שמואל ב, פרק י״א, פסוק ד׳

When David's messengers bring Bathsheba to the palace, the encounter unfolds with a specific focus on her state of ritual purity, a detail that sheds light on the legal, moral, and historical dimensions of the event. She had just cleansed herself from menstrual impurity [רש"י], having washed and immersed to become ritually pure [מצודת ציון], [רלב"ג, מצודת דוד]. The primary approach among commentators is that this fact highlights David's care to avoid the prohibition of relations with a menstruating woman. He ensured she was fully pure, and the washing mentioned earlier in the narrative was specifically for this purification process [רד"ק, מלבי"ם].

While the most obvious obstacle to their union appears to be the strict prohibition against taking a married woman [רד"ק], commentators explain that legally, Bathsheba was considered unmarried. It was standard practice that any soldier going into battle for the House of David would write a conditional bill of divorce for his wife, in case he died in combat. David's messengers investigated the matter and only brought Bathsheba to him after verifying that she held such a document [מלבי"ם]. Later on, David orchestrated Uriah's death on the battlefield specifically so that this divorce would take effect retroactively [רד"ק, חומת אנך]. Taking a more spiritual perspective, another approach suggests that Uriah had never actually consummated his marriage with Bathsheba at all. In this view, she came to David because he was always meant to be her true, destined partner [חומת אנך].

The sequence of events also plays a crucial role in understanding the ensuing pregnancy. The narrative notes Bathsheba's purification right alongside the intimate encounter itself. Because she had just completed her menstrual cycle and purified herself, it was completely clear that she was not already pregnant by Uriah. This timing removed any doubt regarding paternity, ensuring David knew with absolute certainty that the child she would soon conceive was his alone [אלשיך, חומת אנך].

David's original intention was to keep the encounter a secret to prevent any desecration of God's name. He hoped Uriah would simply return home to his wife, while David planned to eventually raise the resulting child as his own, treating the infant as one born to an unmarried woman [אלשיך]. Ultimately, this quiet, one-time meeting would have remained entirely hidden from the public eye if not for the fateful pregnancy that immediately followed [ביאור שטיינזלץ].