Power That Numbs (Day 16: Roots & Shoots)

• The Ornament: The Harp / The Crown
• The Scripture: Psalm 51:1–17

The Surface Reading

When we think of King David, we think of the hero. The giant slayer. The songwriter. The greatest King Israel ever had. We call him “A Man After God’s Own Heart.”

If we acknowledge his “sin” with Bathsheba, we often soften it. We frame it as a “moment of weakness” or a “love affair gone wrong.” We focus on his romantic poetry and his military victories, and we treat the Bathsheba incident as a small blemish on a shiny record.

A Closer Look

Guide: Wil Gafney / Phyllis Trible

To read this as adults, we have to stop calling it an “affair.” An affair implies two consenting adults.

Read 2 Samuel 11 closely. David is the King. Bathsheba is the wife of a soldier, bathing in the privacy of her home. David sees her, sends men to get her, and “takes” her. The text never records her saying a single word. This is a story about the abuse of power.

David then arranges for her husband, Uriah, to be killed in battle to cover it up.

At this moment, David has become exactly what he fought against. He has become Saul. He has become Pharaoh. He is using people as objects to satisfy his own desire. The “man after God’s own heart” has become a murderer.  

The Critique of Power

Lens: Walter Brueggemann (The Prophetic Imagination)

How did this happen?

In his classic book The Prophetic Imagination, Walter Brueggemann argues that the true sin of the King wasn’t just lust; it was numbness.

David stayed home in the palace while his friends died in war. He took a woman like she was a piece of fruit. He killed a man and then went to dinner. Power had anesthetized him. He had lost the ability to feel the pain of others.  

The miracle of this story arrives in the form of Nathan the prophet.

Nathan confronts David with a heartbreaking story about a rich man stealing a poor man’s lamb. The story is a trap designed to pierce the king’s numbness. It works. David feels rage. He feels empathy. And then Nathan points the finger: “You are the man!”

The King Who Repents

In the ancient world, a king would execute a prophet for such treason. Kings do not apologize.

But David breaks the pattern of empire. He doesn’t kill the messenger. He crumbles. He says three words that change history: “I have sinned.”

David isn’t the model king because he was perfect. He is the model king because he was penetrable.

Psalm 51 is the song he wrote out of that wreckage: “Create in me a clean heart, O God.”

This isn’t just a request for forgiveness; it is a request to feel again. He is asking God to shatter the numbness of power and give him back a human heart.

The Question

We live in a culture where leaders (and parents) are terrified to admit they are wrong. We think apologizing makes us look weak.

But in the Kingdom of God, repentance is the only way to power.

Is there a “Nathan” in your life—someone telling you a hard truth about your behavior?

Are you resisting them, or do you need to stop, listen, and let your heart be broken so it can be made clean?