Bathsheba, Reluctant Beauty

by Angela Hunt

  I shook my head and let a curtain fall on my imaginings. Life was a corridor with countless possibilities, and only Adonai knew the doors we would pass through. Sometimes He gave His prophets glimpses of the future, and sometimes they shared those visions and warnings with us.

  Ever since my son’s naming ceremony, I had been wondering why the prophet Nathan chose to lower his voice when he declared that Solomon would build the Temple and rule over Israel in a time of peace. My barely defeated pride wanted the world to know that my baby would rise above his brothers to rule the kingdom, but my conscience reminded me that I would be no better than the other wives if I flaunted my son’s future.

  And such an announcement might put my son’s life in danger. David was a man of battle, and Israel was still surrounded by warring nations. If any of them came against Israel during my son’s childhood, they would not only try to kill David but the heir apparent, as well.

  Until David died, my task would be to remain silent and guard the future king with my life.

  When David realized he would not be the one to build the Temple, he focused on expanding his palace, a project that became necessary as his family grew. Builders knocked down the wall surrounding the harem and built a small house for each wife, where she lived with her children and servants.

  By the time I gave birth to Shammua and Shobab, David had arranged for me to have much larger accommodations. I loved being a mother and couldn’t help taking pleasure in the knowledge that I had given David more sons than any other wife. As I suckled my beautiful twins, I began to understand that being a tob woman had advantages I hadn’t realized. The king was attracted to beauty, and that attraction resulted in the blessing of children.

  My mother was wiser than I had realized.

  My fourth pregnancy was not as easy as the first three. My ankles swelled like an elephant’s, and the summer heat drained my energy. After a difficult labor, I gave birth to another son—my fifth—and at his naming ceremony I smiled at a friend in the crowd and announced that he would be called Nathan.

  Once the royal children reached the age of maturity, they were given homes outside the palace compound. By the time Solomon reached his sixth year, Amnon, Absalom, Adonijah, and Shephatiah had houses in Jerusalem. Tamar remained with her mother and would do so until the king arranged a royal marriage for her.

  Though I was surrounded by noise and bluster in the harem, I learned to be grateful for aspects of my new life. In the difficult weeks after Uriah’s death I would never have imagined that I might come to admire David, but Nathan’s public rebuke had indelibly changed the king.

  Before David’s sin, Michal told me, he had been brash, cocky, and frequently wild in his actions and conversations. After his confession and repentance, his brashness evaporated. The king remained creative, poetic, musical, and unconventional, but Michal believed he no longer considered himself infallible. Though HaShem had granted David an eternal dynasty, the king now seemed to realize that God’s covenant promise did not make him immune to failure. More important—and this the king confided to me himself—David learned that his private sins had the power to inflict great suffering on the people he loved.

  Whenever I answered an invitation to join the king in his private chamber, our conversations almost always centered on Solomon, an amazing child and the light of my life. Though my judgment may not have been impartial, I considered Shlomo the king’s most attractive child, but David clearly favored Absalom, who had inherited Maacah’s thick hair and regal features. Maacah’s daughter, Tamar, was without question the most beautiful female in the palace. As I watched her beauty increase with every passing week, I worried about her and prayed that David would pay more attention to her, and to all his children.

  As David’s children outgrew their interest in playing around their father’s throne, he left them to their tutors and focused on the younger ones, who still loved to sit and marvel at his stories. The king, I noticed, spent time with his children as long as they looked at him with awe. When they had matured enough to realize their father was as human as any other man, he let them move into their own homes and rarely sent anything but generic invitations to mingle among the guests and dignitaries at court. Once grown, his sons were given the title of “personal priest to the king,” but I never saw any of them participate in priestly duties or even visit the Tabernacle except during religious festivals.

  The only royal wife who cared to befriend me was Michal. I’m not sure why we grew close. At times I thought we bonded because we had both suffered despair and grief on David’s account. Neither of us hid the fact that we guarded our hearts where David was concerned.

  Michal had never borne a child, but she had filled her life with the joys of mothering her five nephews. “I see my sister in each of them,” she told me. “Elan, the oldest, has her smile. Boas has her nose and her sense of humor, while Hananel sings with her voice, the most beautiful thing I have ever heard. Phineas has her long feet—not a bad thing, since he has grown taller than his brothers—and little Ziv has her eyes. Every time I look at him, I see Merab smiling back at me.”

  Michal lived in one of the largest suites in the harem, and the space was constantly strewn with clothing, toys, and dusty sandals. The clutter would have driven me mad, yet she seemed to delight in the mayhem created by five active boys. I had active boys too, though mine were younger and calmer.

  “HaShem has been good to me,” she confided one day as we sat in the garden. “Just as Adonai opened unloved Leah’s womb, He has opened my house and filled it with sons.”

  “How do you ever get any rest?” I ducked as Ziv threw a ball at Phineas and narrowly missed my head. “Do they ever get quiet?”

  “Only at night.” She gave me a rare smile. “Sometimes I sit awake and listen to the sound of them breathing, all in unison. They are close, these boys. When they first came to me, so soon after the loss of their mother, I wondered if any of us would ever be happy again. But our hearts healed, and we learned to lean on each other. Someday, when I am old and tired, I know they will bring their wives and children to visit me. Who knows? Perhaps David will allow me to go live with one of them, or maybe I will journey from Elan’s house to Hananel’s, then to Phineas’s, Boas’s, and Ziv’s. I who never bore a child will be the most blessed mother in Israel.”

  I smiled at Boas, who had stopped to show my little Nathan a toy cart. Nathan had no idea what to do with it but clapped in excitement, a reaction that brought a wide grin to Boas’s face.

  “They are good boys,” I told Michal. “You are blessed indeed.”

  On the afternoons we sat and watched our boys play together, Michal told me she had been madly in love with David when she first met him. “I wanted desperately to marry him,” she said one afternoon, “but my father had heard about Samuel anointing David to be the next king, so Father didn’t trust him. When David became renowned as a warrior, my father feared David would become more popular with the people than their king. So Father used my love against me and told David he could marry me if he brought one hundred Philistine foreskins as a dowry. He hoped David would be killed, and any other man probably would have been. But David could do no wrong in those days, for Adonai empowered him. He gave my father the foreskins of two hundred slain Philistines, so the king had to allow our marriage.”

  Her eyes misted at the memory. “We were happy in those days—or at least I was. The only threat to our marriage was my father’s increasing paranoia, but it was enough to do damage. One night, when Father sought to kill my husband outright, I helped David slip away through an open window. I hid one of our household idols in the bed, and the next morning, when my father came to take David away, I said he was ill. The guards went barging into the room and discovered I’d deceived them. Father was furious with me, but I said what David had told me to say—that my husband had threatened my life, so I had to help him escape.”

  She tilted her head and looked at me, her eyes soft with the memory. “
Odd, isn’t it, that my father had no trouble believing that lie? I have learned that men have no difficulty believing their enemies are capable of doing what they themselves would do. If my father had actually known David—as I did, and as you do—he would have known that David could never have meant that threat. He can be fierce in battle, but he does not threaten his women.”

  I looked away as a blush burned my cheek. Michal had not been on the rooftop when David had me brought to him, but she did know him well. Would I ever know him that completely?

  “After that,” she went on, her voice flattening, “my father gave me to Palti, a man who couldn’t seem to believe his good fortune in marrying a king’s daughter, even if she arrived secondhand and slightly worn from wear. Palti was a good man, generous and kind, and I liked him well enough. But those were desperate times. My father became more paranoid and more intent on killing David, and as much as I wanted to spare Palti’s feelings, I couldn’t disguise the fact that I worried about the man I loved. The Philistines were bedeviling our army, my father was trying to protect his kingdom, and I knew the situation would not end well. When I heard that my father had visited a witch who summoned a ghost for him, I knew Saul’s reign was over.”

  The mention of a witch strummed a shiver from me. I had heard the story from David, but still I could not believe that a king of Israel, a holy people, would resort to such a forbidden practice. “Your father really . . . I mean, he actually—”

  “Samuel had died,” Michal explained. “And the prophet, for better or worse, had always been my father’s spiritual guide, as Father didn’t seem to be able to talk to Adonai himself. So without the prophet”—she shrugged—“Father put on a disguise and sought out a witch, even though he had outlawed the practice of summoning spirits. He needed to talk to Samuel, and the witch was terrified when the prophet appeared and predicted that within a day my father and his sons would be handed over to the Philistines. They were. They died. And the entire army of Israel suffered defeat.”

  “Another prophecy.” I whispered the words. “Sometimes I wish Adonai would remain silent about the future.”

  Michal’s eyes became unreadable. “According to what I’ve heard, after Samuel’s spirit disappeared, my father had no fight left in him, and that’s perhaps the saddest part of the story. He had been a mighty warrior . . . once.”

  I remained silent, more than willing to hear more. I knew so little about my husband, but Michal’s stories helped me understand who he was and where he’d come from.

  “And you?” I finally asked when Michal did not continue. “You were with Palti, so how—?”

  “David needed to bolster his claim to the throne.” Her eyes narrowed. “Not all the tribes of Israel followed David at first, only the tribe of Judah. My brother, Ishbosheth, reigned as king over the other tribes, and Abner, a great warrior, commanded what remained of my father’s army. Several times David led his men against Abner and his forces, and when he wasn’t fighting he was living in Hebron with half a dozen of the women you’ve met here: Ahinoam, who had been one of my father’s wives; Abigail, a woman he married because she seemed clever and diplomatic; Maacah, the snobby princess from Geshur; Haggith, Abital, and Eglah, who caught his eye for reasons I can’t begin to understand. With so many wives, David didn’t need me, but I was Saul’s daughter, and his marriage to me helped legitimize his claim to the throne.”

  Her mouth spread into a thin smile. “Everything changed when foolish Ishbosheth charged Abner with sleeping with one of my father’s women—a move that could have been interpreted as trying to push Ishbosheth from his position. Abner became enraged and went over to David’s side. And David, no doubt smelling victory, said he would not negotiate with Abner unless the commander found me and returned me to David, as if I were a bushel of wheat that had been misplaced.”

  A cold expression settled on her face. “So Abner tracked me down, tied my hands, put me on a mule, and escorted me to David. Poor Palti followed us, weeping on the way, until Abner told him to go home, the marriage was over. When we finally arrived at David’s camp, my former husband welcomed Abner warmly and sent me off to the women’s tent without so much as a hello. I found myself in a tent filled with strangers, each of whom regarded me as an enemy. Only Abigail has ever had a kind word to say to me—probably because she is familiar with grief, too.”

  The repeated mention of Abigail piqued my interest. I barely knew the woman, but she seemed to spend a lot of time with the king. “What happened to Abigail?”

  “Her little boy, Daniel, died of a fever just before David moved us to Jerusalem. She was most distraught.”

  “The king must have been upset, too. Abigail seems quite . . . close to him.”

  Michal shrugged, then reached over and squeezed my hand. “I should speak of happier things. You’re probably tired of my stories.”

  “I’m not,” I assured her. “And I’m glad you shared your history. We are all so different, and yet here we are, married to the same man.”

  “Adonai, they say, works in wondrous ways.” She leaned forward, pushed her hair back, and looked over at me, her smile shadowed by sadness. Her lovely face wore the wrinkles of her age with serene elegance, and I realized she had to be beyond the age of childbearing. The king would not send for her now unless he wanted her company. After hearing her story, I didn’t think she particularly yearned for his.

  “Do you ever miss David?” I asked.

  She lifted one shoulder in a delicate shrug. “Sometimes I wish we were not estranged. I wish my father had not meddled in our marriage and given me to another man. I no longer see the sort of foolishness that caused me to hold David in contempt, and these days he seems to understand how a king should conduct himself. But no matter what he did or what he does, know this, Bathsheba: David is a better king than my father was. Because though he is far from perfect, David’s heart longs to know HaShem. His love for Adonai will always set him apart from other men.”

  I opened my mouth to say that I hoped Solomon would grow to be like his father in that way, then I swallowed my words. I didn’t want her to know that I held any particular ambition for my son.

  Better that everyone in the harem think of my Shlomo as a harmless little boy.

  One afternoon in the palace garden, as Solomon studied with his tutor and I embroidered the sleeves of his new tunic, Tamar sidled over and sat beside me on my bench. She leaned forward, resting her head on her hand, then abruptly sat up and frowned. “I have to stop doing that,” she said, casting me a sidelong glance. “Mother says I will ruin my face if I keep touching it.”

  Remembering my own mother’s obsession with beauty, I resisted the urge to laugh. “Does your mother often give you beauty secrets?”

  Tamar sighed. “All the time. She says my future happiness depends on marrying a rich and powerful king, so I must be tob beautiful lest I be scorned and left alone to grow old.”

  I gave her a sympathetic smile, remembering how I had been similarly frustrated with my own mother. Samuel’s prophecy should have been enough to assure her that I’d possess some degree of beauty, but she believed her duty lay in helping me be the most beautiful I could be. I was not allowed to play in casual clothing or step outside in anything but the finest garments my parents could afford. And I was never, ever to nibble my nails, pull at my hair, or play outside with bare feet.

  Yet my mother wasn’t the only woman concerned about her daughter’s future. Almost from birth, all young girls were trained for their lives as wives and mothers. Failure to achieve either goal would be unthinkable.

  “I do not think occasionally touching your face will mar your beauty,” I told Tamar, keeping my voice gentle. “But perhaps I do not know as much about such things as your mother.”

  “Oh, but you must!” Tamar turned toward me, her brown eyes shining. “I have always thought you the most beautiful woman in the harem. Mother says I shouldn’t make comparisons, but I can’t help it. Your eyes are perfect,
your skin flawless, and you have not allowed yourself to get fat like so many women here—”

  “Thank you,” I interrupted, not wanting to encourage her by saying anything that might be repeated or misconstrued. “I will agree that beauty does tend to catch a man’s eye. But once you have captured his attention, then what? If you would be more than a beautiful frame, you must know how to hold a man’s interest, entertain him, and understand him. If you want to bind him to your heart, you must offer a man more than mere beauty.”

  I stopped sewing as my thoughts returned to the previous night. David had called for me, and we spent the night talking about Shlomo, the grape harvest, and the competence of the new cook. He gave me a silk scarf, yet another gift, and then he played his harp until I fell asleep. Hardly the stuff of passionate romance, but a lovely evening nonetheless.

  “So what do you offer the king?” Tamar asked, snapping me back to reality. “If beauty doesn’t bind him to your heart, what does?”

  I took a deep breath as a dozen different emotions pricked at my heart. David had not known me when he had me brought to his bed; I had been nothing more than a morsel to satisfy his appetite. But in the years since my arrival at the palace, we had developed an affectionate relationship. My feelings for him were not the all-encompassing and passionate love I had felt for Uriah, but neither were they simple friendship. I had seen David at his worst and at his best. I had seen him broken and triumphant. I had gone to him for strength and I had gone to offer comfort.

  My feelings for David were nothing like my passionately protective love for Shlomo, but I respected him and wanted to honor him as my husband and king.

  While David did not share everything with me, when he relaxed he would sometimes share stories from his youth, telling me about sights he’d seen and dreams he’d had. He did not often speak of the battles he’d fought or the men he’d killed, but he did share his poetry and his music. Sometimes, if I found him in the right mood, he would speak of HaShem with awe in his voice.