Back to 2 Samuel 11

2 Samuel 11:4

David sent messengers, and took her; and she came in to him, and he lay with her (for she was purified from her uncleanness); and she returned to her house.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Parallel Translations

  • WEB World English Bible

    David sent messengers, and took her; and she came in to him, and he lay with her (for she was purified from her uncleanness); and she returned to her house.

  • KJV King James Version

    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.

  • JPS JPS Tanakh (1917)

    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.

View more translations →

Cross-references (9)

Passages linked to 2 Samuel 11:4 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.

  • Leviticus 18:19 “ ‘You shall not approach a woman to uncover her nakedness, as long as she is impure by her uncleanness.
  • James 1:14-15 But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own lust and enticed. Then the lust, when it has conceived, bears sin. The sin, when it is full grown, produces death.
  • Psalms 51:1-19 Have mercy on me, God, according to your loving kindness. According to the multitude of your tender mercies, blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity. Cleanse me from my sin. For I know my transgressions. My sin is constantly before me. Against you, and you only, I have sinned, and done that which is evil in your sight, so you may be proved right when you speak, and justified when you judge. Behold, I was born in iniquity. My mother conceived me in sin. Behold, you desire truth in the inward parts. You teach me wisdom in the inmost place. Purify me with hyssop, and I will be clean. Wash me, and I will be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness, that the bones which you have broken may rejoice. Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all of my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God. Renew a right spirit within me. Don’t throw me from your presence, and don’t take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation. Uphold me with a willing spirit. Then I will teach transgressors your ways. Sinners will be converted to you. Deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed, O God, the God of my salvation. My tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness. Lord, open my lips. My mouth will declare your praise. For you don’t delight in sacrifice, or else I would give it. You have no pleasure in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit. O God, you will not despise a broken and contrite heart. Do well in your good pleasure to Zion. Build the walls of Jerusalem. Then you will delight in the sacrifices of righteousness, in burnt offerings and in whole burnt offerings. Then they will offer bulls on your altar.
  • Leviticus 12:2-5 “Speak to the children of Israel, saying, ‘If a woman conceives, and bears a male child, then she shall be unclean seven days; as in the days of her monthly period she shall be unclean. In the eighth day the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised. She shall continue in the blood of purification thirty-three days. She shall not touch any holy thing, nor come into the sanctuary, until the days of her purifying are completed. But if she bears a female child, then she shall be unclean two weeks, as in her period; and she shall continue in the blood of purification sixty-six days.
  • Proverbs 30:20 “So is the way of an adulterous woman: She eats and wipes her mouth, and says, ‘I have done nothing wrong.’
  • Genesis 39:7 After these things, his master’s wife set her eyes on Joseph; and she said, “Lie with me.”
  • Leviticus 15:19-33 “ ‘If a woman has a discharge, and her discharge in her flesh is blood, she shall be in her impurity seven days. Whoever touches her shall be unclean until the evening. “ ‘Everything that she lies on in her impurity shall be unclean. Everything also that she sits on shall be unclean. Whoever touches her bed shall wash his clothes, and bathe himself in water, and be unclean until the evening. Whoever touches anything that she sits on shall wash his clothes, and bathe himself in water, and be unclean until the evening. If it is on the bed, or on anything she sits on, when he touches it, he shall be unclean until the evening. “ ‘If any man lies with her, and her monthly flow is on him, he shall be unclean seven days; and every bed he lies on shall be unclean. “ ‘If a woman has a discharge of her blood many days not in the time of her period, or if she has a discharge beyond the time of her period, all the days of the discharge of her uncleanness shall be as in the days of her period. She is unclean. Every bed she lies on all the days of her discharge shall be to her as the bed of her period. Everything she sits on shall be unclean, as the uncleanness of her period. Whoever touches these things shall be unclean, and shall wash his clothes and bathe himself in water, and be unclean until the evening. “ ‘But if she is cleansed of her discharge, then she shall count to herself seven days, and after that she shall be clean. On the eighth day she shall take two turtledoves, or two young pigeons, and bring them to the priest, to the door of the Tent of Meeting. The priest shall offer the one for a sin offering, and the other for a burnt offering; and the priest shall make atonement for her before Yahweh for the uncleanness of her discharge. “ ‘Thus you shall separate the children of Israel from their uncleanness, so they will not die in their uncleanness when they defile my tabernacle that is among them.’ ” This is the law of him who has a discharge, and of him who has an emission of semen, so that he is unclean by it; and of her who has her period, and of a man or woman who has a discharge, and of him who lies with her who is unclean.
  • Job 31:9-11 “If my heart has been enticed to a woman, and I have laid wait at my neighbor’s door, then let my wife grind for another, and let others sleep with her. For that would be a heinous crime. Yes, it would be an iniquity to be punished by the judges;
  • Psalms 50:18 When you saw a thief, you consented with him, and have participated with adulterers.

Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)

↑ Top

Explain this verse (14 sources)

Historical commentary, presented as a primary source — not an endorsement.

John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain 2Sa 11:4 And David sent messengers, and took her;…

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.

Read full note →

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.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain David sent and took her from her own house…
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain And David sent messengers,.... To invite her to his…
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain Took her - From her own house into his…
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 4. And she came in unto him] We…
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain 2Sa 11:4. David sent messengers and took her —…
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain Purified. Literally, "sanctified." Hebrew and Septuagint, "for she was,…
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain David sent messengers, and took her--The despotic kings of…
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 4. David sent messengers — So the king’s great…
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 4. David sent messengers] Bath-sheba cannot be acquitted from…
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (4) Sent messengers, and took her.—This does not imply…
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain David sent messengers, and took her. David"s fall seems…
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 took her
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 11:4 It is not clear whether Bathsheba came to…

↑ Top

Share