Today’s reading gives us a unique look at the Chronicler’s historical process of making use of material from an earlier source. Much of the material he used is a close parallel to the account in II Samuel. Indeed, it appears that he copied directly from II Samuel for the account of the beginning of the siege of Rabbah (II Samuel 11:1, I Chronicles 20:1), and then quoted from the account of the capture of Rabbah (II Samuel 12:26-30, I Chronicles 20:2).

But at the same time we need to notice how the Chronicler could choose to edit material out of his account. Here, he specifically left out what happened in between the beginning of the siege of Rabbah and its successful capture: the famous story of David’s adultery with Bathsheba, his arranging for her husband Uriah’s death, and the aftermath of these events. These are spelled out in full in II Samuel (II Samuel 11:1-12:25), but are never mentioned by the Chronicler.

It is not as though the Chronicler refused to admit any wrongdoing on David’s part – in the following chapter we will see that he noted the sin of David calling for the census – though even here the Chronicler blamed this on the incitement of Satan (I Chronicles 21:1-4). Yet all in all, it seems that the way the Chronicler wanted to tell the story was to enable us to see the golden age of King David, followed by the long steady decline down to the devastation of the Babylonian captivity. So he decided to omit the messy details of the king’s adultery and murder conspiracy, along with the scandal of Amnon and Tamar, and Absalom’s rebellion.

Perhaps he thought it would be better for his readers not to dwell on these things. Maybe we’d just as soon not know about the flaws in our heroes. Yet the way that II Samuel tells of the messiness of David, and the way I Chronicles slides past that messiness without mentioning it, should prompt us to ask whether we might well be better off knowing that the Bible’s message includes the redemption of sinners like David who have failed to make either themselves or their families righteous.

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None of our heroes are as pure of heart as we would wish, and neither are we ourselves, O Lord: yet you have loved us, and claimed us for your own. Give us the grace, we pray, that we may live this day as those whose hearts belong to you.

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