Bible History Unmasked: Pt 4: Bathsheba: From Scandal to Queen Mother

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Welcome to the Diary of a Black Woman podcast. I'm your host,

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Connie Morris, and this is Faith on the Go, where you take the word with you

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on your drive to work, while you're getting ready in the morning,

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or even in those quiet moments before prayer.

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Real life, real word, and real growth, all while you are on the go.

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Before we get into today's word, let's take a moment to center ourselves with a familiar prayer.

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The prayer of Jabez, oh, that you will bless me indeed and enlarge my territory.

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Let your hand be with me and keep me from harm so that I will be free from pain.

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Father God, we come before you this day asking that you will indeed bless us,

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not just with what we have, but in who we are becoming.

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Enlarge our territory, Lord. Expand our capacity, our mindset,

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and our ability to receive what you have for us.

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Let your hand be upon us, guiding us, covering us, and leading us in every decision we make.

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And Father, keep us from harm, physically, emotionally, and spiritually,

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that we may walk in peace and not in pain.

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And Lord, just as you heard Jabez when he cried out to you, hear us now.

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Your word says that you granted his request, and we believe that you are the same God today.

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So we come boldly before you, knowing that you hear us, knowing that you see

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us, and knowing that you respond to the prayers of your people.

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Have your way in this moment as we sit, listen, and receive your word.

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In Jesus' name, amen.

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Hello and welcome back to Bible History Unmasked. And today we're going to close

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out the Bathsheba story.

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Not in scandal, not in shame, but in power.

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Bathsheba became a powerful woman. She became what we call the Queen Mother.

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So today's title is Bathsheba, the Queen Mother and the Fall of Anonijah.

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We had to add him in there because he was a threat to the throne.

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And as a mom, I want to show you how she responded, how Bathsheba responded, you know?

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And so today we understand that they gave her an identity in scripture, Bathsheba.

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And I can't pronounce the name, but it's Nagisha. And it means the mother,

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the queen mother of Israel.

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And at the moment, Andonijah, David's ambitious son from another mother,

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makes one final move to seize the throne.

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But he loses his life because of it.

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We heard that in the last episode that Solomon said, if you're going to behave,

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behave. If you're not, you're going to die. So Solomon kept his word that he

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wasn't going to play no more games with him.

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He gave him grace. He gave him mercy. But at the end of the day,

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it was like, okay, you're playing too many games and I have to protect my throne.

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So at this time in the history, Bathsheba is alive. Solomon is alive. Adonijah is alive.

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David is now passed on. Solomon is sitting on the throne, but the kingdom is still fragile. Why?

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Because Adonijah, David's older brother, had already tried to take the throne.

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We read that in 1 Kings 1, verse 5 to 10.

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And Solomon spared him saying this. He says, if he proves himself worthy,

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not a hair of his head will fall to the ground.

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That's in 1 Kings 1, 52. But Anijah ambition did not die. He just waited.

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Think about some of the the characteristics of his dad.

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They show up in his sons, both good and both bad.

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Let's take it back a step to find out how Anijah and Bishon didn't die.

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He was still plotting to take the throne. Go to 1 Kings 1.

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Let's read verses 1 through 4. We read it before, but I want to tell you a little

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bit more about it. So it says, Now King David was old and stricken in years,

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and they covered him with clothes, but he got no heat.

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Wherefore his servants said unto him, Let thou be sought for my lord the king,

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a young virgin, and let her stand before the king, and let her cherish him,

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and let her lie in thy bosom, and thy lord the king may get heat.

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So they sought for a fair damsel throughout all the coasts of Israel and found

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a bishop, a bishop, a Shunammite, and brought her to the king.

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And the damsel was very fair and cherished the king and ministered to him,

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but the king knew her not. So we know this is a time that,

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David just needed the body. He wasn't looking for any type of other relationship.

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But part of being an Ashaq, Ashaq was just not a random girl.

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She was treated as part of David's harem.

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King David had a harem and she was also treated as a royal concubine.

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So she was pretty much the property of David.

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And so that makes, you know, the scripture makes it clear that when you take

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a former king's concubine, you are actually claiming the throne.

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And so let's talk about this pattern that we see in the Bible.

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I'm not going to go to those scriptures, but maybe we should.

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This one's found in 2 Samuel 3, 7. Just examples of what happened when you try to take the throne.

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It's Ishabith that accuses Abner of trying to take Saul's throne by taking his

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concubines. That's one fact.

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The next one we see, and this is from Solomon's other brother,

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from Haggath, that other mother, 2 Samuel 16, 20-22, it says Absalom sleeps

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with David's concubine to claim queenship.

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And so messing with the king's concubine is instead trying to take over the

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kingdom because that was a boundary. That's not what you touch.

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So when Ananias asked for a bishop, he is not asking for romance.

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He is asking for royal legitimacy.

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He is asking for the throne.

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So let's go here and find out what happened to Adonijah.

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First Kings chapter 2, and we're going to start in verse 13 to 18.

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And it reads, And Adonijah, the son of Haggith, came to Bathsheba,

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the mother of Solomon, and she said, Come and thou peacefully.

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And he said, Peacefully?

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He said, And moreover, I have something to say unto thee. And she said, say on.

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Because now he's coming and saying, I got something to say to you.

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And she said, come to me peacefully. And he's like, what?

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What you want, because that right there starts to think, because,

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you know, mother's intuition, we start to say that, what? You just try to take

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the throne. You want me to come to you peacefully when you were already not

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peacefully in the beginning?

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And so let's go to verse 14. He said, Moreover, I have someone to say to thee. And she said, Say on.

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And he said, Thou knowest that the kingdom was mine, and that all Israel set

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their faces on me, that I should reign, albeit the kingdom is turned about and

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became my brothers, for it was his from the Lord.

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And now I ask one petition of thee, deny me not. And she said unto him, say on.

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Verse 17, and he says, speak, I pray thee unto Solomon the king,

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for he will not say thee nay. And he give me.

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Ashabashah, the Shunammite to wipe. So he's asking Bathsheba to go before the

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king to ask that you give the concubine to him.

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See, he's still slithering around doing stuff, but this is Bible.

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It's like a soap opera almost.

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And Bathsheba said, well, I will speak for thee unto the king. Think about this.

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You got a brother already from another mother and he's still slithering around

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the throne trying to figure a way to get the throne.

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And he's thinking that Bathsheba doesn't know the plan. He's like, okay, say on, say on.

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And you already know Bathsheba, if she's a patriot, she was a matriarch.

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She already know what this was about.

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But she played as cool. So Adonai approached Bathsheba and said,

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please ask King Solomon.

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He will not refuse you to give me Abishah, the Shunammai, as my wife. Why Bathsheba?

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Because Bathsheba is the queen mother.

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She has royal access, political influence, the king's ear, and the authority

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of the throne behind her.

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Adonai knows Solomon will listen to her.

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This is a political move, not a personal one.

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But Sheba responds with diplomacy. Very well, I will speak to the king for you.

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She does not see the danger, but Solomon will.

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And I thought she saw it, but apparently it looks like she didn't,

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but I think she did. She knew something was up.

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She didn't say yes right away. She went and spoke to Solomon.

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Let's go to verse 19. But she therefore went into King Solomon to speak unto him for Adonijah.

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The king rose up to meet her, bowed himself unto her, and sat down on his throne,

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and caused a seat to be set for the king's mother.

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And she sat on his right hand. And then she said, I desire one petition of thee,

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I pray thee, say not nay. And the king said unto her.

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Ask on my mother, for I will not say thee nay.

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And she said, Let Abishah the Shunammite be given to Adonijah, thy brother to wife.

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And King Solomon answered and said unto his mother, And why dost thou ask Abishah

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the Shunammite for Adonijah?

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Ask for him the kingdom also, for he is mine elder brother, even for him and

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for Abtah the priest and for Joab the son of Zerah.

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Then King Solomon sweared by the Lord saying, go do so to me and more also.

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If Ananias have not spoken this word against his own life. She went in there and she asked.

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And then Solomon says, are you serious, mom?

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How did you, why do you want to do this? And he said, he has spoken against his own life.

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We see here in 1 Kings 2.19 that the king rose to meet her mom.

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Bowed down to her, and sat down on his throne.

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And he had a seat brought for a king's mother, so she sat on his right hand.

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This is the highest honor any woman receives in the Israel monarchy. Think about that.

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Her story started out as being sent for, but it ends being the mother of the king.

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See what happens when we don't quit, when we don't give up. You never know what God has in store for us.

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We see here in Jeremiah 38, we got these descriptions. Say to the king and the

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queen mother, queen mother travels with royal authority.

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Queen mother can remove for idolatry. Queen mother can hold official power.

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So we're looking for Bathsheba, who now is not that person that David snatched

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up and caused her to have a child within her marriage.

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She's now what you call a royal matriarch.

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She is now seated at the right hand of the king.

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And so Bathsheba tells Solomon, Adonijah has asked for Abishah the Shunammite.

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Solomon faced changes. He sees what Bathsheba did not.

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And this is Solomon's response in verse 22.

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And King Solomon answered and said unto his mother, And why dost thou ask Abishah

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the Shunammite for Adonijah? Ask for him the kingdom also. Are you giving him that?

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You want him to have the kingdom too? For he is my elder brother,

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even for him and for Athar the priest and Joab the son of Zeruah. He has not forgotten.

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It was like, you're going to ask for him for the king also? I mean,

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are you giving him the legal authority to just ask you any old thing, mom?

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Ananias was requesting behind Solomon's back that he would claim the throne.

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In verse 24, I love this. It says, And therefore, as the Lord liveth,

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which has established me and set me on the throne of David, my father, who has.

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Made me a house, as he promised, Adonijah should be put to death this day. Wow.

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The Lord has established me and set me on the throne of David, my father.

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And Ananias' request is his second rebellion.

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It was a challenge to God's covenant, and it was a threat to nation's stability.

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So Solomon must act. Let's see what happens in verse 225.

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And King Solomon sent by the hand of Ananias, the son of Jehoiah, and he fell upon him.

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And he died. Ananias died because he violated Solomon's mercy.

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He attempted a second coup.

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He used Bathsheba's influence to seize power, and he tried to claim the throne through Abishai.

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He challenged God's chosen king. See why we love Solomon? Solomon didn't play around anymore.

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He gave him mercy, and then he said, no, you got to go. This is political treason,

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of theological rebellion.

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And Bathsheba's request, spoken in innocence, revealed her power.

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Her voice carried world authority.

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Her presence commanded the honor of the king, and her influence shaped the destiny of Israel.

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So what happened here, we see that Abinijah thought that Bathsheba didn't know,

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or wasn't understanding, and we see a little bit that she didn't know,

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but Solomon understood when he was placing that in that position.

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Remember, if you go back to Chronicles, God gave him wisdom.

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There was an incident where Solomon had to choose money or wisdom and he chose wisdom.

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And so that wisdom is showing up here, right here, right now in front of our eyes.

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We don't know a lot about what happened after Bathsheba because we know her

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story gave birth to Solomon and most of the stories about Solomon.

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We talked a lot about Bathsheba and I wanted to do that.

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But let's keep going. After this moment, Bathsheba, he's not,

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she disappears from scripture.

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But her legacy is unmistakable. She secured Solomon's throne in 1 Kings 1.

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She was honored by Solomon in 1 Kings 2.19.

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She sat at the king's right hand and that's 1 King of Solomon.

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Moved over, verse King, yep, 19, and she became a matriarch to the Davidic line.

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And then scripture gives us one more detail, one that reaches all the way into

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the New Testament. That's still in Matthew 1, 6. Don't you love a good story?

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She came to him and asked him for a question, and he got a little mad at his

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mother, but at the end of the day, he said, okay, he's dying right now. He's playing games.

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And we see here, and remember we talked about the genealogy,

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how important those And it says, And Jesse begat David the king,

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and David the king begat Solomon of her that had been the wife of Uriah.

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So Bathsheba is named in the genealogy of Jesus. Her story begins in pain,

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but ends in power, honor, and redemption.

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She becomes part of the lineage of the Messiah himself.

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An Ethiopian tradition remembers her as Nagesha, mother of the Solomonic dynasty.

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The royal line that traces its heritage back to Solomon and forward into Ethiopian history.

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Bathsheba's last appearance in scripture is not a whisper, it is a coronation.

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She rises from ashes of scandal to sit at the right hand of the king,

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the queen's mother of Israel,

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the woman whose voice could shake the kingdom, and the matriarch through whom

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God builds a dynasty that would change the world.

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That she was a queen mother. Hallelujah. She did her thing.

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And I wanted to give her honor for doing that. Because once you read her story,

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it would have been too much to put in one episode and not enough to put in two.

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And so let's talk about her story.

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About the way they whitewash her when you read about her.

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She is often blamed for sexualized while David abuses power and softened.

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So we know that she was, when we read her story, if we stop at her story and

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what happened in 2 Samuel, we never get to see her full power,

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her full strength, and her full restoration.

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We understand that the world blames women, but the Bible exposes kings.

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And we now know that, I say it twice because I want you to get it in your heart,

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that she is a direct line.

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Solomon came through Bathsheba.

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And Bathsheba is a David and then Jesus, right? So she's in that lineage because

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she gave birth to Solomon.

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How powerful is that?

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And that about wraps it up for Bathsheba. I hope you enjoyed it.

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Our next person we're going to cover is going to be Uriah. Why not cover him?

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He is part of the storyline.

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And we're going to learn a lot about who he was and his heart and why his name

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is mentioned and how God won't ever let his name just die.

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Just because David married Bathsheba, she was the wife of Uriah.

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That doesn't go away. And so I'm your host, Connie Morris. And this has been

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the Diary of a Black Woman podcast.

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I'll see you on the next episode where we study, Uriah. Before we close today,

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I don't want to take for granted that everyone listening knows Jesus personally.

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If you have listened to this episode or any other episodes and felt something

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stirring in your heart, maybe you know about God, but you're not sure you truly know Him.

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Maybe you grew up in church, walked away, got hurt, became tired,

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and never fully surrendered your life to Jesus.

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I want you to know this. God loves you.

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He has not forgotten you. He is not waiting to shame you. He is calling you home.

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The Bible says in Romans 10, 9, if you declare with your mouth,

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Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

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Salvation is not about being perfect.

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It's about surrendering to the one who is perfect.

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Jesus died for your sins, rose again, and made a way for you to be forgiven, restored, and made new.

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So right where you are, you can pray this prayer with me.

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Lord Jesus, I come to you today with an open heart. I believe you are the son of God.

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I believe you died on the cross for my sins. And I believe that God raised you from the dead today.

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I confess that I need you. I repent of my sins.

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I ask you to forgive me, cleanse me, and make me brand new. Jesus, come into my heart.

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Be my Lord, my Savior, my Redeemer, and my King.

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I surrender my life to you. I give you my past, my present, and my future.

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Teach me how to walk with you. Fill me with your Holy Spirit.

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Lead me in truth, healing, obedience, and love.

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From this day forward, I belong to you.

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In Jesus' name, amen. If you pray that prayer from your heart,

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I want you to know that heaven has heard you. This is not the end.

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This is only the beginning of your walk with Jesus.

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Find a Bible-believing church, begin reading the word of God,

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pray daily, and ask the Holy Spirit to help you grow.

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God is not looking for perfection from you. He is inviting you into relationship,

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transformation, and eternal life.

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Through Jesus Christ. And remember, you are loved, you are not forgotten,

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and God still has a purpose for your life.

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Thank you for listening to the Diary of a Black Woman podcast.

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Until next time, keep walking in truth, faith, and freedom.

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Family, thank you for spending time with me today.

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To every woman listening who has ever felt hidden, overlooked,

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or pushed aside, hear me clearly.

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God has not forgotten you, and neither have I.

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Now let's go before the Lord and close this out with a word from God.

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Because someone out there needs this reminder today.

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Jeremiah 29, 11, verses 11 through 14.

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For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you

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and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

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Then when you call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you,

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you will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.

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I will be found by you, declares the Lord, and bring you back from captivity.

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Father God, we thank you for your word, that it is true, that it is living, that it is for us.

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You said you know the plans you have for us, plans to prosper us and not to

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harm us, plans to give us hope and a future.

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So today we receive that, not just in our minds, but in our hearts.

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When we feel overlooked, remind us you still see us.

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When we feel forgotten, remind us you still have a plan. And when we feel hidden,

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remind us you are still working.

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Your word says that when we call on you, you will listen.

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So we call on you now. Hear us. Strengthen us.

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Guide us. Help us to seek you with our whole heart, not halfway,

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not sometimes, but fully.

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And as we seek you, let us find you in every season, in every place.

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Even the hidden mind. Restore what was lost, renew what feels broken,

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and remind us that nothing in our lives is wasted in your hand.

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Lord, we trust you, we believe you, and we stand on your word. In Jesus' name, amen.

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This is Diary of a Black Woman podcast, and I'm your host, Connie Morris,

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and I'll see you on the next episode.