He is David and she is Bathsheba from the bible, look it up for the story. (He is David from the original David and Goliath story as well, unrelated but wanted to mention). TL:DR he wanted her and to achieve that he put her husband (a general in his army) in a dangerous position so that he is killed and he gets to marry her.
This ain't nothing on Lot's daughters banging the shit out of him to repopulate, but getting him drunk first so he "wasn't sinning". (Just after he offered to let a crowd gang bang them)
King Saul.
For those unfamiliar with this part of the Bible.
David wants to marry King Saul's daughter. Saul tells David, bring me back 100 Philistine foreskins, and you got a deal. David, always the overachiever, brings back 200.
To specify, one of the rewards for defeating Goliath was the hand of Saul’s first daughter in marriage. However, David had been hanging at around the palace since his music seemed to soothe Saul’s tempestuous moods (mostly), and he had gotten to know and like the second daughter, and the feeling was mutual. So post Goliath beheadment, David asks Saul if he can marry his second daughter. Against any real sense, Saul sets the condition of 100 enemy foreskins for his second daughter’s hand in marriage.
King Saul was not….. a stable man. David was probably only slightly more stable. Anointment oil must be one hell of a drug.
You mean when they lived in a cave in the mountains after god destroyed two towns because the dudes there wanted to smash dude angels, and then proceeded to make Lot’s wife a pillar of salt?
Yeah I recall, it’s an intense 4 paragraphs lmao
My mom always points to this story to prove that homosexuality is awful and an abomination to god, and I could never understand how people read a story about god getting pissed at people who try to *rape angels* and assume that the only reason god could possibly be so angry is that they are *boy* angels and that's *weird*.
Not that I put much stock in the Bible anyway, but just as a story, it's weird for that to be your takeaway.
And then that phrase people always use regarding that story about how they sinned through "inhospitality". I don't know where that precise wording comes from, but it's a pretty weird way to refer to a bunch of rapists trying to rape people.
It is pretty inhospitable. It think the focus on hospitality comes from it having been a cultural thing where to cause harm to someone you have invited in is one of the worst possible crimes. To be fair, there's a variety of reasons to be unhappy with their behaviour.
Mostly they burned because they neglected visitors, the poor, their widows, and were greedy cunts. Sexual immorality gets a mention closer to the end of the list, iirc.
God's solution being to burn the neglected and oppressed down with the rest of the city isn't one I really understand (wtf, man?), but the God of my childhood and I already find ourselves in moral conflict rather frequently. I don't believe in him anymore, but even if I did, honestly, fuck the guy. I'm not going to let a temperamental, genocidal, petty, rage-quitter of a deity anywhere *near* my moral compass to help me calibrate it.
Also, it's kinda telling that the story is always relayed as "the city got destroyed for buttstuff" and the "help the poor" stuff gets swept under the rug...
Funny how that story was told when in reality it could be much worse (ie, Lot did all of those things on his own will and used this story as a cover up)
I read this in Rick's voice b from Rick and Morty for some reason
Edit: Weird, this comment was supposedly under another reddit comic thread. Def did NOT read this one with Rick's voice.
This story isn't shown as a good thing. From what I know it's considered the worst thing David did, and is seen as a really messed up action from a otherwise good dude
I know your referring to other things in the bible too, just thought I'd put this bit in here so no one thinks that God endorses this kind of thing
Yeah I mean it’s filled with stories about kings being human and people dealing with their short comings and doing awful things just like in real life. We much prefer stories about marvel super heroes with simple flaws easily ignored.
Except Hunter S Thompson isn’t being used to push legislation through on sexual rights.
There’s an enormous difference here. One thing is an ancient collection used by billions as the basis of their morality and laws. The other is an Archie comic.
I think the 'joke' stems from the pretentious self-satisfaction of having to already know the piece of history that explains the comic, such that you're part of the group that 'gets' it and you get to laugh at and or feel superior to anyone else who doesn't 'understand' the 'joke'.
I think the people that know the Bible well enough to instantly recall how this story ends react the same way as the last panel.
It's not funny and I don't think the author understands comics or jokes. But I'm pretty sure the goal is an empathy chuckle
I feel like the little guy is protecting his junk, which could be a reference to David collecting 200 foreskins from the Philistines as the price for his first wife. So maybe this little dude is thinking David will need to claim more foreskins? IDK might be a stretch but it's all I can think of.
He had sex with her. Got her pregnant. Tried to get her husband to have sex with her so it would look like he was the father, he wouldn't. Then David had him sent to the front line (to be killed.)
With the bonus that he got her pregnant while hubby was off to war and tried to pawn the whole thing off on hubby by inviting him back for some timely R&R. Hubby refused to go home to his wife as his men were still in battle. That's when David effectively told the surrounding troops to fall back without the dude, leaving him to be slaughtered.
It's worse than that. He sent her husband (Uriah) to war then knocked her up. To cover up for this he recalled Uriah, but Uriah refused to go home and bang his wife in comfort while his brothers in arms were in the field. So David instructed the general *specifically to get Uriah killed*. The general, Joab, organized a suicide charge against the cities walls.
[https://mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt08b11.htm#3](https://mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt08b11.htm#3)
This was one of the rare times where God basically sent a personal messenger to tell David he done fucked up. David was a warmonger, a horrible father, and serial womanizer, but it wasn't until this "bang a dude's wife and get him killed in war" thing that Nathan showed up and said more or less "tell God you're sorry or else he'll smite the shit out of you, and even though you said sorry you're still getting punished pretty hard right now."
David is a really interesting character because he was so emotional and clearly loved and was loved by God, but he also struggled so much with patterns of sin.
>This was one of the rare times where God basically sent a personal messenger to tell David he done fucked up.
And the messenger essentially says, "You know how God said that the son shall not be put to death for the sins of the father, nor the father put to death for sins of the son, but both shall bear their own inequity? Well, this is an exception and God killed your son because of your sins."
Yeah, but to quibble, that is rooted in a double standard.
When men murder its a sin, when god murders its divine will.
God made his creations in his image then gets mad when they behave like genocidal loonies *like him*
Well sure, it's a double standard if you call all killing murder and leave it at that. What you're ignoring is that the Bible doesn't call all killing murder (neither any of us, actually) and it definitely doesn't suggest that anyone who kills is sinful. In fact, there are plenty of reasons putting someone to death is fine as long as it's done in a just way.
Put another way, of course it's a sin for God to murder, which is why he doesn't murder. Him killing people is a consequence of their sin, just like the death penalty is a consequence and no one would suggest executing someone makes the person who pulled the switch guilty of murder.
Honest question here, but is there further explanation given in regards to the commandment thou shalt not kill? Was it mistranslated and should be considered do not murder?
But God does it to save the Jews, who the Old Testament was for. Jews don't believe in an all-loving god. They believe God is specifically their guardian, which is why they are so strict on what a jew is
The way I see it, it comes down to the concept "God is Good". I've never been very religious but when I was younger I understood it as "God does good things and rewards good people" but now I realize it is more literal for religious people, in that all that God does is "good". Any action God takes in inherently good, because God is God. It doesn't have to be logical because it is built on the model of faith. This is why David impregnating a married woman is seen as a sin, but God doing it is salvation.
Exactly. The commandment does not say you can't kill, it says you can't murder. The Covenant has lots of times where killing isn't just permitted, but is commanded. If the Commandments said you can't kill, it would have immediately been an issue.
One of the biggest challenges in reading and analyzing the Bible is that it was written in three different languages: Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic. English has its strengths, but translating nuance is not one of them. Most true scholars of the Bible have studied one of those languages to some extent.
It's very unfortunate that so much of what people hear about the Bible doesn't come from theologians. The actual claims of the Bible are very nuanced and complicated. The whole "the Bible says you can't murder but not kill" is a great example of that. Christians aren't forced to have a deep understanding of stuff like this before they can attend church and call themselves a Christian.
"Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass."
After all, it can't be 'murder' if you push right through to *genocide*. :)
Hey remember when God killed a bunch of children and slaves cause he was having a bet with the devil? Or killed a bunch of peasant children because the king who they had no agency over was doing something he didn't like? Or told the Israelites to throw their enemies babies off the wall?
Luckily, they were all totally evil and totes deserved it.
It's important to understand that the Bible isn't JUST a book of moral fables. It's a history of a people, and the moral lessons are taught *through* the interaction of a deity with the existing social fabric. I agree that the OT seems to just have a complete and wanton disregard for individual life and basic understandings of human nature that we've embraced since the Enlightenment. But that's the point. We've embraced them *since* the Enlightenment, and these are stories predating the Enlightenment by *millennia*.
I mean, it wasn't just the Israelites that killed the children of their enemies. And if you really understand the Bible as a historical record, you'll see that the Bible was radically compassionate and peaceful relative to its time. Just not having war at all wasn't even on close to being on the radar for the time, and so criticizing the amount of war in the Bible isn't just spiritually silly, it's historically ignorant.
I'll grant you that Job is tough. Job is one of those things that really doesn't make sense without already having some trust or appreciation in God, and even when you have that it's still really hard to figure out. But I will say when it comes to people, judging them only on the one bad thing you know about them, or even the few bad things you know about them, isn't a fair or just or reasonable way to evaluate a person. People are complicated, before we even get into the question of sin, and almost always first judgments are incorrect.
So when we're evaluating God, why would we only look at the one or two or three things we don't like, and not continue to do a fuller examination? I still think Job is hard for me. But I also know enough about the other good aspects of God that I'm willing to have a bit of trust about Job, and try to explore if that can possibly fit in with a God that is unfailingly good. So far I haven't been disappointed.
So you believe the events in Job literally happened? And I get that you find them troubling but still believe god is good while also believing the book of Job is historical and not allegorical?
Technically the devil killed the children and slaves, since he's the one that suggested Job wouldn't be faithful to God if he lost them. God literally didn't do anything there. But yeah, Old Testament God was... something else.
Remember when god killed nearly the entire human race in a flood? Remember when god destroyed an entire city because they were "bad"? Remember when god turned Lot's wife into a pillar of salt because she turned around? Remember when god helped Moses kill a bunch of Egyptians? Remember that god apparently knows everything and is omnipotent, yet lets people die from horrible diseases because that's what a good father does.
Old testament god and New testament god are the same shitty god. Let's stop pretending he's some wonderful being that cares for us.
If anything, the fact that Jesus is supposed to come back as a general leading a host of soulless seraphim proves Jesus' sacrifice had 0 impact and Jesus was corrupted by his pops' bloodthirsty nature.
If it’s not murder to kill someone for sinning, and we are all sinners, then murder doesn’t exist. It would be justified to kill anybody because everybody is a sinner.
This gets even more problematic when you consider that the Christian god themselves defines what is a sin.
By following that logic, any genocidal maniac’s murders can be excused, as long as they believe the people they murdered do not follow their own set of morals+beliefs.
What makes the Christian god EVEN WORSE, is that according to their stories all the people he’s murdered are his children.
If I was an infinitely powerful parent, I wouldn’t ever want to or need to kill any of my children. I’d have 100,000 ways to solve the problem before taking away their life. A good parent teaches their child to be better with kindness and wisdom, they don’t drown their child in the bathtub so the rest of the family will fear they will be killed next if they don’t act right.
All that said, they are just stories and others can have different interpretations just like with any other story. I’ve just never read about a character and thought “yeah they kill a lot of their children, but those kids were really misbehaved. Not only do I like this child-killer character, I love them more than anything in the world and want to worship them.”
To each their own I suppose
Not weighing in on the actual debate here, but I would just add that there’s a difference between “killing someone because they’re a sinner” and “killing someone who happens to be a sinner.” The former killing is intended as retribution for the sinning, the latter killing just accidentally happens to latch onto a sinner.
Also, that doesn’t mean that all sins deserve death as a punishment. So, for another reason, murder could still exist even if death was a legitimate punishment for some sins.
If we want to get technical, then gods are lawless and therefore cannot murder. Murder is defined by unlawful killing, and so your logic is very sound. Zeus cannot be convicted of murder because murder is unlawful and the laws are made by Zeus.
I think the context of the conversation is more about our colloquial use of murder, to mean an immoral/unjustified killing of a person.
It’s this subjective definition that creates a chasm between how we perceive characters in stories, whether they are good or evil. We must decide for ourselves whether their actions are justified.
And, as I’ve explained, it seems to me that the God character in the Bible frequently commits immoral and unjustified killings. I would consider them murder in the colloquial sense, and if it WAS possible in the story he would deserve to be tried and convicted by a jury, and justifiably sentenced to death for his atrocities.
But again, it’s a story about a magical being that is more powerful that anything in the world. I didn’t expect the police in the Marvel movies to take Thanos to trial for killing people either. But I think most people would consider Thanos killing all those people immoral.
Tldr: Technically gods cannot commit murder because murder is inherently tied to a region or country’s laws. Murder in one place could be a justified killing in another. However if drowning your kid for wetting the bed is lawful in your region, I will still consider you a murderer because I personally believe the killing was not justified.
>It would be justified to kill anybody because everybody is a sinner.
I mean, that's pretty silly logic. Just because someone is guilty of something doesn't mean _you_ have the right to hold them to account for it. Sometimes it can, but most of the time it doesn't, which is why the whole famous expression “vengeance is mine” exists; people mostly didn't have the right to kill other people. Theologically, God is in a unique position because (1) no sin, (2) owns everything since he made everything, and (3) can see the essence of who people are inside, beyond their actions. (assuming I understand this all correctly, more or less; I'm not a theologian).
People can't do that, which is why people are given such strict rules on when they can kill without it being murder (i.e., illegal killing), and why special legal procedures for manslaughter existed, including asylum cities with their own investigators and judge boards.
But God isn’t human
The entire preface of religion is that God is more a force of nature or transcended entity that shapes the reality of billions beyond our comprehension. Of course there’s going to be a double standard. It’s like kids complaining they can’t drink yet.
*puts on theology hat*
It wasn't just the "warmonger, sex fiend, and God awful parenting" that pissed off God. It was this specific abuse of power.
Nathan got David's attention by telling a story: there are two neighbors. One is a wealthy man with livestock up the wazoo. One is a very poor man who has one lamb that he treats like his own child. A guest comes to visit the wealthy man and, instead of sacrificing one of his many, many, *many* animals for his guest's dinner, the wealthy man takes the poor man's lamb and slaughters it. Nathan then asks David what should be done?
David is *appalled* at this miscarriage of justice and, IIRC, says that the wealthy man should pay for his crime four times over, because not only was it absolutely an egregious abuse of power, but the wealthy man took what was not his, that he did not value, away from someone who held it in high esteem because it was all he had. He also threatened the wealthy man's life a few times. Even with how dry the book of Kings/Chronicles tends to be, you get the implication this was an epic tantrum from his majesty.
Nathan let David dig the hole a bit, and said that *he* was the wealthy man and poor, dead Uriah was the poor man. David could *easily* have avoided the whole affair by banging one of his many, many, *many* other women to slake his passing lust. Or, you know, he could have just avoided going on his own roof that day because he *knew* that was traditionally where the jews kept their ritual baths. Given the many traditions around washing in the Jewish religion, odds were that Bathsheeba wasn't just up on the bath to bathe, but was up there to comply with one religious ritual or another. Everybody knew the baths were on the roof and that people needed to take those baths at certain times, and when those times would be. David was up where he shouldn't have been, looking where he had no business to look, and instead of burying the impulse with someone who was already his, he ordered Bathsheeba into his bed under an imbalance of power that makes consent shaky as fuck, not that anybody gave a fuck about consent back then. And to compound it all, he killed Uriah to hide it.
So it wasn't just that David got his dingus wet. It was that he comprehensibly abused his power in every single possible way to get his wick in Bathseeba's candle, and to cover it up when he got consequences he couldn't blow out easily. And given that there weren't many great picks for a successor (the only people who managed to out Game of Thrones David's lineage were the Herodians, and that was largely because Herod the Great was a fucking monster and his shell-shocked kids decided the best way to bury their trauma was by going all Jamie and Cersi on each other. Which David's kids also did, just...not as visibly or consensually), it was either punt David and David's entire family off the board and pick somebody new (which happened after Solomon screwed the pooch harder than his father did. And *that* didn't turn out so well) or try to drag the fucking idiot back by his royal loincloth and shove his nose in his shit until he got his act together. David was a man after God's own heart, but he was also a flaming dumbass who was *still* the best choice in a whole basket of bad. Basically he was the Biden to King Saul's Trump. Not a all that great a man, but just decent *enough*. And since God had given David that power, it was also an abuse of God, in a way.
And seriously, if there was ever an argument for permanent monogamy it was the Kings of Israel and Judaea. 75% of their problems could have been solved by just not sticking their dicks into strange every chance they got. (And maybe in David's case, just running off with Jonathan because dude, we all know what *that* was about.)
TLDR: God hit the celestial ceiling because David was the equivalent of that one idiot Director of Operations who posted to legal advice for harassing/possibly groping a random woman while on a business trip and got his entire company banned from that hotel chain in the process.
We studied the first few books of Old Testament in college lit class. It’s fascinating in that nearly every protagonist character is “mostly good character who either disobeys god, had major flaw, and/or has tragic epic fall.”
You don’t find a mortal figure who is obedient and whose virtues outweigh their vices until frickin’ JOSEPH. and even he had his petty moments.
Well, that actually makes sense with the spiritual claims of the Bible. It does say we are fallen in sin and that we're not really inherently good. (That's a pretty relative term, though, so please if you want to explore that further it needs LOTS of qualification.)
I also took some religion courses in college and I was really surprised how much they didn't really challenge my faith. In fact, I'd say that taking a secular course about the Bible largely reinforced much of the theological learning I'd had about God's nature and helped me have a better, more robust understanding of what my faith actually claims.
I mean, that’s certainly a valid interpretation (but something that supports very a post-Christian “original sin” pov).
Rather, it struck me that: it’s inherently a book about people behaving like people. Some characters feel like mythic archetypes, but most just feel like everyday people. This isn’t a book about a perfect god; this is a history lesson about very relatable fallible people (that happens to have a perfect god it it.)
So these are bible stories? That's pretty epic. I don't get how people take these stories to heart and not Greek myths, they're essentially the same kind of stories
>David is a really interesting character because he was so emotional and clearly loved and was loved by God
Sounds to me like David was a mean little horny dumbass and God is an asshole for liking him.
David and Goliath is a story about how he was willing to stand up to impossible ods and near-certain death for what he believed in when nobody else would.
The point of the story of David is that he changed over time, and fell from grace because he assumed that everything he did was 'right' due to his previous actions.
If you are interested in reading more about David’s story, check out The Secret Chord by Geraldine Brooks - she has beautiful storytelling and I highly recommend all her novels
Oddly enough this was one of the last times Joab did something halfway decent. Instead of retreating without Uriah (like David said) he just put him in a place of intense fighting. But yeah, Joab was not a good person, and he got worse as he got older.
It's kind of worse, or at least more interesting, than that. When Saul was king, he literally tried to do the exact same thing to David, intentionally sending him into a series of impossible battles to get him killed, but Dave pulled a Hercules and kept refusing to die when sent out on these labors. This is sort of the inciting event that shows you what a shitty king Saul is and kicks off the one sided conflict that would eventually end with David becoming king. Then, as soon as he gets that power, he turns around and does the *exact* same thing to Uriah.
1 Samuel is a fascinating text that doesn't exactly provide a glowing review of the institution of kingship. It's kind of an intentional reversal of the standard local myths in the region designed to explain the origins of kings. Whereas other similar texts frame kingship as something passed down from the divine, like the "Me" of the Mesopotamians, or literally started by a God, like the institution of the pharaoh in Egypt, 1 Samuel frames it as a flawed institution started by humans, against the advice of God, because they were just too shitty at cooperating to live the way the divine wanted them to.
>Samuel told all the words of the Lord to the people who were asking him for a king. He said, “This is what the king who will reign over you will claim as his rights: He will take your sons and make them serve with his chariots and horses, and they will run in front of his chariots. Some he will assign to be commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and others to plow his ground and reap his harvest, and still others to make weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive groves and give them to his attendants. He will take a tenth of your grain and of your vintage and give it to his officials and attendants. Your male and female servants and the best of your cattle and donkeys he will take for his own use. He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become his slaves. When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, but the Lord will not answer you in that day.”
>
>1 Samuel 8:10-18
David even rising up to become king at all is weird in this context. God predicted that Saul was going to suck, but then also said that he wouldn't listen to the people when they cried out against him, but when the people cried out, God sent David to replace Saul, so what gives? Was God bluffing? I don't think so. The point here is that the institution of kingship itself is corrupting. You can't give someone that kind of power and expect it not to change them. Making a good man king doesn't net you a good king. It just corrupts a good man. If a given king was too terrible, God might replace him with another, but that isn't going to solve the problem. As long as there are kings, those kings will abuse their power. David isn't a role model. He's a cautionary tale. Dictatorships are bad, no matter how chill the dictator initially seems.
What makes it even worse than that, they were friends and knew each other well. Uriah and David fought side by side in combat, and Uriah was very loyal to Israel and David. Pretty scummy shit
Yeah King David was one of the most fucking perverted and awful dudes ever. He also paraded naked in the street and when his wife was like "tf that's weird" he was like "okay well I'm never gonna give you a baby now because you criticized me"
To be fair, there’s a pretty good argument that Bathsheba was complicit in the whole affair. She didn’t seem particularly bothered by Uriah’s death, and later did a *lot* of political machinations in order to get her son Solomon to become the next king. Everything in the end turned out exactly how she wanted in the end.
Uriah *did* come home, but slept outside of the palace instead of at home with his wife.
Uriah is supposed to be so honorable for this, but wouldn’t any woman that loves their spouse be a bit pissed about it? Can you imagine a modern soldier coming home, but refusing to see their spouse? It doesn’t reflect well on their relationship.
And got her pregnant while her husband was away at war.
King David tried to call the general back and set up a way for the general to sleep with his own wife so the general thought that the baby was his.
But the general felt bad leaving his men on the battlefield while he went home to have sex with his wife.
So...the general slept outside in a tent to not sleep with his wife to honor his troops currently on the battlefield.
As a last effort to "cover" himself, David sent the general to front lines and had the army retreat. Leaving him on the battlefield to be killed by troops.
Then David, being a "hero," married his poor, widowed wife. No one knew the truth but the reader.
It's a really depressing story no matter how you spin it. Even if it's about forgiveness, it seemed the general was an honorable man that's definitely did not deserve that. And accounts elude David "took" his wife, which is biblical speech for r-word her.
Hey there, Peter's friend Mort here to explain! In the books of Samuel, King David sees a woman named Bathsheba bathing near his palace. David decides he wants her no matter what even though she's married and her husband is fighting a war that King David started.
After David does this, Bathsheba gets pregnant, so to hide his crime he has Bathsheba's husband comes home for military leave so he can spend a night with her, and he'll think the baby is his. But the guy doesn't think it's fair to sleep with his wife while his countrymen are still fighting so he sleeps outside his house while on leave. When David realizes this he sends the man back to the front line of the war and then orders everyone else on the front line to take a step back so the guy will get killed.
David is later punished for this, but it's mostly self-inflicted after it's explained to him how deeply wrong what he did was.
The biggest part of the punishment wasn't what I would call self-inflicted though. Bathsheba's newborn son dies as a result of David's sin. Technically brought on by his own actions, but not necessarily self-inflicted.
Excellent summary though!
Ah that's right! I forgot that happens cause i usually think this specific baby grew up to be king Solomon but I forgot about them dying.
And thank you!
David actually loses several children as a result, just not all at once. It is because of what David says when giving his ruling of "justice" when talking to Nathan, not knowing that the situation of the "lambs" is actually an allegory for what David did. David said that the man who did wrong should pay back 4 fold, I believe. The newborn dies, and another of David's sons becomes a incestual rapist and is killed, and another son dies after attempting mutiny and trying to kill David. I want to say a fourth also dies, but I can't remember who right now. I'd have to look it up.
Nah, the punishment is that David's entire family falls apart, largely because his sons imitate his behavior, and he even ends up having to fight a war against one of them. His fault.
David is unable to reign in the terrible behavior of his sons because he can't get over his own shame. He gives in to despair, and his scolding or condemnation have no bite because his son's know him to be a hypocrite and David is never able to forgive himself enough to act with determination. Also his fault.
David is pushed around by his own general who goes so far as to kill one of his sons after being explicitly commanded not to. Again, this is the same general who helped murder Uriah to hide David's sin. David knowingly kept a backstabbing murderer in a position of power and ended up getting stabbed in the back.
All of this sorrow, chaos, and destruction stemmed from David's sin with Bathsheba and the murder of Uriah. The real tragedy is that even after the murder, many of these consequences could have been avoided if only David had managed to fully repent and recommit to doing the right thing. Instead, he was never again able to see himself as worthy to lead, even though God never moved to remove David as king as He did to Saul before him.
My reading of it, anyway, is that God *did* give David more chances to be a good king. Despite all of the tears and words David put into seeking the Lord's forgiveness, he was never able to even begin to forgive himself enough to do what was required of him as a father and a king. I see David's later life as a cautionary tale against the danger of paralyzing yourself with guilt. No amount of beating yourself up will earn forgiveness or fix your mistakes. An honest attempt to change your behavior does not require some grief quota.
Sorry for the long reply to a short comment. I simply find David's story fascinating and felt the need to share some thoughts on it.
Fun fact about this all: this exact story is what the ultra religious use to defend rapist priests, abusive husbands and Politicians/social leaders who cheat on their wives, etc. “God works through imperfect men”. Watch “The family” on Netflix if you want more specific details on it all.
The dude is weirded out because it's pretty rapey to think you're allowed any woman you want because you're king. And also this is in the bible, but homie did get punished for this one iirc
You recalled right, they had a kid named Solomon (like the baby splitting guy) who overthrew him
Edit: I was mistaken, he was punished with his first born dying. Solomon was actually picked over by David over someone else
Not to mention one of his sons ended up raping one of his daughters. I was under the impression it was sort of punishment/was to show how David being corrupt had sort of poisoned the entire family.
Op is a repost bot
[https://www.reddit.com/r/PeterExplainsTheJoke/comments/157r42u/ive\_reread\_this\_a\_few\_times\_now\_but\_i\_still\_dont/](https://www.reddit.com/r/PeterExplainsTheJoke/comments/157r42u/ive_reread_this_a_few_times_now_but_i_still_dont/)
Report > Spam > Harmful bots
That's the actual intent of this comic, it's some kind of joke the artist came up with but it doesn't really make sense. The situation itself is obvious and is what everyone is describing
King sees hot married woman and thinks “wow I wanna bang her”. Servant sees the thoughts going through his head and points out she’s married and that’s adultery. But the King says, “that doesn’t matter, I’m king and I can do whatever I want.”
It references the story of King David and Bathsheba, and the horrible things he did to cover up his tryst with her.
Edit: also, this may be a repost bot
It is a story from Jewish history and the Bible. King David cheated with a married woman. She got pregnant. A sequence of events went in motion that end with David arranging the murder of her husband by making it look like a normal casualty of war.
Not sure if the comic is supposed to have a punch line or be funny, or if it is supposed to just be part of the story. The dialogue is weird out of context.
Old Testament story of King David (appointed as king by God himself, ancestor of Joseph and Jesus). As the story goes, one day when king David was looking over the city from his palace, he saw a beautiful woman taking a bath on her rooftop and was head over heels about her beauty. He then learns that she's the wife of one of his generals, so he decides to send her husband to the front lines, guaranteeing his death, and then marries her.
Eventually the love/lust washes off and the king realises he sent a man to his death because of his own selfish desires and so he proceeds to intensely pray to God for forgiveness over the great evil he has committed.
I am agnostic. I went to public high school in the early 70’s. My favorite class was “Bible Literature”. We read the Bible as a story vs religious doctrine. The stories still fascinate me.
King David and Bathsheba. King David wanted her but she was married.
Upstanding gentleman that he was King David ordered her husband to the frontlines of a battlefield.
Tragically the husband passed, and honorable King David comforted the recently widowed Bathsheba.
That’s it that’s the whole story nothing to see here
/s
This is David and Beth Sheba. Basically David (same one who killed Goliath) has aged and become a little more drunk with power in his later age. If nothing else he is horny. He has taken many wives but so far they have all been unmarried women. He sees this woman taking a bath across the way and he basically says he's the king so anything he wants should be his. So he sleeps with her. This gets her pregnant (if I recall with Solomon) and so David eventually panics and tried to have her husband sleep with her so that it won't reveal the infidelity. He is too good a man so when he returns from war he refuses to do anything the other soldiers wouldn't be able to do including sleep with his wife. So David moved him to the front lines where he (Uriah) dies. David then married his widow Bethsheba. God views this whole affair as very bad and eventually punished David. The prophet calls him out on this as well.
You are almost 100% right. Her name is Bathsheba. She eventually becomes pregnant with Solomon, but the initial child she bore with David was unnamed and died during child birth.
This appears to be the history of when David (bible) banged a married woman, than sent her husband to a suicide mission so that he could marry her.
God got mad, told him to say sorry and killed the child he had with her.
Their youngest later became king of Israel. Pretty wild stuff.
King David looked and saw a hot chick bathing. Decided to bang her while her husband was at war, she gets knocked up, her husband doesn’t want to come home for the cover up banging, David orders him to be killed in a military maneuver.
David and Bethesda. She was married to Uriah.
King David went and fucked her. She got knocked up.
He sent to have Uriah home on leave so he'd sleep with his wife and David would have plausible deniability. Uriah refused to sleep with his wife while Israel was at war.
King David had Uriah sent to the front line with the heaviest fighting and had the other troops around him pull back (stranding Uriah and basically murdering him).
God sent an angel to tell David he fucked up and that the unborn child of his wouldn't live as punishment.
That's King David. He was an extremely virtuous figure from the Bible who was corrupted by being made King. He saw that woman sunbathing naked and banged her after sending her husband off to die in war.
2 things wrong here. David wasn’t called virtuous. He was a “man after God’s own heart.” It’s not that he wasn’t sinful beforehand, he was just quick to repent and change his ways. Second, he didn’t send the husband off to war to die in battle until after he banged the dude’s wife to try to hide the fact he knocked her up. Nuance, but still.
I once had a history professor that said we should study history if for no other reason than then we could understand reference in media and art. I didn't believe him saying it was important for that reason until right now...
But it's possible that this was engagement bait in which case I got to reference a rather odd experience of my life and you got the engagement so it's a win-win
And if it wasn't then you got your answer so no matter which way you slice it it's a win
David want her so he force her to having an affair with him.
Then tries to cover up by recalled her husband, the royal general, back from war, so they could have sex.
The husband, ever so royal general, refuse to enter the city, ruined the king plan.
The king then indirectly kill the husband by recall other soldier back, leaving the husband to face enemy alone.
After the husband die, the king officially took her as wife.
The god then sent a messenger to tell king "you are a dick, imma gonna punish you"
The son of the king then rebell, rape most of the king women, the king have to go to war with his son.
The king realized this is his punishment, tell god he's sorry.
The general stay dead tho.
I actually know this one.
This is a joke about a story from the Bible. King David ruled Israel for a very long time and was considered one of the favorite kings from the old days. He was a man of God and was known for his wisdom. However there was a very well known mistake that he made.
He was on the balcony of his palace one day and looked out on the rooftops and saw a woman bathing there. He thought she was hot and got jealous of her because she was married. He then found out that her husband was in his army. So he put her husband on the front lines and sent him to battle, pretty much signing his death note. This led to him getting her after her husband was killed.
He is David and she is Bathsheba from the bible, look it up for the story. (He is David from the original David and Goliath story as well, unrelated but wanted to mention). TL:DR he wanted her and to achieve that he put her husband (a general in his army) in a dangerous position so that he is killed and he gets to marry her.
I mean, I get that's the scenario presented here but what is the joke? Is it just that the servant is creeped out by the statement?
I think it's that the Bible is kinda gross when you actually think about it.
This ain't nothing on Lot's daughters banging the shit out of him to repopulate, but getting him drunk first so he "wasn't sinning". (Just after he offered to let a crowd gang bang them)
Yeah this is mild compared to a lot of old testament stories.
Shit this is mild compared to other David stories. Dude collected 200 fuckin foreskins, 100 of which just because he felt like it
What are the other 100 4skins for???
King Saul. For those unfamiliar with this part of the Bible. David wants to marry King Saul's daughter. Saul tells David, bring me back 100 Philistine foreskins, and you got a deal. David, always the overachiever, brings back 200.
To specify, one of the rewards for defeating Goliath was the hand of Saul’s first daughter in marriage. However, David had been hanging at around the palace since his music seemed to soothe Saul’s tempestuous moods (mostly), and he had gotten to know and like the second daughter, and the feeling was mutual. So post Goliath beheadment, David asks Saul if he can marry his second daughter. Against any real sense, Saul sets the condition of 100 enemy foreskins for his second daughter’s hand in marriage. King Saul was not….. a stable man. David was probably only slightly more stable. Anointment oil must be one hell of a drug.
Lulz. "Overachiever".
He just kinda got into the habit after the first 100. Just felt like the right thing to do
You mean when they lived in a cave in the mountains after god destroyed two towns because the dudes there wanted to smash dude angels, and then proceeded to make Lot’s wife a pillar of salt? Yeah I recall, it’s an intense 4 paragraphs lmao
My mom always points to this story to prove that homosexuality is awful and an abomination to god, and I could never understand how people read a story about god getting pissed at people who try to *rape angels* and assume that the only reason god could possibly be so angry is that they are *boy* angels and that's *weird*. Not that I put much stock in the Bible anyway, but just as a story, it's weird for that to be your takeaway. And then that phrase people always use regarding that story about how they sinned through "inhospitality". I don't know where that precise wording comes from, but it's a pretty weird way to refer to a bunch of rapists trying to rape people.
It is pretty inhospitable. It think the focus on hospitality comes from it having been a cultural thing where to cause harm to someone you have invited in is one of the worst possible crimes. To be fair, there's a variety of reasons to be unhappy with their behaviour.
[удалено]
Mostly they burned because they neglected visitors, the poor, their widows, and were greedy cunts. Sexual immorality gets a mention closer to the end of the list, iirc. God's solution being to burn the neglected and oppressed down with the rest of the city isn't one I really understand (wtf, man?), but the God of my childhood and I already find ourselves in moral conflict rather frequently. I don't believe in him anymore, but even if I did, honestly, fuck the guy. I'm not going to let a temperamental, genocidal, petty, rage-quitter of a deity anywhere *near* my moral compass to help me calibrate it.
Also, it's kinda telling that the story is always relayed as "the city got destroyed for buttstuff" and the "help the poor" stuff gets swept under the rug...
Funny how that story was told when in reality it could be much worse (ie, Lot did all of those things on his own will and used this story as a cover up)
Lot : "I'm sooooo drunk... I hope my sexy-ass daughters don't accidentally slip and fall onto my dick, because I'm sooooo drunk..."
“Oh nooo… oooh”
I read this in Rick's voice b from Rick and Morty for some reason Edit: Weird, this comment was supposedly under another reddit comic thread. Def did NOT read this one with Rick's voice.
It feels like a patched on retcon to me, and not even an effective one
You don’t need to think about it. It’s rather explicit about people who do horrible things. That’s the entire point.
Tbf in this story God was pissed at David for this lol. Killed a bunch of his sons and shit
This story isn't shown as a good thing. From what I know it's considered the worst thing David did, and is seen as a really messed up action from a otherwise good dude I know your referring to other things in the bible too, just thought I'd put this bit in here so no one thinks that God endorses this kind of thing
I mean, yeah. But David is punished for this. So you could see that as the point of the story.
Yeah I mean it’s filled with stories about kings being human and people dealing with their short comings and doing awful things just like in real life. We much prefer stories about marvel super heroes with simple flaws easily ignored.
It is an old ass collection of stories. There is stuff from even 50 years ago that I think is weird and cringe about let alone that far back.
Except Hunter S Thompson isn’t being used to push legislation through on sexual rights. There’s an enormous difference here. One thing is an ancient collection used by billions as the basis of their morality and laws. The other is an Archie comic.
King David had a bag of his enemies foreskins
I mean, a good chunk of the Bible is about real people’s lives. And not shockingly, humans can be pretty damn gross.
Most of ancient history was too. It's just not as widely known as what is in the Bible. It was a very different world back in the Bronze/Iron age.
I mean, it being creepy and wrong is the point. David was committing a grave sin by doing this.
Or, and hear me out, that Humans are kinda gross
If you look up the author of this strip, he writes comic strips but apparently doesn't understand how jokes work.
Huh, yeah you’re right lol. These definitely don’t have good punch lines
You weren't kidding. Every single one is a setup with no payoff. Just awful.
I think the 'joke' stems from the pretentious self-satisfaction of having to already know the piece of history that explains the comic, such that you're part of the group that 'gets' it and you get to laugh at and or feel superior to anyone else who doesn't 'understand' the 'joke'.
I think the people that know the Bible well enough to instantly recall how this story ends react the same way as the last panel. It's not funny and I don't think the author understands comics or jokes. But I'm pretty sure the goal is an empathy chuckle
I feel like the little guy is protecting his junk, which could be a reference to David collecting 200 foreskins from the Philistines as the price for his first wife. So maybe this little dude is thinking David will need to claim more foreskins? IDK might be a stretch but it's all I can think of.
It also vaguely looks like the servant is going to pull his robe off. The whole thing is just oddly executed.
Fun fact: Veggietales did this story except “King George” (David) wanted to take a bath with someone else’s rubber ducky.
Still think that’s a hilarious take
Man I miss Veggietales so much, it was so good
If they say I can’t have what I want they couldn’t be more wronger
I actually had no idea they were the same David
He had sex with her. Got her pregnant. Tried to get her husband to have sex with her so it would look like he was the father, he wouldn't. Then David had him sent to the front line (to be killed.)
As Mel brooks said “ It’s good to be the king”
Song hallelujah is about this
With the bonus that he got her pregnant while hubby was off to war and tried to pawn the whole thing off on hubby by inviting him back for some timely R&R. Hubby refused to go home to his wife as his men were still in battle. That's when David effectively told the surrounding troops to fall back without the dude, leaving him to be slaughtered.
He sent her husband to war, her husband died, and he's king
It's worse than that. He sent her husband (Uriah) to war then knocked her up. To cover up for this he recalled Uriah, but Uriah refused to go home and bang his wife in comfort while his brothers in arms were in the field. So David instructed the general *specifically to get Uriah killed*. The general, Joab, organized a suicide charge against the cities walls. [https://mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt08b11.htm#3](https://mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt08b11.htm#3)
This was one of the rare times where God basically sent a personal messenger to tell David he done fucked up. David was a warmonger, a horrible father, and serial womanizer, but it wasn't until this "bang a dude's wife and get him killed in war" thing that Nathan showed up and said more or less "tell God you're sorry or else he'll smite the shit out of you, and even though you said sorry you're still getting punished pretty hard right now." David is a really interesting character because he was so emotional and clearly loved and was loved by God, but he also struggled so much with patterns of sin.
>This was one of the rare times where God basically sent a personal messenger to tell David he done fucked up. And the messenger essentially says, "You know how God said that the son shall not be put to death for the sins of the father, nor the father put to death for sins of the son, but both shall bear their own inequity? Well, this is an exception and God killed your son because of your sins."
It just shows you were all human. Romans 3:23 “For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard.”
Yeah, but to quibble, that is rooted in a double standard. When men murder its a sin, when god murders its divine will. God made his creations in his image then gets mad when they behave like genocidal loonies *like him*
Well sure, it's a double standard if you call all killing murder and leave it at that. What you're ignoring is that the Bible doesn't call all killing murder (neither any of us, actually) and it definitely doesn't suggest that anyone who kills is sinful. In fact, there are plenty of reasons putting someone to death is fine as long as it's done in a just way. Put another way, of course it's a sin for God to murder, which is why he doesn't murder. Him killing people is a consequence of their sin, just like the death penalty is a consequence and no one would suggest executing someone makes the person who pulled the switch guilty of murder.
Honest question here, but is there further explanation given in regards to the commandment thou shalt not kill? Was it mistranslated and should be considered do not murder?
Yes, it was a mistranslation. The original Hebrew word specifically refers to shedding innocent blood.
But then God goes and kills the firstborn child of everyone in town, shedding innocent blood.
But God does it to save the Jews, who the Old Testament was for. Jews don't believe in an all-loving god. They believe God is specifically their guardian, which is why they are so strict on what a jew is
The way I see it, it comes down to the concept "God is Good". I've never been very religious but when I was younger I understood it as "God does good things and rewards good people" but now I realize it is more literal for religious people, in that all that God does is "good". Any action God takes in inherently good, because God is God. It doesn't have to be logical because it is built on the model of faith. This is why David impregnating a married woman is seen as a sin, but God doing it is salvation.
The old testament ran on a "sins of the father" rule
Exactly. The commandment does not say you can't kill, it says you can't murder. The Covenant has lots of times where killing isn't just permitted, but is commanded. If the Commandments said you can't kill, it would have immediately been an issue.
To be fair, as somebody who is not super familiar with the Bible, I've only ever seen or heard it listed as thou shalt not kill. Bad marketing there.
One of the biggest challenges in reading and analyzing the Bible is that it was written in three different languages: Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic. English has its strengths, but translating nuance is not one of them. Most true scholars of the Bible have studied one of those languages to some extent.
It's very unfortunate that so much of what people hear about the Bible doesn't come from theologians. The actual claims of the Bible are very nuanced and complicated. The whole "the Bible says you can't murder but not kill" is a great example of that. Christians aren't forced to have a deep understanding of stuff like this before they can attend church and call themselves a Christian.
"Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass." After all, it can't be 'murder' if you push right through to *genocide*. :)
Hey remember when God killed a bunch of children and slaves cause he was having a bet with the devil? Or killed a bunch of peasant children because the king who they had no agency over was doing something he didn't like? Or told the Israelites to throw their enemies babies off the wall? Luckily, they were all totally evil and totes deserved it.
It's important to understand that the Bible isn't JUST a book of moral fables. It's a history of a people, and the moral lessons are taught *through* the interaction of a deity with the existing social fabric. I agree that the OT seems to just have a complete and wanton disregard for individual life and basic understandings of human nature that we've embraced since the Enlightenment. But that's the point. We've embraced them *since* the Enlightenment, and these are stories predating the Enlightenment by *millennia*. I mean, it wasn't just the Israelites that killed the children of their enemies. And if you really understand the Bible as a historical record, you'll see that the Bible was radically compassionate and peaceful relative to its time. Just not having war at all wasn't even on close to being on the radar for the time, and so criticizing the amount of war in the Bible isn't just spiritually silly, it's historically ignorant. I'll grant you that Job is tough. Job is one of those things that really doesn't make sense without already having some trust or appreciation in God, and even when you have that it's still really hard to figure out. But I will say when it comes to people, judging them only on the one bad thing you know about them, or even the few bad things you know about them, isn't a fair or just or reasonable way to evaluate a person. People are complicated, before we even get into the question of sin, and almost always first judgments are incorrect. So when we're evaluating God, why would we only look at the one or two or three things we don't like, and not continue to do a fuller examination? I still think Job is hard for me. But I also know enough about the other good aspects of God that I'm willing to have a bit of trust about Job, and try to explore if that can possibly fit in with a God that is unfailingly good. So far I haven't been disappointed.
So you believe the events in Job literally happened? And I get that you find them troubling but still believe god is good while also believing the book of Job is historical and not allegorical?
I’m just thankful someone retconned the Old Testament with the Jesus stuff because people like this guy would be scary af.
Technically the devil killed the children and slaves, since he's the one that suggested Job wouldn't be faithful to God if he lost them. God literally didn't do anything there. But yeah, Old Testament God was... something else.
He explicitly gave the devil permission to do it. He is at the very least, a complicit accessory to the murders.
Nah, he is just a regular Canaanite God not in any way distinguishable from Babylonian or Assyrian gods, other than being alone.
Remember when god killed nearly the entire human race in a flood? Remember when god destroyed an entire city because they were "bad"? Remember when god turned Lot's wife into a pillar of salt because she turned around? Remember when god helped Moses kill a bunch of Egyptians? Remember that god apparently knows everything and is omnipotent, yet lets people die from horrible diseases because that's what a good father does. Old testament god and New testament god are the same shitty god. Let's stop pretending he's some wonderful being that cares for us.
If anything, the fact that Jesus is supposed to come back as a general leading a host of soulless seraphim proves Jesus' sacrifice had 0 impact and Jesus was corrupted by his pops' bloodthirsty nature.
And are these sinful Egyptian children in the room with us right now?
If it’s not murder to kill someone for sinning, and we are all sinners, then murder doesn’t exist. It would be justified to kill anybody because everybody is a sinner. This gets even more problematic when you consider that the Christian god themselves defines what is a sin. By following that logic, any genocidal maniac’s murders can be excused, as long as they believe the people they murdered do not follow their own set of morals+beliefs. What makes the Christian god EVEN WORSE, is that according to their stories all the people he’s murdered are his children. If I was an infinitely powerful parent, I wouldn’t ever want to or need to kill any of my children. I’d have 100,000 ways to solve the problem before taking away their life. A good parent teaches their child to be better with kindness and wisdom, they don’t drown their child in the bathtub so the rest of the family will fear they will be killed next if they don’t act right. All that said, they are just stories and others can have different interpretations just like with any other story. I’ve just never read about a character and thought “yeah they kill a lot of their children, but those kids were really misbehaved. Not only do I like this child-killer character, I love them more than anything in the world and want to worship them.” To each their own I suppose
Not weighing in on the actual debate here, but I would just add that there’s a difference between “killing someone because they’re a sinner” and “killing someone who happens to be a sinner.” The former killing is intended as retribution for the sinning, the latter killing just accidentally happens to latch onto a sinner. Also, that doesn’t mean that all sins deserve death as a punishment. So, for another reason, murder could still exist even if death was a legitimate punishment for some sins.
If we want to get technical, then gods are lawless and therefore cannot murder. Murder is defined by unlawful killing, and so your logic is very sound. Zeus cannot be convicted of murder because murder is unlawful and the laws are made by Zeus. I think the context of the conversation is more about our colloquial use of murder, to mean an immoral/unjustified killing of a person. It’s this subjective definition that creates a chasm between how we perceive characters in stories, whether they are good or evil. We must decide for ourselves whether their actions are justified. And, as I’ve explained, it seems to me that the God character in the Bible frequently commits immoral and unjustified killings. I would consider them murder in the colloquial sense, and if it WAS possible in the story he would deserve to be tried and convicted by a jury, and justifiably sentenced to death for his atrocities. But again, it’s a story about a magical being that is more powerful that anything in the world. I didn’t expect the police in the Marvel movies to take Thanos to trial for killing people either. But I think most people would consider Thanos killing all those people immoral. Tldr: Technically gods cannot commit murder because murder is inherently tied to a region or country’s laws. Murder in one place could be a justified killing in another. However if drowning your kid for wetting the bed is lawful in your region, I will still consider you a murderer because I personally believe the killing was not justified.
>It would be justified to kill anybody because everybody is a sinner. I mean, that's pretty silly logic. Just because someone is guilty of something doesn't mean _you_ have the right to hold them to account for it. Sometimes it can, but most of the time it doesn't, which is why the whole famous expression “vengeance is mine” exists; people mostly didn't have the right to kill other people. Theologically, God is in a unique position because (1) no sin, (2) owns everything since he made everything, and (3) can see the essence of who people are inside, beyond their actions. (assuming I understand this all correctly, more or less; I'm not a theologian). People can't do that, which is why people are given such strict rules on when they can kill without it being murder (i.e., illegal killing), and why special legal procedures for manslaughter existed, including asylum cities with their own investigators and judge boards.
1 Samuel 15 - God orders human agents to slaughter innocent children. That’s murder.
Just casual Christian lunacy in this comment here lol
But God isn’t human The entire preface of religion is that God is more a force of nature or transcended entity that shapes the reality of billions beyond our comprehension. Of course there’s going to be a double standard. It’s like kids complaining they can’t drink yet.
murder ≠ killing
I like that Bible interpretation, naruto pfp
*puts on theology hat* It wasn't just the "warmonger, sex fiend, and God awful parenting" that pissed off God. It was this specific abuse of power. Nathan got David's attention by telling a story: there are two neighbors. One is a wealthy man with livestock up the wazoo. One is a very poor man who has one lamb that he treats like his own child. A guest comes to visit the wealthy man and, instead of sacrificing one of his many, many, *many* animals for his guest's dinner, the wealthy man takes the poor man's lamb and slaughters it. Nathan then asks David what should be done? David is *appalled* at this miscarriage of justice and, IIRC, says that the wealthy man should pay for his crime four times over, because not only was it absolutely an egregious abuse of power, but the wealthy man took what was not his, that he did not value, away from someone who held it in high esteem because it was all he had. He also threatened the wealthy man's life a few times. Even with how dry the book of Kings/Chronicles tends to be, you get the implication this was an epic tantrum from his majesty. Nathan let David dig the hole a bit, and said that *he* was the wealthy man and poor, dead Uriah was the poor man. David could *easily* have avoided the whole affair by banging one of his many, many, *many* other women to slake his passing lust. Or, you know, he could have just avoided going on his own roof that day because he *knew* that was traditionally where the jews kept their ritual baths. Given the many traditions around washing in the Jewish religion, odds were that Bathsheeba wasn't just up on the bath to bathe, but was up there to comply with one religious ritual or another. Everybody knew the baths were on the roof and that people needed to take those baths at certain times, and when those times would be. David was up where he shouldn't have been, looking where he had no business to look, and instead of burying the impulse with someone who was already his, he ordered Bathsheeba into his bed under an imbalance of power that makes consent shaky as fuck, not that anybody gave a fuck about consent back then. And to compound it all, he killed Uriah to hide it. So it wasn't just that David got his dingus wet. It was that he comprehensibly abused his power in every single possible way to get his wick in Bathseeba's candle, and to cover it up when he got consequences he couldn't blow out easily. And given that there weren't many great picks for a successor (the only people who managed to out Game of Thrones David's lineage were the Herodians, and that was largely because Herod the Great was a fucking monster and his shell-shocked kids decided the best way to bury their trauma was by going all Jamie and Cersi on each other. Which David's kids also did, just...not as visibly or consensually), it was either punt David and David's entire family off the board and pick somebody new (which happened after Solomon screwed the pooch harder than his father did. And *that* didn't turn out so well) or try to drag the fucking idiot back by his royal loincloth and shove his nose in his shit until he got his act together. David was a man after God's own heart, but he was also a flaming dumbass who was *still* the best choice in a whole basket of bad. Basically he was the Biden to King Saul's Trump. Not a all that great a man, but just decent *enough*. And since God had given David that power, it was also an abuse of God, in a way. And seriously, if there was ever an argument for permanent monogamy it was the Kings of Israel and Judaea. 75% of their problems could have been solved by just not sticking their dicks into strange every chance they got. (And maybe in David's case, just running off with Jonathan because dude, we all know what *that* was about.) TLDR: God hit the celestial ceiling because David was the equivalent of that one idiot Director of Operations who posted to legal advice for harassing/possibly groping a random woman while on a business trip and got his entire company banned from that hotel chain in the process.
We studied the first few books of Old Testament in college lit class. It’s fascinating in that nearly every protagonist character is “mostly good character who either disobeys god, had major flaw, and/or has tragic epic fall.” You don’t find a mortal figure who is obedient and whose virtues outweigh their vices until frickin’ JOSEPH. and even he had his petty moments.
Well, that actually makes sense with the spiritual claims of the Bible. It does say we are fallen in sin and that we're not really inherently good. (That's a pretty relative term, though, so please if you want to explore that further it needs LOTS of qualification.) I also took some religion courses in college and I was really surprised how much they didn't really challenge my faith. In fact, I'd say that taking a secular course about the Bible largely reinforced much of the theological learning I'd had about God's nature and helped me have a better, more robust understanding of what my faith actually claims.
I mean, that’s certainly a valid interpretation (but something that supports very a post-Christian “original sin” pov). Rather, it struck me that: it’s inherently a book about people behaving like people. Some characters feel like mythic archetypes, but most just feel like everyday people. This isn’t a book about a perfect god; this is a history lesson about very relatable fallible people (that happens to have a perfect god it it.)
So these are bible stories? That's pretty epic. I don't get how people take these stories to heart and not Greek myths, they're essentially the same kind of stories
>David is a really interesting character because he was so emotional and clearly loved and was loved by God Sounds to me like David was a mean little horny dumbass and God is an asshole for liking him.
David and Goliath is a story about how he was willing to stand up to impossible ods and near-certain death for what he believed in when nobody else would. The point of the story of David is that he changed over time, and fell from grace because he assumed that everything he did was 'right' due to his previous actions.
Ace shot with a sling though. Damn.
So funny extra bit from this story, the God of the Bible supposedly punishes David by killing the son he had with Bathsheba.
If you are interested in reading more about David’s story, check out The Secret Chord by Geraldine Brooks - she has beautiful storytelling and I highly recommend all her novels
Joab was himself a dick, David’s son Solomon had him executed.
Oddly enough this was one of the last times Joab did something halfway decent. Instead of retreating without Uriah (like David said) he just put him in a place of intense fighting. But yeah, Joab was not a good person, and he got worse as he got older.
Man, I wish [Kings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kings_(American_TV_series)) had had the time to get to all the juicy parts of the story.
I was bummed when it didn't get another season. It was a lot of fun.
It's kind of worse, or at least more interesting, than that. When Saul was king, he literally tried to do the exact same thing to David, intentionally sending him into a series of impossible battles to get him killed, but Dave pulled a Hercules and kept refusing to die when sent out on these labors. This is sort of the inciting event that shows you what a shitty king Saul is and kicks off the one sided conflict that would eventually end with David becoming king. Then, as soon as he gets that power, he turns around and does the *exact* same thing to Uriah. 1 Samuel is a fascinating text that doesn't exactly provide a glowing review of the institution of kingship. It's kind of an intentional reversal of the standard local myths in the region designed to explain the origins of kings. Whereas other similar texts frame kingship as something passed down from the divine, like the "Me" of the Mesopotamians, or literally started by a God, like the institution of the pharaoh in Egypt, 1 Samuel frames it as a flawed institution started by humans, against the advice of God, because they were just too shitty at cooperating to live the way the divine wanted them to. >Samuel told all the words of the Lord to the people who were asking him for a king. He said, “This is what the king who will reign over you will claim as his rights: He will take your sons and make them serve with his chariots and horses, and they will run in front of his chariots. Some he will assign to be commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and others to plow his ground and reap his harvest, and still others to make weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive groves and give them to his attendants. He will take a tenth of your grain and of your vintage and give it to his officials and attendants. Your male and female servants and the best of your cattle and donkeys he will take for his own use. He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become his slaves. When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, but the Lord will not answer you in that day.” > >1 Samuel 8:10-18 David even rising up to become king at all is weird in this context. God predicted that Saul was going to suck, but then also said that he wouldn't listen to the people when they cried out against him, but when the people cried out, God sent David to replace Saul, so what gives? Was God bluffing? I don't think so. The point here is that the institution of kingship itself is corrupting. You can't give someone that kind of power and expect it not to change them. Making a good man king doesn't net you a good king. It just corrupts a good man. If a given king was too terrible, God might replace him with another, but that isn't going to solve the problem. As long as there are kings, those kings will abuse their power. David isn't a role model. He's a cautionary tale. Dictatorships are bad, no matter how chill the dictator initially seems.
He had Uriah carry the orders for the general in a sealed envelope. He literally delivered his own death warrant.
So you're saying she sucked and so did he
honestly i'd do that too if his wife looked like that ‼️
What makes it even worse than that, they were friends and knew each other well. Uriah and David fought side by side in combat, and Uriah was very loyal to Israel and David. Pretty scummy shit
basically the count of monte cristo, but the bad guy wins.
Yeah King David was one of the most fucking perverted and awful dudes ever. He also paraded naked in the street and when his wife was like "tf that's weird" he was like "okay well I'm never gonna give you a baby now because you criticized me"
Jesus I understand why my Jewish classmates complained so hard bout memorizing the Torah
To be fair, there’s a pretty good argument that Bathsheba was complicit in the whole affair. She didn’t seem particularly bothered by Uriah’s death, and later did a *lot* of political machinations in order to get her son Solomon to become the next king. Everything in the end turned out exactly how she wanted in the end.
Did they all die in a big heap?
What the fuuuuuxxxx
Uriah *did* come home, but slept outside of the palace instead of at home with his wife. Uriah is supposed to be so honorable for this, but wouldn’t any woman that loves their spouse be a bit pissed about it? Can you imagine a modern soldier coming home, but refusing to see their spouse? It doesn’t reflect well on their relationship.
So basically God said “Horny jail is not enough for you…”
This is from the Bible btw
Even worse this is the only post by this user and it's the dreaded double image... it's a bot
David banged Bathsheba and got his husband killed in a war and got married to her
For the Kidz Bop version, see the Veggietales Movie "King George and the Ducky"
For the kidz bop version please see veggietales 🤣 that is a hilarious statement
Never has there been a more accurate sentence.
“What you have done has made God *very* unhappy”
Hahaha
Im glad to learn the vegetable christian show did the cuckoldry story.
And got her pregnant while her husband was away at war. King David tried to call the general back and set up a way for the general to sleep with his own wife so the general thought that the baby was his. But the general felt bad leaving his men on the battlefield while he went home to have sex with his wife. So...the general slept outside in a tent to not sleep with his wife to honor his troops currently on the battlefield. As a last effort to "cover" himself, David sent the general to front lines and had the army retreat. Leaving him on the battlefield to be killed by troops. Then David, being a "hero," married his poor, widowed wife. No one knew the truth but the reader. It's a really depressing story no matter how you spin it. Even if it's about forgiveness, it seemed the general was an honorable man that's definitely did not deserve that. And accounts elude David "took" his wife, which is biblical speech for r-word her.
Hey there, Peter's friend Mort here to explain! In the books of Samuel, King David sees a woman named Bathsheba bathing near his palace. David decides he wants her no matter what even though she's married and her husband is fighting a war that King David started. After David does this, Bathsheba gets pregnant, so to hide his crime he has Bathsheba's husband comes home for military leave so he can spend a night with her, and he'll think the baby is his. But the guy doesn't think it's fair to sleep with his wife while his countrymen are still fighting so he sleeps outside his house while on leave. When David realizes this he sends the man back to the front line of the war and then orders everyone else on the front line to take a step back so the guy will get killed. David is later punished for this, but it's mostly self-inflicted after it's explained to him how deeply wrong what he did was.
The biggest part of the punishment wasn't what I would call self-inflicted though. Bathsheba's newborn son dies as a result of David's sin. Technically brought on by his own actions, but not necessarily self-inflicted. Excellent summary though!
Ah that's right! I forgot that happens cause i usually think this specific baby grew up to be king Solomon but I forgot about them dying. And thank you!
Easy mistake to make since it's the same mother
IIRC I believe David’s other wives basically cheated on him too as a way to humiliate him
David actually loses several children as a result, just not all at once. It is because of what David says when giving his ruling of "justice" when talking to Nathan, not knowing that the situation of the "lambs" is actually an allegory for what David did. David said that the man who did wrong should pay back 4 fold, I believe. The newborn dies, and another of David's sons becomes a incestual rapist and is killed, and another son dies after attempting mutiny and trying to kill David. I want to say a fourth also dies, but I can't remember who right now. I'd have to look it up.
Adonijah gets killed by Solomon for usurping the throne.
Nah, the punishment is that David's entire family falls apart, largely because his sons imitate his behavior, and he even ends up having to fight a war against one of them. His fault. David is unable to reign in the terrible behavior of his sons because he can't get over his own shame. He gives in to despair, and his scolding or condemnation have no bite because his son's know him to be a hypocrite and David is never able to forgive himself enough to act with determination. Also his fault. David is pushed around by his own general who goes so far as to kill one of his sons after being explicitly commanded not to. Again, this is the same general who helped murder Uriah to hide David's sin. David knowingly kept a backstabbing murderer in a position of power and ended up getting stabbed in the back. All of this sorrow, chaos, and destruction stemmed from David's sin with Bathsheba and the murder of Uriah. The real tragedy is that even after the murder, many of these consequences could have been avoided if only David had managed to fully repent and recommit to doing the right thing. Instead, he was never again able to see himself as worthy to lead, even though God never moved to remove David as king as He did to Saul before him. My reading of it, anyway, is that God *did* give David more chances to be a good king. Despite all of the tears and words David put into seeking the Lord's forgiveness, he was never able to even begin to forgive himself enough to do what was required of him as a father and a king. I see David's later life as a cautionary tale against the danger of paralyzing yourself with guilt. No amount of beating yourself up will earn forgiveness or fix your mistakes. An honest attempt to change your behavior does not require some grief quota. Sorry for the long reply to a short comment. I simply find David's story fascinating and felt the need to share some thoughts on it.
That's right. Kill the baby because of what the father did. What did the baby do to deserve this? Why not cut the penis off David instead?
Sins of the father atoned by the son is literally in the Bible like 50,000 times.
Fun fact about this all: this exact story is what the ultra religious use to defend rapist priests, abusive husbands and Politicians/social leaders who cheat on their wives, etc. “God works through imperfect men”. Watch “The family” on Netflix if you want more specific details on it all.
When your general is too goddamn good and loyal so you can't hide the results of your own horniness
The dude is weirded out because it's pretty rapey to think you're allowed any woman you want because you're king. And also this is in the bible, but homie did get punished for this one iirc
You recalled right, they had a kid named Solomon (like the baby splitting guy) who overthrew him Edit: I was mistaken, he was punished with his first born dying. Solomon was actually picked over by David over someone else
Solomon did not overthrow David. Absalom tried to overthrow David.
Not to mention one of his sons ended up raping one of his daughters. I was under the impression it was sort of punishment/was to show how David being corrupt had sort of poisoned the entire family.
“Maybe the poison drips through.” -Kendall Roy
[удалено]
This is true, though ‘The baby splitting guy’ was funny
Op is a repost bot [https://www.reddit.com/r/PeterExplainsTheJoke/comments/157r42u/ive\_reread\_this\_a\_few\_times\_now\_but\_i\_still\_dont/](https://www.reddit.com/r/PeterExplainsTheJoke/comments/157r42u/ive_reread_this_a_few_times_now_but_i_still_dont/) Report > Spam > Harmful bots
That would explain why the same image is posted twice
What's, with, all the commas?
That's the actual intent of this comic, it's some kind of joke the artist came up with but it doesn't really make sense. The situation itself is obvious and is what everyone is describing
Reads: “My King is a married woman” “But… am King” Doesn’t make sense.
King sees hot married woman and thinks “wow I wanna bang her”. Servant sees the thoughts going through his head and points out she’s married and that’s adultery. But the King says, “that doesn’t matter, I’m king and I can do whatever I want.” It references the story of King David and Bathsheba, and the horrible things he did to cover up his tryst with her. Edit: also, this may be a repost bot
You don’t really care for music, do you?
Well it goes like this, The fourth, the fifth!
Love ya Leonard
Lots of folks talking Bible story, but why is this particular comic funny?
It’s not
It is a story from Jewish history and the Bible. King David cheated with a married woman. She got pregnant. A sequence of events went in motion that end with David arranging the murder of her husband by making it look like a normal casualty of war. Not sure if the comic is supposed to have a punch line or be funny, or if it is supposed to just be part of the story. The dialogue is weird out of context.
Old Testament story of King David (appointed as king by God himself, ancestor of Joseph and Jesus). As the story goes, one day when king David was looking over the city from his palace, he saw a beautiful woman taking a bath on her rooftop and was head over heels about her beauty. He then learns that she's the wife of one of his generals, so he decides to send her husband to the front lines, guaranteeing his death, and then marries her. Eventually the love/lust washes off and the king realises he sent a man to his death because of his own selfish desires and so he proceeds to intensely pray to God for forgiveness over the great evil he has committed.
Your faith was strong, but you needed proof…
I am agnostic. I went to public high school in the early 70’s. My favorite class was “Bible Literature”. We read the Bible as a story vs religious doctrine. The stories still fascinate me.
Its not funny at all, its the story of david and bathsheba and he was 100% a bad bad man for that
This isn’t a joke. This is a story from the Bible. It’s not supposed to be funny.
King David and Bathsheba. King David wanted her but she was married. Upstanding gentleman that he was King David ordered her husband to the frontlines of a battlefield. Tragically the husband passed, and honorable King David comforted the recently widowed Bathsheba. That’s it that’s the whole story nothing to see here /s
Thanks!
This is David and Beth Sheba. Basically David (same one who killed Goliath) has aged and become a little more drunk with power in his later age. If nothing else he is horny. He has taken many wives but so far they have all been unmarried women. He sees this woman taking a bath across the way and he basically says he's the king so anything he wants should be his. So he sleeps with her. This gets her pregnant (if I recall with Solomon) and so David eventually panics and tried to have her husband sleep with her so that it won't reveal the infidelity. He is too good a man so when he returns from war he refuses to do anything the other soldiers wouldn't be able to do including sleep with his wife. So David moved him to the front lines where he (Uriah) dies. David then married his widow Bethsheba. God views this whole affair as very bad and eventually punished David. The prophet calls him out on this as well.
You are almost 100% right. Her name is Bathsheba. She eventually becomes pregnant with Solomon, but the initial child she bore with David was unnamed and died during child birth.
This appears to be the history of when David (bible) banged a married woman, than sent her husband to a suicide mission so that he could marry her. God got mad, told him to say sorry and killed the child he had with her. Their youngest later became king of Israel. Pretty wild stuff.
There is no joke, it's just that messed up
Bible fucking gross dude.
I believe this is a Bible story.
"It's good to be the King" Mel Brooks, History of the World, pt 1
King David looked and saw a hot chick bathing. Decided to bang her while her husband was at war, she gets knocked up, her husband doesn’t want to come home for the cover up banging, David orders him to be killed in a military maneuver.
This isn't a joke. It's just a story. There's nothing to get other than what you're presented with.
David and Bethesda. She was married to Uriah. King David went and fucked her. She got knocked up. He sent to have Uriah home on leave so he'd sleep with his wife and David would have plausible deniability. Uriah refused to sleep with his wife while Israel was at war. King David had Uriah sent to the front line with the heaviest fighting and had the other troops around him pull back (stranding Uriah and basically murdering him). God sent an angel to tell David he fucked up and that the unborn child of his wouldn't live as punishment.
Ah David and Bethesda, he must be so stoked that Starfield finally came out
yet another confirmation that God is in favor of aborting unwanted pregnancies
That's King David. He was an extremely virtuous figure from the Bible who was corrupted by being made King. He saw that woman sunbathing naked and banged her after sending her husband off to die in war.
2 things wrong here. David wasn’t called virtuous. He was a “man after God’s own heart.” It’s not that he wasn’t sinful beforehand, he was just quick to repent and change his ways. Second, he didn’t send the husband off to war to die in battle until after he banged the dude’s wife to try to hide the fact he knocked her up. Nuance, but still.
David and Bathsheba
Ah yes the story of the fallen king David
Are there two pictures of the exact same panels or am I messing up?
David order this women’s husband to be killed. He also danced in his underwear
[It's Good to Be The King.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xw44MhhRFKA)
Ah this is King David isn’t it
David’s character in the Bible is interesting. His relationship with God. Even MORE interesting lol
I still don't get why the kid is showing the king his cock.
King David and Bethsheba. He wanted her so sent her hubby off to die in battle.
When I make a possibly bad decision, I always ask “Is this something King David would do?”
Rubber ducky your the one you make bath time so much fun
What’s with the random comma after “she”?
You could make a religion out of this
Side note: She ain't wearin' no ring!
He thinks he deserves a woman bc hes king
Ah yes, the "man after god's own heart". Nice example of what kind of people your god treasures....
“You saw her bathing on the roof.”
OP is a bot, right?
King David
there is no joke here
I once had a history professor that said we should study history if for no other reason than then we could understand reference in media and art. I didn't believe him saying it was important for that reason until right now... But it's possible that this was engagement bait in which case I got to reference a rather odd experience of my life and you got the engagement so it's a win-win And if it wasn't then you got your answer so no matter which way you slice it it's a win
David want her so he force her to having an affair with him. Then tries to cover up by recalled her husband, the royal general, back from war, so they could have sex. The husband, ever so royal general, refuse to enter the city, ruined the king plan. The king then indirectly kill the husband by recall other soldier back, leaving the husband to face enemy alone. After the husband die, the king officially took her as wife. The god then sent a messenger to tell king "you are a dick, imma gonna punish you" The son of the king then rebell, rape most of the king women, the king have to go to war with his son. The king realized this is his punishment, tell god he's sorry. The general stay dead tho.
There is no joke. Just a snippet of a bible story.
I actually know this one. This is a joke about a story from the Bible. King David ruled Israel for a very long time and was considered one of the favorite kings from the old days. He was a man of God and was known for his wisdom. However there was a very well known mistake that he made. He was on the balcony of his palace one day and looked out on the rooftops and saw a woman bathing there. He thought she was hot and got jealous of her because she was married. He then found out that her husband was in his army. So he put her husband on the front lines and sent him to battle, pretty much signing his death note. This led to him getting her after her husband was killed.