2 Samuel 11:14

The next morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it with Uriah.

BSB

Parallel translations

4 additional translations

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KJV

And it came to pass in the morning, that David wrote a letter to Joab, and sent it by the hand of Uriah.

ASV

And it came to pass in the morning, that David wrote a letter to Joab, and sent it by the hand of Uriah.

YLT

And it cometh to pass in the morning, that David writeth a letter unto Joab, and sendeth by the hand of Uriah;

DBT

And it came to pass in the morning, that David wrote a letter to Joab, and sent it by Urijah.

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Commentary voices

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Voices5

On this verse

We have taken up the task of writing an apology for the present style of the prophet David, not because he needs this gift, who has excelled in such great merits and flourished in virtues, but because many people, reading the sequence of his deeds without considering the power of the Scriptures or the hidden mysteries, wonder how such a great prophet did not avoid the contagion of adultery first and then of murder. Therefore, it was our desire to review the history itself, which seems to have been exposed to sin.

Ambrose of Milan· Apology for the Prophet David, Chapter 1, 397patristic

Related commentary

Thus David, who in the judgment of Him who chose him was well pleasing to Him in almost all his deeds, as soon as the weight of pressure was removed, broke out into a swelling sore, and, having been as a laxly running one in his appetite for the woman, became as a cruelly hard one in the slaughter of the man; and he who had before known pitifully how to spare the bad learnt afterwards, without impediment of hesitation, to pant even for the death of the good.

Gregory the Dialogist· The Book of Pastoral Rule, Part 1, Chapter 3, 604patristic

And it came to pass in the morning,.... When David was informed that Uriah did not go to his own house, but slept with his servants, Satan put it into his head and heart to take the following wicked and cruel method: that David wrote a letter to Joab, and sent it by the hand of Uriah; to have him cut off by the sword of the enemy.

John Gill· Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763)reformed

David wrote a letter - This was the sum of treachery and villany. He made this most noble man the carrier of letters which prescribed the mode in which he was to be murdered. This case some have likened to that of Bellerophon, son of Glaucus, king of Ephyra, who being in the court of Proetus, king of the Argives, his queen Antia, or as others Sthenoboea, fell violently in love with him; but he, refusing to gratify her criminal passions, was in revenge accused by her to Proetus her husband, as having attempted to corrupt her.

Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible, 1832evangelical

Uriah cannot thus die alone: the party he commands is in danger of being cut off with him; and it proved so: some of the people, even the servants of David (so they are called, to aggravate David's sin in being so prodigal of their lives), fell with him,

Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710puritan

Voices on this verse

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Rabbinic commentary

How the Hebraic tradition has read this verse — and Marcus Brown’s own reading of it.

Cross-references

12 linked verses

The verses this one reaches12

1 Kings 21:8–10
Then Jezebel wrote letters in Ahab’s name, sealed them with his seal, and sent them to the elders and nobles who lived with Naboth in his city.
Jeremiah 17:9
The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?
Micah 7:3–5
Both hands are skilled at evil; the prince and the judge demand a bribe. When the powerful utters his evil desire, they all conspire together.
Psalms 52:2
Your tongue devises destruction like a sharpened razor, O worker of deceit.
Psalms 62:9
Lowborn men are but a vapor, the exalted but a lie. Weighed on the scale, they go up; together they are but a vapor.
Psalms 19:13
Keep Your servant also from willful sins; may they not rule over me. Then I will be blameless and cleansed of great transgression.
Jeremiah 9:1–4
Oh, that my head were a spring of water, and my eyes a fountain of tears! I would weep day and night over the slain daughter of my people.
Genesis 37:27
Come, let us sell him to the Ishmaelites and not lay a hand on him; for he is our brother, our own flesh.” And they agreed.
2 Samuel 14:19
So the king asked, “Is the hand of Joab behind all this?” The woman answered, “As surely as you live, my lord the king, no one can turn to the right or to the left from anything that my lord the king says. Yes, your servant Joab is the one who gave me orders; he told your maidservant exactly what to say.
2 Samuel 12:9
Why then have you despised the command of the LORD by doing evil in His sight? You put Uriah the Hittite to the sword and took his wife as your own, for you have slain him with the sword of the Ammonites.
1 Kings 21:14
Then they sent word to Jezebel: “Naboth has been stoned to death.”
Job 24:14
When daylight is gone, the murderer rises to kill the poor and needy; in the night he is like a thief.

Cross-references

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The quotation web

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Original language

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Around this verse

Rare words are the text's own signal of a deliberate thread — the fewer the occurrences, the more the places it appears belong together.

PersonUnited MonarchyDavidSecond king of united Israel, shepherd-turned-monarch, ancestor of the Messiah, and traditional author of many Psalms.

David Mourns the Death of Absalom — Gustave Doré, Doré's English Bible (1866), public domain

2 Samuel — David's reign in three movements — rise, fall, consequences — with the Davidic covenant (ch. 7) as the vertical spine down the centre. A covenant held through both rise and fall; a throne established for ever.

Canon: Old Testament
Author: Traditional: compilation by Nathan and Gad from Samuel's earlier records (1 Chr 29:29)
Date: Events c. 1010–970 BC; compilation during Solomon's early reign

The walk8

Where the connections lead

Follow this verse’s cross-references two steps out. Each card is a verse this one points to, and beneath it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several different paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first — the text keeps returning to it. Every stop shows its own words, and every stop is a page.

Through
Jeremiah 17:9
The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?
leads to
- Mark 7:21–22
  For from within the hearts of men come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery,
- Matthew 15:19
  For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, and slander.
- Ecclesiastes 9:3
  This is an evil in everything that is done under the sun: There is one fate for everyone. Furthermore, the hearts of men are full of evil and madness while they are alive, and…
- Proverbs 28:26
  He who trusts in himself is a fool, but one who walks in wisdom will be safe.
- Hebrews 3:12
  See to it, brothers, that none of you has a wicked heart of unbelief that turns away from the living God.
Through
Psalms 62:9
Lowborn men are but a vapor, the exalted but a lie. Weighed on the scale, they go up; together they are but a vapor.
leads to
- Psalms 39:5
  You, indeed, have made my days as handbreadths, and my lifetime as nothing before You. Truly each man at his best exists as but a breath. Selah
- Isaiah 40:15
  Surely the nations are like a drop in a bucket; they are considered a speck of dust on the scales; He lifts up the islands like fine dust.
- Isaiah 40:17
  All the nations are as nothing before Him; He regards them as nothingness and emptiness.

The whole web at once: see the Arc.

Where the connections lead

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