Uriah the Hittite
II SAMUEL 11:3-11
3 And David sent and enquired after the woman. And one said, Is not this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?
4 And David sent messengers, and took her; and she came in unto him, and he lay with her (the bible is using commonly understood euphemistic terminology here); for she was purified from her uncleanness (that is that she had gone past the time of the month that she was “unclean” – in other words, she was now in season to receive seed): and she returned unto her house.
5 And the woman conceived, and sent and told David, and said, I am with child. (David’s first thought was – “how to get out of this problem”, and so he came up with a humanistic plan like Adam and Eve did by trying to cover their sins by fig leaves, but the only think that would have worked would have been repentance)
6 ¶ And David sent to Joab, saying, Send me Uriah the Hittite. And Joab sent Uriah to David.
7 And when Uriah was come unto him, David demanded of him how Joab did, and how the people did, and how the war prospered.
8 And David said to Uriah, Go down to thy house, and wash thy feet (it was customary to wash your feet just before going to bed – so it is clear what is being suggested to Uriah here). And Uriah departed out of the king's house, and there followed him a mess of meat from the king.
9 But Uriah slept at the door of the king's house with all the servants of his lord, and went not down to his house. (Uriah is directly disobeying what the king had just commanded him to do, yet he was a great warrior and soldier that no doubt would have known the importance of following orders, especially orders from the highest authority of the nation, yet he was so convinced that his way of human pride and tradition was more important than to obey the king’s command. This is also why denominational people struggle to obey the light of the word for this hour – because of the hold that their tradition has over them)
10 And when they had told David, saying, Uriah went not down unto his house, David said unto Uriah, Camest thou not from thy journey? why then didst thou not go down unto thine house? (Look at the answer he gives)
11 And Uriah said unto David, The ark, and Israel, and Judah, abide in tents; and my lord Joab, and the servants of my lord, are encamped in the open fields; shall I then go into mine house, to eat and to drink, and to lie with my wife? as thou livest, and as thy soul liveth, I will not do this thing.
**It was traditionally accepted among some of these fighting men of that time not to be with their wives while conducting war – this had become like a tradition among some of them, it was like “see how dedicated I am to my nations and king” – I am so self-disciplined”. But self-discipline is not the same as the new birth, so when the word of the king challenged Uriah’s tradition, his tradition was so strong that he placed his tradition greater than the word and commandment of the king.
Uriah the Hittite
We have been looking at this subject of the first and second husbands of Ruth, Abigail and Bathsheba – and so in this service, we want to look a little closer at this character of Uriah, who is actually a type of our first fallen nature.
*Uriah the Hittite was Bathsheba’s first husband of which has been suggested by some scholars that they had not been married for very long – it has also been suggested that she had been “given” to him as like a reward for his gallant bravery in battle. His seemingly lack of interest to see his wife when the opportunity was offered suggests that his level of domestic interests concerning home and family were fairly low.
An interesting point to note – is that up to this stage there had been no fruit come from their first marriage union – life had not been conceived. We notice this is the same with Abigail and Nabal, and with Ruth’s and her husband also. For some reason, all their first husbands couldn’t produce life in them.
*Uriah (in contrast to Abigail’s first husband of whose character was of a very poor caliber), was almost like the complete opposite to Nabal, because Uriah was a man of whose character and behavior looked so good and upright in comparison to Nabal’s behavior – and so God chose these two opposing characters of both Bathsheba and Abagail’s first husbands to show us of our first fallen nature from both sides of the coin, because it is easy to see how that Nabal’s character is like the fallen nature of man (mean and arrogant and foolish) but it is much harder to see how that Uriah’s character also shows us another side of the fallen nature of man.
**And so for most people, this is much harder to see, because Uriah looks like he is the perfect man of moral uprightness of loyalty and comradeship to the brotherhood and to the cause, he looks like a much better man than David, and that maybe God should have chosen him as the king of Israel instead of David of who has seemed to have turned out a scallywag, and that is where the deception lays for many people.
Being an upright and moral person is no proof of the new birth, it is to do with a person being able to agree with the word, and this is where Uriah failed, he was unable to agree with the voice and instruction of the king – that is why our old nature has to die within us, because it can in no way agree with the word of the king.
*There was a way that seemed so upright to Uriah’s thinking that this event caused him to purposely choose to disobey the king’s commandment.
*This is the biggest flaw of man’s fallen nature – he is so sure that he knows what is right and what is best, even when the word of God tells him different.
PROVERBS 16:25
25 ¶ There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.
So in this story, we notice that it begins by showing us that it is taking place at evening time, of when we find this gentile woman (Bathsheba), and after being washed and sanctified, then by the invitation of a king and by her own consent, she finds herself involved in an invisible union at evening time, and she becomes pregnant – so this invisible union began to produce a life in her.
*But the problem was that her first husband was still living, a type of our first human nature of what we came into this world born with by default.
But then as the story continues, David sets about to arrange the death of Uriah so that he could then take Bathsheba to him to be his wife and become her second husband who would then have the rule over her. Notice – Bathsheba has nothing to do with her husband’s death. After she receives David’s seed, it was then David’s job to deal with her first husband.
*And so to the natural mind, it would seem like a paradox as to why this story would even be place in the bible, because these are the sort of things that you would never want written down for future generations to read about, but since the opening of the seven seal, we know for sure that beneath this story is a revelation that God has hidden specifically for this end time hour.
***When God opens up a deeper layer of the truth of His word, then the revelation of that truth will always challenge the traditional of what we had previously thought. This was the pattern throughout the seven church ages - when the word opened in a greater way, it challenged the traditional thinking of the previous group, and only those who could receive the new birth for their age could accept and walk in the new light.
**So with our human thinking, we would never have thought that the redemptive plan of God would be hidden under such an event of a story of such sinfulness and shame of the account of David’s sin with Bathsheba.
But this helps to explain so many things of our lives also, because there are many things that happen during our lifetime (of what we suffer and bring confusion to us) of which we question as to how God could ever be in such events of our lives. This is why we sing that song – “I’ll ask the reason, He’ll tell me why, when we talk it over, in the by and by”.
Uriah’s name in Hebrew = “God is my light” or “God is my flame” – the human nature needs to be exposed to the light of God. Some scholars suggest and identified the name Uriah as a Hebrew folk etymology of the Hurrian name Ariya. The name would then mean something like king or ruler.
Brother Branham speaks of how that your first husband had the rule over you – so this meaning fits with the revelation of a fallen nature husband that was the first one that ruled you – because the nature that you are born with is what rules you – that’s why we need a new nature by a new birth of the quickening of the faith of the word within us.
Uriah was one of David’s elite soldiers. He is named as one of the 37 mighty men of whom were known as David best fighters – 2nd Samuel 23:39. After naming all the 36 others by name in the previous verses, the last name is Uriah in verse 39 Uriah the Hittite: thirty and seven in all.
*This also explains why Uriah’s house was privileged to be so close to the palace of which David was able to view Bathsheba taking her bath, he had the privilege of his house being so close to the palace because of his position as one of David’s top warriors.
Then this is another side to the story, because the bible tells us that Bathsheba was very beautiful, and so this is also showing us a picture of fallen man’s human condition of weakness that our first birth under sin produced in our members that is working in direct opposition to the law of God that forbids relations with another man’s wife.
David becomes captivated and overcome by her beauty, and it affects his thinking in that his common sense is cast aside for the moment (this is why you cannot trust human chemistry, because under certain conditions, it can change the way a person thinks in the moment, just like a drunken person cannot think properly in the moment.
And so David here continues to seek for this woman Bathsheba, even after he learns that she is married and that her husband is his friend Uriah – even that doesn’t stop him – and so we see that there are many layers of truth that God has placed in this story.
It is suggested that both Uriah and Bathsheba were from the gentile Hittite ancestry that descended from Heth, the 2nd son of Canaan.
In 1959, Brother Branham speaks highly of Uriah, of the gallantness of his human spirit of how that his testimony meant something to him, and he called him a real man, and so we are cannot deny this – but then he preaches later on that obedience is better than sacrifice.
So from a human perspective, it looked like that Uriah was the good one and David was that bad one, and on a human level of thinking, that would stand to perfect reason.
Uriah’s character seem to reveal to us of what seems to look like the pinnacle of the human spirit of gallantness and bravery and loyalty, yet the bible tells us that it was David’s heart that was like the heart of God and not Uriah’s.
I SAMUEL 13:14
14 But now thy kingdom shall not continue (speaking of Saul): the LORD hath sought him a man after his own heart,
So it was David’s heart that was like the heart of God and not Uriah’s, yet Uriah looked like the much better man in the story, but God looks at different, because God looks at the heart. David had a quality that he was able to repent and obey God, and this is where Uriah failed.
I SAMUEL 16:6-7
6 ¶ And it came to pass, when they were come, that he looked on Eliab, and said, Surely the LORD'S anointed is before him.
7 But the LORD said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for the LORD seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart.
AS.I.THOUGHT.ON.MY.WAYS_ CHAUTAUQUA.OH FRIDAY_ 59-0814
E-37 And when David begin to think on his ways, that he'd taken that lovely friend of his, Uriah, took the pretty Bathsheba, his wife. And she was then to be mother. And tried to get him to come in and live with his wife so he could lay it on to her, that it was his baby. Or lay it, say it was Uriah's child.
But Uriah, that gallant soldier, being yet only a proselyte... (Notice - Brother Branham is speaking of Uriah’s gallant human spirit) He was a Gentile, a Hittite. But he said, "God forbid me to go down with my wife, and the ark of my God on the battlefield."
When I cross the line between this life and that one there, I want to shake Uriah's hand. He was a real man.
So Uriah was a real man no doubt of what the human spirit was capable of reaching, and humanity praises this, but when it came to Uriah obeying the commandment of the king, then he placed his own human gallantness and love of the traditions of man above his obedience to the word of the king, and this is the angle that we are looking at this story from, because it was his tradition of what he thought of as being loyal to the group thinking that cause him to reject the word of the king.
In other words, he placed his own traditional thinking above the commandment of the king’s word.
**David had been established as king by God himself, before Bathsheba came along, he had already acquired 7 wives of the ones that the bible named, and so this gentile woman Bathsheba would become his 8th wife of whom would produce the promised son Solomon of whom is a type of Christ in the Millennium.
II SAMUEL 7:10-17 (Back track to what God had promised David and his son Solomon…)
10 Moreover I will appoint a place for my people Israel, and will plant them, that they may dwell in a place of their own, and move no more; neither shall the children of wickedness afflict them any more, as beforetime,
11 And as since the time that I commanded judges to be over my people Israel, and have caused thee to rest from all thine enemies. Also the LORD telleth thee that he will make thee an house.
12 And when thy days be fulfilled, and thou shalt sleep with thy fathers, I will set up thy seed after thee, which shall proceed out of thy bowels, and I will establish his kingdom.
13 He shall build an house for my name, and I will stablish the throne of his kingdom for ever. (Remember, if David and Bathsheba had died as a result of their adulterous act, then Solomon would have never been born and the scripture would have failed, and that is impossible, so God had to make a way for David by his mercy, and so the life of the son of David (a type of Christ) was taken in his place)
14 I will be his father, and he shall be my son. If he commit iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men, and with the stripes of the children of men:
15 But my mercy shall not depart away from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away before thee.
16 And thine house and thy kingdom shall be established for ever before thee: thy throne shall be established for ever.
17 According to all these words, and according to all this vision, so did Nathan speak unto David.