{"id":60305,"date":"2019-07-30T12:22:10","date_gmt":"2019-07-30T09:22:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=60305"},"modified":"2023-02-21T15:11:04","modified_gmt":"2023-02-21T13:11:04","slug":"the-objectification-and-sexual-assault-of-bathsheba","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/the-objectification-and-sexual-assault-of-bathsheba\/","title":{"rendered":"The Objectification And Sexual Assault Of Bathsheba"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[911,834,483,503,457,491],"acf":{"old_id":"60305","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":41525,"related_cahpter":"274","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"Consent requires the very ability to say \u201cyes\u201d or \u201cno,\u201d which Bathsheba the king\u2019s subject did not have","content":"

Bathsheba appears soon after the demise of Michal, David\u2019s last wife arriving on the heels of his first. But where Michal\u2019s journey brings her from promise to obscurity, Bathsheba rises from anonymity to power.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As formidable as she will become in 1 Kings, when we encounter Bathsheba in 2 Samuel, she is nearly silent. This woman, who will one day orchestrate Solomon\u2019s unlikely ascension to the throne, says just three words in this installment of her story, and they are not \u201cI give consent.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

One warm spring night, a restless King David rises to his rooftop and gazes out over his city. From his hilltop palace overlooking the surrounding valleys he can see the roofs of his subjects that populate the hillside slopes below. The animal lust of spring is in the air when David spots a bathing beauty on one of the rooftops beneath him.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This is how it happens. A man spots a woman. He desires her, and therefore feels entitled to have her. And with this David contributes to an era of objectifying women that remains commonplace to this day.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAnd David sent messengers to fetch her and she came to him and he lay with her\u2026\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

David is the king, Bathsheba his subject. When we think about abuses of power carried out by movie moguls against actors, by college professors against students, by clergy against flock, we are barely touching upon the degree of power inequity inherent in David\u2019s transgressions against Bathsheba.<\/span><\/p>\n

David does what he likes with her, but Bathsheba does not give consent. Consent requires not only positive affirmation, which is patently missing here, but also the very ability to say \u201cyes\u201d or \u201cno.\u201d Lacking power, status, or authority, Bathsheba is as incapable of giving consent as an intoxicated person or a minor. In its historical moment, one might have called David\u2019s act an acquisition. Today, we would likely call it rape.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What follows is tragedy upon tragedy. Bathsheba discovers she is pregnant. When he cannot pass the child off as her husband\u2019s, David has Bathsheba\u2019s husband killed. David then marries the pregnant and recently-widowed Bathsheba. Soon after, the child dies\u2014as punishment for the sins of his father.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Throughout her story in 2 Samuel, Bathsheba is acted upon. Objectified. Taken into David\u2019s bed. In silence she suffers the deaths of her husband and her firstborn son. Throughout this saga, she says only three words: \u201cI am pregnant.\u201d Lacking the power to protect herself or those she loves, she speaks only when she has no choice, her voice a warning that our actions have consequences, that even for those at the top, there will be a reckoning.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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