The Good Man Syndrome

At the end of one of Bishop Jakes’ sermons, Scandalous Grace, he said that he wanted to pray for Bathsheba. That’s because during his teaching he discussed her scandalous relationship and how he wished he could pray for her to do as David did which was to wash her face and get on with her life after the death of the son she’d conceived during their affair. But it was in that moment that I began to see her differently.

So many times, when we hear about their entanglement, we tend to focus on David’s unfaithfulness and lust for a beautiful woman while at the same time only seeing Bathsheba as the victim. As if she had no choice but to be with the king. But their affair wasn’t forced because if it was, we would then have to accuse David of rape. And clearly, we know that’s not the case which means Bathsheba wasn’t as innocent as we’d previously presumed.

Bathsheba was a married woman so I can understand that when the king summoned her to his palace that she assumed it was about business. What I can’t understand is that when the kings advances were perfectly clear and she knew that it wasn’t about business but that she’d been summoned to be on the kings business, I can’t understand why she stayed. The other thing I don’t understand is how, as a married wo