19 Aralık 2012 Çarşamba

Prophet David (According to the Old Testament)



Prophet David







·       “He made the husband killed to get his wife”

“It happened, late one afternoon, when David rose from his couch and was walking about on the roof of the king’s house that he saw from the roof a woman bathing; the woman was very beautiful. David sent someone to inquire about the woman. It was reported, ‘This is Bathsheba daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite. So David sent messengers to fetch her, and she came to him, and he lay with her. [1] (Now she was purifying herself after her period.) Then she returned to her house. The woman conceived; and she sent and told David, ‘I am pregnant. ’So David sent word to Joab, ‘Send me Uriah the Hittite.’ And Joab sent Uriah to David. When Uriah came to him, David asked how Joab and the people fared, and how the war was going. Then David said to Uriah, ‘Go down to your house, and wash your feet.’ Uriah went out of the king’s house, and there followed him a present from the king. But Uriah slept at the entrance of the king’s house with all the servants of his lord, and did not go down to his house. When they told David, ‘Uriah did not go down to his house’, David said to Uriah, ‘You have just come from a journey. Why did you not go down to your house?’ Uriah said to David, ‘The ark and Israel and Judah remain in booths; and my lord Joab and the servants of my lord are camping in the open field; shall I then go to my house, to eat and to drink, and to lie with my wife? As you live, and as your soul lives, I will not do such a thing.’ Then David said to Uriah, ‘Remain here today also, and tomorrow I will send you back.’ So Uriah remained in Jerusalem that day. On the next day, David invited him to eat and drink in his presence and made him drunk; ... In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab, and sent it by the hand of Uriah. In the letter he wrote, ‘Set Uriah in the forefront of the hardest fighting, and then draw back from him, so that he may be struck down and die.’ As Joab was besieging the city, he assigned Uriah to the place where he knew there were valiant warriors. The men of the city came out and fought with Joab; and some of the servants of David among the people fell. Uriah the Hittite was killed as well. … When the wife of Uriah heard that her husband was dead, she made lamentation for him. When the mourning was over, David sent and brought her to his house, and she became his wife, and bore him a son.”[2]

·      The Lord says David: “I will take your wives ... and give them to your neighbour”

“Why have you despised the word of the Lord, to do what is evil in his sight? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and have taken his wife to be your wife, …Thus says: I will raise up trouble against you from within your own house; and I will take your wives before your eyes, and give them to your neighbour, and he shall lie with your wives in the sight of this very sun. For you did it secretly; but I will do this thing before all Israel, and before the sun.’”[3]

·      About David: “He pretended to be mad”

“David … was very much afraid of King Achish of Gath. So he changed his behaviour before them; he pretended to be mad when in their presence. He scratched marks on the doors of the gate, and let his spittle run down his beard. Achish said to his servants, ‘Look, you see the man is mad; why then have you brought him to me? 15Do I lack madmen that you have brought this fellow to play the madman in my presence? Shall this fellow come into my house?”[4]

·      About David: “He is cold, to warm him…”

“King David was old and advanced in years; and although they covered him with clothes, he could not get warm. So his servants said to him, ‘Let a young virgin be sought for my lord the king, and let her wait on the king, and be his attendant; let her lie in your bosom, so that my lord the king may be warm.’ So they searched for a beautiful girl throughout all the territory of Israel, and found Abishag the Shunammite, and brought her to the king. The girl was very beautiful. She became the king’s attendant and served him, but the king did not know her sexually.” [5]


Yusuf Ulucan
Translation : H. Neslihan Demiriz



[1] There isn’t any information in Qur’an about this incident of David. However, some of the glossators correlate the adversaries who climbed over the wall of [his] prayer chamber [Sad (38): 21 – 24] with the above-mentioned one. In the same surah the judgment for two brothers, one of which has ninety-nine ewes and the other has only one ewe, is mentioned and the fact that afterwards David asks forgiveness is emphasized. Maududi wanted to look into the mistake of David which is told allusively in Qur’an (Tafhim-ul-Qur’an,. In brief Qur’an interpreters summarize the position of Davis as follows: after the death of his wife David might want to marry again but he didn’t attempt to kill someone to marry his wife. (Look: Hamidullah, Sacred Qur’an the fifth footnote the 21st ayah of Sad, Fakhr al-Din al-Razi, Innocence of Prophets)
[2] 2 Samuel: 11/2 – 27 (abridged). The child who was born from Bat, the wife of Uraih, died on the seventh day and then Solomon was born.
[3]2  Samuel: 12 / 9 – 12
[4] 1 Samuel: 21 / 12 – 15
[5] 1 Kings: 1 / 1 – 4)

Hiç yorum yok:

Yorum Gönder