Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible - 2 Samuel 11:4
4. David sent messengers, and took her—The despotic kings of the East, when they take a fancy for a woman, send an officer to the house were she lives, who announces it to be the royal pleasure she should remove to the palace. An apartment is there assigned to her; and if she is made queen, the monarch orders the announcement to be made that he has made choice of her to be queen. Many instances in modern Oriental history show the ease and despatch with which such secondary marriages are... read more
Thomas Coke Commentary on the Holy Bible - 2 Samuel 11:4
2 Samuel 11:4. And she returned unto her house— What the state of David's mind was, when the tumult of passion had subsided, Bath-sheba was departed, and reason had returned, I shall not take upon me to paint. Calm reflection will best suit the horrors of so complicated a guilt, upon the recoil of conscience; when all those passions, whose blandishments but a few moments before deluded, seduced, and overset his reason, now resumed their full deformity, or rushed into their contrary extremes;... read more