Tea: Joshua 2

Christmas joy

Dear Lord, I’m feeling down today,
The bills are stacked up high;
With Christmas just two weeks away,
Our bank account’s run dry.

The kids have all presented lists
Of things they want to see;
I hope and pray there’s nothing missed
Beneath our Christmas tree.

But I don’t have the money for
Expensive clothes and toys;
My credit card can’t take much more –
Lord, where’s my Christmas joy?

Perhaps it’s wrapped up in that hug
My daughter gave this morn;
Or stacked with wood my son did lug
To keep us nice and warm.

Perhaps it’s in my oldest’s eyes
When he comes home on break
And sees I’ve baked those pumpkin pies
He wanted me to make.

Perhaps it’s in the tired lines
Around my husband’s eyes.
Perhaps in love that’s grown with time
I’ve found the greater prize.

A friend who gives a hearty smile,
And cupboards that aren’t bare;
And, even if they aren’t in style,
I’ve got some clothes to wear.

A family who believes in me
In all things, great and small –
Dear God, I think I finally see
I am not poor at all.

- By Michele T. Huey

For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
- Matthew 6:21 (RSV)

Tamar's trump card

Judah the father of Perez and Zerah, whose mother was Tamar. ~ Matthew 1:3


Many are the plans in a man’s heart, but it is the LORD’s purpose that prevails. ~ Proverbs 19:21 (NIV)


One of the skeletons in Jesus’ genealogical closet was a woman by the name of Tamar, the Canaanite wife of Judah’s oldest son, Er.

At that time, the sons of Israel weren’t a nation yet. They were a bickering, jealous, scheming lot who sold their own brother into slavery. Judah’s was the line that would eventually produce the Messiah. You’d think it would be a line that was pure and noble, filled with brave men and women who did what was right.

Think again.

Now Judah’s son Er so wicked that God put him to death. Since he had no sons, his widow, Tamar, was given to his brother Onan, Judah’s second son. This was the custom back in those days to keep the family line going. Problem was, if Onan fathered a son, the boy wouldn’t legally be his—it would be his dead brother’s.

That didn’t go over too well with Onan. So he made sure he wouldn’t sire a child through Tamar. That didn’t go over too well with God, who zapped him, too.

“Live as a widow in your father’s house until my son Shelah grows up,” Judah told Tamar. But he had no intention of giving his remaining son to a woman who went through two of his offspring already.

Tamar did what she was told. She went to her father’s house and waited. And waited. And waited. Eventually she realized that she’d be a widow in her father’s house until the day she died if she waited for Judah to make good on his word. So she took matters into her own hands.

Disguising herself as a prostitute, she sat down by the roadside when she knew he’d be passing by. Her plan worked. Judah “hired” her.

“What will you give me?” she asked.

“A young goat from my flock,” he said.

“Will you give me something as a pledge until you send it?”

“What do you want?” he asked.

“Your seal and your cord and the staff in your hand.”

Without a thought he handed them over.

Shrewd of Tamar. Stupid of Judah. These items were the driver’s licenses and Social Security numbers of that day, used for identification.

When Judah sent a servant with the promised goat, he couldn’t find her.

“There hasn’t been any shrine prostitute here,” the men of the area told him.

“Ah, let her keep what she has,” Judah said when the servant reported back to him.

Three months later Judah learned Tamar was pregnant. Furious, indignant, he called for her to be burned to death. She played her trump card.

“See if you recognize whose seal and cord and staff these are,” she said. “I am pregnant by the man who owns them.”

Ever want to get away? I’m sure Judah did at that moment.

“She is more righteous than I, since I wouldn’t give her to my son Shelah,” he said.

One of the twin boys she bore, Perez, would be an ancestor of Jesus, the Messiah.

This isn’t a story of “all’s well that ends well.” Neither is it evidence that “the end justifies the means.” And don’t claim Romans 8:28—“all things work together for good.” “Good” isn’t “best.”

But to fulfill His promise, God used the only thing He had—flawed human beings who thought nothing of shirking their duty, going back on their word and obtaining what they wanted through deception and manipulation.

Human nature hasn’t changed. But what has changed is that now we can do something about it. For God “has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done, but because of his own purpose and grace” (2 Timothy 1:9 NIV).

And that’s a trump card in anybody’s hand.

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me! I once was lost, but now am found, was blind but now I see.* Thank you, thank you, thank you, Lord! Amen.

*From “Amazing Grace,” by John Newton (Public Domain)

Special-Tea: Genesis 38:6–30