Batsheva
1010 BCE · Biblical · Jerusalem
Batsheva was the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah the Hittite, one of David's soldiers (2 Samuel 11:3). The book of Samuel tells how David saw her from his palace roof, sent for her, and lay with her. When she became pregnant, David arranged for Uriah to die in battle and then married her (11:2-27). The prophet Natan rebuked David, and the child died (12:13-18). She later bore Shlomo (Solomon), whom Natan named Yedidyah, 'beloved of God' (12:24-25). When David was old, Natan urged her to remind the king of his oath that Shlomo would succeed him, and David confirmed it (1 Kings 1:11-31). As queen mother she sat at Shlomo's right hand. She brought him Adoniyah's request to marry Avishag, which Shlomo read as a bid for the throne (1 Kings 2:13-22). Chronicles calls her Bat-shua daughter of Ammiel (1 Chronicles 3:5). The Talmud identifies her father with Eliam son of Achitofel, David's counsellor, making her Achitofel's granddaughter (Sanhedrin 69b; cf. 101b), and one Talmudic view holds that David did not, technically, sin with her (Shabbat 56a).
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JerusalemירושליםJudea
What they did here
Her whole story is set in Jerusalem. David saw her from his palace roof (2 Samuel 11:2), Shlomo was born there (12:24), and there she secured his succession and sat beside his throne (1 Kings 1:11-31; 2:19).
Jerusalem in this era
In the Hebrew Bible, David takes Jerusalem from the Jebusites and makes it his capital, Solomon builds the First Temple there, and Nehemiah rebuilds its walls after the return from Babylon; in 164 BCE Judah Maccabee rededicated the Temple, the origin of Hanukkah. Archaeologists debate how large the city was in the 10th century BCE; it is well attested as the capital of Judah by the 8th century BCE, and Babylon destroyed it in 586 BCE.
About Jerusalem
Jerusalem, in the Judean hills, is a sacred city for Jews, Christians and Muslims. In the Hebrew Bible it is King David's capital and the site of Solomon's Temple; the First Temple was destroyed by Babylon in 586 BCE and the Second Temple, rebuilt from about 516 BCE, by Rome in 70 CE. Christians revere it as the place of Jesus's crucifixion and, in their faith, his resurrection; in Islamic tradition it is the destination of the Prophet Muhammad's Night Journey and the first direction of prayer, marked by the Dome of the Rock (691-92) and al-Aqsa Mosque. It was ruled in turn by Rome and Byzantium, by Muslim dynasties from 638, by Crusaders (1099-1187), Ayyubids, Mamluks and Ottomans (1517-1917), and by Britain. Divided between Israel and Jordan from 1948 to 1967, it has since been under Israeli control. Israel regards the city as its capital; Palestinians claim East Jerusalem as the capital of a future state; most countries do not recognize sovereignty over the whole city.
In Jerusalem at the same time
In the same place & time
Sages whose lives overlapped with Batsheva’s in the same cities, drawn from their recorded journeys.
In the same tradition
Works
No works attributed in the corpus yet.