Även känd som: Uriah, Urija, Urias, Uriah the Hittite
Det enade kungariketWarriorc. 1000 BC
Uriah the Hittite was one of King David's brave warriors and the husband of Bathsheba. He is known for his unwavering loyalty and integrity, even when David tried to cover up his own adultery. David eventually arranged for Uriah to be killed in battle, an act that was strongly condemned by God through the prophet Nathan.
1In the spring of the year, at the time when kings march out to war, David sent Joab out with his servants and all Israel, and they ravaged the Ammonites and laid siege to Rabbah. But David stayed behind in Jerusalem.
2One evening David got up from his bed and walked about on the roof of the king's house. From the roof he saw a woman bathing, and the woman was very beautiful.
4So David sent messengers and had her brought to him, and he slept with her—she had just purified herself from her uncleanness—and then she returned to her house.
David called Uriah back from the front lines and urged him to go home to his wife, but Uriah refused to enjoy the comforts of home while his fellow soldiers were in the field. This demonstrated his deep loyalty and integrity.
10When David was told, "Uriah did not go down to his house," he said to Uriah, "Haven't you just come from a journey? Why didn't you go down to your house?"
11Uriah answered David, "The ark and Israel and Judah are staying in shelters, and my lord Joab and my lord's servants are camped in the open field. Should I then go to my house to eat and drink and sleep with my wife? As you live, and as your soul lives, I will not do such a thing."
13David invited him to eat and drink in his presence, and he got him drunk. But in the evening Uriah went out to lie down on his bed among his master's servants; he did not go down to his own house.
When David could not conceal the adultery, he sent Uriah back to the front with a sealed letter to the commander Joab, ordering him to place Uriah where the fighting was fiercest and then withdraw from him.
25David said to the messenger, "Tell Joab this: 'Do not let this matter trouble you, for the sword devours now one and now another. Press your attack on the city and tear it down.' And encourage him."
27When the mourning was over, David sent for her and brought her into his house, and she became his wife and bore him a son. But what David had done was evil in the eyes of the LORD.
The prophet Nathan confronted David with his sin against Uriah, and God judged David severely for the murder. Uriah is also mentioned in Jesus' genealogy in Matthew, where Bathsheba is referred to as "Uriah's wife".
9Why then did you despise the word of the LORD and do what is evil in my sight? You struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and took his wife to be your own wife. You killed him with the sword of the Ammonites.
6and Jesse the father of David the king. David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah,*
Översättning
The Greek reads literally "Jesse begot David the king," and the chain of "begot" verbs has been rendered throughout as "the father of" for smooth oral reading. Here, however, the full verbal form "David was the father of Solomon" is restored, because the sentence break after "David the king" marks the close of the first set of fourteen generations; the pause and the fuller phrasing let a reader's voice signal the new section. The Greek says only "by the one of Uriah" — a feminine article with no noun — so "the wife of" is supplied, as the idiom requires in English.
Språkligt
The phrase ἐκ τῆς τοῦ Οὐρίου uses a bare feminine article followed by a genitive of relationship, a common Greek construction in which the missing noun ("wife," "daughter," "son") is understood from context. Naming her only as "Uriah's" rather than "Bathsheba" keeps the husband's name — and the crime — in view. The title τὸν βασιλέα, "the king," is attached to David alone in the whole list, even though later names in the line also reigned.
Teologiskt
David is the only figure in the genealogy given a title, and his name carries the numerical value fourteen in Hebrew letters (D-V-D), which may lie behind the three sets of fourteen generations announced later in the chapter. The mention of Uriah, a Hittite, continues the pattern of women in this list — Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and now Bathsheba — who are foreigners or connected to irregular unions, quietly preparing for a gospel that reaches beyond Israel and that welcomes a scandalous history into the Messiah's ancestry.
Historiskt
Uriah the Hittite was one of David's elite warriors, and the account of David's adultery with his wife and the arranged death of Uriah in battle stands as the darkest episode of the king's reign. Solomon was born to Bathsheba after the death of the first child of that union. Royal genealogies in the ancient world normally suppressed such episodes; naming Uriah here does the opposite.
Textkritiskt
Some manuscripts read "David the king" a second time at the start of the next clause ("and David the king was the father of Solomon"), while the earliest and best witnesses have simply "and David." The translation follows the shorter reading; the repetition looks like a scribal expansion carried over from the preceding phrase.