2 Kings 11:14
And when the morning was come, David wrote a letter to Joab: and sent it by the hand of Urias,
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- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Factum est ergo mane, et scripsit David epistolam ad Joab : misitque per manum Uriæ,
- Septuagint (Swete)
- καὶ ἐγένετο πρωὶ καὶ ἔγραψεν Δαυεὶδ βιβλίον πρὸς Ἰωάβ, καὶ ἀπέστειλεν ἐν χειρὶ Οὐρείου.
- Hebrew (WLC)
- וַיְהִ֣י בַבֹּ֔קֶר וַיִּכְתֹּ֥ב דָּוִ֛ד סֵ֖פֶר אֶל יוֹאָ֑ב וַיִּשְׁלַ֖ח בְּיַ֥ד אוּרִיָּֽה
Haydock's commentary
Morning of the fourth day, as Urias staid three nights at Jerusalem. It is not clear that he was intoxicated the last of them. On that night David permitted him to act as he should think proper; and finding that he obstinately persisted in the resolution of not going to sleep with his wife, he had recourse to the last and most barbarous expedient of making way for his own marriage with the woman, as he saw this was the only method left for him to save her honour. The utmost expedition was requisition, as many days must have elapsed before she perceived her situation; (Haydock) and if many more should pass over, it would be manifest to the world that she had been guilty of adultery, and must either be stoned, or, if David spared her, he must bear the blame. (Salien)
Urias. The fable of Bellerophon being sent by Prœtus to Jobates, king of Syria, with a letter, desiring the king to put the bearer to death, seems to have been copied from this history. Their letters have become proverbial. (St. Chrysostom)
Aha Bellerophontem jam tuus me fecit filius,
Egomet tabellas detuli ut vincirer. (Plaut. Bacchide.)
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.
The Fathers on this verse
St Augustine Expositions on the Book of Psalms, Psalm LI
2. For there is written over it the title thereof, “A Psalm of David himself, when there came to him Nathan the prophet, when he went in unto Bersabee.” Bersabee was a woman, wife of another. With grief indeed we speak, and with trembling; but yet God would not have to be hushed what He hath willed to be written. I will say then not what I will, but what I am obliged; I will say not as one exhorting to imitation, but as one instructing you to fear. Captivated with this woman’s beauty, the wife of another, the king and prophet David, from whose seed according to the flesh the Lord was to come, committed adultery with her. This thing in this Psalm is not read, but in the title thereof it appeareth; but in the book of Kings it is more fully read. Both Scriptures are canonical, to both without any doubt by Christians credit must be given. The sin was committed, and was written down. …