King David and Bathsheba: it takes two to tango TB Ketubot 9

 A couple is married on Wednesday. Wednesday night they consummate their marriage. Today’s daf TB Ketubot 9 discusses the case when the man doesn’t believes his wife is a virgin after having intercourse Wednesday night with her. He goes to the court and claims “I encountered an unobstructed orifice-פֶּתַח פָּתוּחַ מָצָאתִי (literally I have found an open doorway -gg)”

In the course of the discussion King David and his affair with Bathsheba is brought up. To provide you some background let me cite the relevant passage.

“Late one afternoon, David rose from his couch and strolled on the roof of the royal palace; and from the roof he saw a woman bathing. The woman was very beautiful, and the king sent someone to make inquiries about the woman. He reported, ‘She is Bathsheba daughter of Eliam [and] wife of Uriah the Hittite.’ David sent messengers to fetch her; she came to him and he lay with her—she had just purified herself after her period—and she went back home. The woman conceived, and she sent word to David, ‘I am pregnant.’” II Samuel 11:2-4)

Obviously this story is problematic from a moral and halakhic standpoint. There is no need to state the obvious concerning David’s immorality especially when we know the end of the story that he has Uriah put on the fierce battle’s front line  so that he will be killed. An adulterous woman according to Jewish law is forbidden both to her husband and her paramour. The Gemara wonders about these problems too.

“And if you would say with regard to the incident that transpired involving David and Bathsheba: For what reason did the Sages not deem her forbidden, when clearly David committed adultery with a married woman? The Gemara answers: There it was rape, and she did not engage in intercourse willingly. And if you wish, say instead that the Sages did not deem her forbidden, as that which Rabbi Shmuel bar Naḥmani said that Rabbi Yonatan said: anyone who goes to a war waged by the royal house of David writes a conditional bill of divorce to his wife. This was done to prevent a situation in which the wife of the soldier would be unable to remarry because her husband did not return from battle and there were no witnesses with regard to his fate. The conditional bill of divorce accorded the wife the status of a divorcée and freed her to remarry, as it is written: “And to your brothers bring greetings and take their pledge [arubatam]” (I Samuel 17:18). What is the meaning of: And take arubatam? Rav Yosef taught: It is referring to matters that are shared [hame’oravin] between the husband and his wife, i.e., marriage. Since apparently it was customary for men at war to send their wives a conditional divorce, and since Uriah later died, Bathsheba assumed divorced status retroactively from the time that he set out to war. Therefore, she was not forbidden to David.” (Sefaria.org translation)

The Rishonim disagree exactly what is the nature of this bill of divorce a soldier gives to his wife. Rashi believes that this bill of divorce was given on the condition that it will not take effect except if he should die in war so that his wife would not need to marry his brother as a yevamah. This conditional bill of divorce would affect very few men. For the condition to be met, the soldier/husband would have to be childless and not have any brothers. Tosefot believes that this bill of divorce would take effect retroactively to the date it was written when the husband dies in war or is taken captive. Many commentators including Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz’s translation and commentary believe that Uriah gave his wife this retroactive bill of divorce; consequently, because he died in battle she was not legally a married woman when she had relations with King David.

Let me add that takes two to tango. Here is Robert Alter’s commentary on those biblical verses. “4. David sent… And fetched her and she came to him and he lay with her. It is not uncommon for biblical narrative to use a chain of verbs in this fashion to indicate rapid, single-minded action. What is unusual is that one verb in the middle of the sequence switches grammatical subject-from David to Bathsheba. When the verb ‘come to’ or ‘come into’ has a masculine subject and ‘into’ is followed by a feminine object, it designates a first act of sexual intercourse. One wonders whether the writer is boldly toying with this double meaning, intimating an element of active participation by Bathsheba in David’s sexual summons. (She had to know that she was bathing naked in a place where King David could see her-gg) The text is otherwise entirely silent on her feelings, giving the impression that she is passive as others act on her. But her later behavior in the matter of her son’s succession to the throne (I Kings 1-2) suggests a woman who has her eye on the main chance, and it is possible that opportunism, not merely passive submission, explains her behavior here as well. In all of this, David’s sending messages first ask about best Shabbat and then to call her to his bed means that the adultery can scarcely be a secret within the court.”