“Yo’av sent a message to David reporting all the news concerning the war, and he instructed the messenger, ‘When you have finished telling the king all the news about the war, he may become angry and ask you, ‘Why did you get so close to the city to fight? Didn’t you know they would shoot from the wall? Didn’t you think about the person who struck Avimelekh, the son of Yerubeshet, that a woman threw an upper millstone down on him from the wall, so that he died at Tevetz? Why did you go so near the wall?’ If he says this, tell him, ‘Your servant Uriyah is dead also.’”-2 Samuel 11:18-21
So David’s dastardly objective has been achieved.
Uriyah is now dead.
However, he didn’t know it yet.
Yo’av, the instigator of David’s evil instructions, had yet to report the news.
He knew he had to be cautious in how he communicated what happened.
Why?
Because he didn’t follow David’s orders exactly.
David wanted to arrange things so that Uriyah and only Uriyah was killed during the battle.
Logistically, that was impossible.
There was no avoiding the fact that other soldiers would have to be sacrificed alongside Uriyah to cover up David’s sin.
Boy, what a mess, huh?
Joab was hoping beyond hope that David wouldn’t get angry and would understand that given the circumstances, he had taken the best, probably the only course of action possible, to achieve David’s objective.
However, just in case David did lose his cool, Joab told the messenger he was sending to emphasize that Uriyah was also killed in the battle.
Well, upon hearing the news, it turns out David did lose his temper.
He wondered from a tactical standpoint why Joab would do something so stupid as to order the soldiers to fight directly under the city walls where it was inevitable that deaths would result.
What I find sad about David’s anger was that it had nothing to do with feelings of guilt or remorse from what he had done to Uriyah.
He was ticked off because Joab hadn’t been precise in following his orders.
His response back to Joab was as cold as it was indifferent:
“Don’t let this matter get you down.
The sword devours in one way or another…..”
He was basically saying that during wartime…
As tragic as what happened was….
There was really nothing that could be done about it.
David too had to carefully word his response back to Joab.
He had to communicate that he understood why it was necessary for other soldiers to die.
But he also had to do it in a way that the messenger who was tasked with delivering David’s message would be none the wiser.
As a result, David’s message to Joab was filled with cold-blooded deceit…
It was all to cover up his sin and keep his reputation intact.
We’re going to see in the next chapter that David’s words are gonna back to haunt him in ways he couldn’t have imagined.
That’s what happens when you let unrepentant sin follow its natural course to destruction.
And that’s your takeaway for today.
When you’re more worried about looking clean than being clean…
You’re already in deep.
Sure, David got what he wanted…
But at what cost?
Innocent blood…
A hardened heart…
And a lie so cold it needed a body count.
Sin doesn’t just kill the target.
It takes out anyone in the blast radius.
Ya feel me?
And trust me…
What David tried to bury was about to dig itself back up.
See ya all next time.
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