Did David universally prohibit his men at war from engaging in sexual intercourse?

tonychanyt · Sep 30, 2024

De 23:

9 When you are encamped against your enemies, then you shall keep yourself from every wicked thing. 10 If any man among you becomes unclean because of a nocturnal emission, he must leave the camp and stay outside. 11 When evening approaches, he must wash with water, and when the sun sets he may return to the camp.

They were to keep the campsite clean and holy.

12 “You shall have a place outside the camp, and you shall go out to it. 13 And you shall have a trowel with your tools, and when you sit down outside, you shall dig a hole with it and turn back and cover up your excrement. 14 Because the Lord your God walks in the midst of your camp, to deliver you and to give up your enemies before you, therefore your camp must be holy, so that he may not see anything indecent among you and turn away from you.

In the broader context, abstaining from sexual relations was practiced for reasons of ritual purity, especially before significant religious events or encounters with God. Ex 19:

10 the Lord said to Moses, “Go to the people and consecrate them today and tomorrow, and let them wash their garments 11 and be ready for the third day. For on the third day the Lord will come down on Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people." … 14 So Moses went down from the mountain to the people and consecrated the people; and they washed their garments. 15 And he said to the people, “Be ready for the third day; do not go near a woman”

i.e., no sexual intercourse.

1Sa 21:

1 David came to Nob, to Ahimelech the priest. And Ahimelech came to meet David, trembling, and said to him, “Why are you alone, and no one with you?” 2 And David said to Ahimelech the priest, “The king has charged me with a matter and said to me, ‘Let no one know anything of the matter about which I send you, and with which I have charged you.’ I have made an appointment with the young men for such and such a place.

David lied to the priest.

3 Now then, what do you have on hand? Give me five loaves of bread, or whatever is here.” 4 And the priest answered David, “I have no common bread on hand, but there is holy bread—if the young men have kept themselves from women.” 5 And David answered the priest, “Truly women have been kept from us as always when I go on an expedition. The vessels of the young men are holy even when it is an ordinary journey. How much more today will their vessels be holy?”

David assured Ahimelech that his men had no sexual intercourse on this expedition and other expeditions.

6 So the priest gave him the holy bread

It worked. The priest believed David.

Did David universally prohibit his men at war from engaging in sexual intercourse?

Even with the above passages, I try not to overgeneralize. I think the answer was no. If he did, it wasn't explicitly recorded in the Bible.

RDKirk · Sep 30, 2024

Why are you working so hard to excuse David's sin with Bathsheba?

KevinT · Oct 1, 2024

tonychanyt said:
De 23:

They were to keep the campsite clean and holy.

In the broader context, abstaining from sexual relations was practiced for reasons of ritual purity, especially before significant religious events or encounters with God. Ex 19:

i.e., no sexual intercourse.

This may need a separate thread, but I wonder why it would make any difference whether the men had had sexual intercourse?

Sometimes people consider sex to be “dirty“, perhaps both in the psychological and in the physical sense of the word. For example, it is common for people to say that the story in the garden of Eden about eating fruit, was really a reference to forbidden sex. But sex was created by God. In fact, the order was given to multiply, which implies needed sex.

As in the original post text, there was a mention of washing up after an emission of sperm, but a quick wash or dip in the river would fix that. So it is confusing to me why men that have not engaged in intercourse or allowed to eat bread from the temple, but if they had had intercourse, they could not.

What are the principles here?

KT

Addendum: three times now I have edited my post. I am typing “an emission of s e m e m,” but when I save it, it gets changed to “emission of sperm“. When I go back into edit mode there, there is the word “s e m e n”, but not after saving. Some sort of weird replacement is going on.

tonychanyt · Oct 1, 2024

RDKirk said:
you working so hard to excuse David's sin with Bathsheba

Where did I do that? Can you quote my words? Please try not to overgeneralize what I write and stick to precision.

tonychanyt · Oct 1, 2024

KevinT said:
it is confusing to me why men that have not engaged in intercourse or allowed to eat bread from the temple, but if they had had intercourse, they could not.

Right.

KevinT said:
What are the principles here?

The human needs could sometimes supersede ceremonial law. See Were David and his men allowed to eat the bread of the Presence? and follow up there. Good question.

RDKirk · Oct 1, 2024

tonychanyt said:
Where did I do that? Can you quote my words? Please try not to overgeneralize what I write and stick to precision.

This is an extension of that other thread and a further discussion of whether there was an issue of estrangement in the Uriah household, based on Uriah's refusal to go in to his wife. That's the only reason this question has been raised.

But whether there was estrangement in the Uriah household has zero impact on the sin that Daniel committed. The king--who could not be denied--commanded that Bathsheba be brought to him, so she was brought to him.

KevinT · Oct 1, 2024

tonychanyt said:
Right.

The human needs could sometimes supersede ceremonial law. See Were David and his men allowed to eat the bread of the Presence? and follow up there. Good question.

That thread doesn't address the sexual cleanness aspect of my questions. I understand that some rules need to be bent. But sexual aspects wasn't in the rule, so shouldn't be a factor. (EDIT: changed "should" to "shouldn't")

KT

tonychanyt · Oct 1, 2024

RDKirk said:
This is an extension of that other thread and a further discussion of whether there was an issue of estrangement in the Uriah household, based on Uriah's refusal to go in to his wife. That's the only reason this question has been raised.

But whether there was estrangement in the Uriah household has zero impact on the sin that Daniel committed. The king--who could not be denied--commanded that Bathsheba be brought to him, so she was brought to him.

Can you quote my words in which I worked hard to excuse David's sin with Bathsheba? This is the second time I have asked.

tonychanyt · Oct 1, 2024

KevinT said:
That thread doesn't address the sexual cleanness aspect of my questions.

Can you rephrase the question stressing the sexual aspect?

KevinT · Oct 1, 2024

tonychanyt said:
Can you rephrase the question stressing the sexual aspect?

@KevinT I wonder why it would make any difference whether the men had had sexual intercourse? ... sex was created by God. In fact, the order was given to multiply, which implies needed sex. ... There was a mention of washing up after an emission of sperm, but a quick wash or dip in the river would fix that. So it is confusing to me why men that have not engaged in intercourse or allowed to eat bread from the temple, but if they had had intercourse, they could not.

tonychanyt · Oct 1, 2024

KevinT said:
it is confusing to me why men that have not engaged in intercourse or allowed to eat bread from the temple, but if they had had intercourse, they could not.

Right. That was Ahimelech's compromise on Moses' law. Non-priests were not allowed to eat the bread of the Presence. Given David's circumstances, he compromised and let David and his men eat but demanded at least that they were clean from sexual intercourse.

Feel free to follow up. I'm not sure I have addressed your concern.

KevinT · Oct 1, 2024

So this was a provision that the priest would have added on, not something that we should consider as coming from God. In God‘s point of view, there would be no problem if the men had had legitimate intercourse with their wives or not.

tonychanyt · Oct 1, 2024

KevinT said:
So this was a provision that the priest would have added on,

Not universally. Ahimelech made an exception.

KevinT said:
not something that we should consider as coming from God.

Again not universally. Jesus thought Ahimelech did the right thing.

KevinT said:
In God‘s point of view, there would be no problem if the men had had legitimate intercourse with their wives or not.

Right. I think in some circumstances, and even in this particular one, God would have let them eat the bread even if they had sexual intercourse. God might demand they bathe themselves before eating.

RDKirk · Oct 1, 2024

tonychanyt said:
Right. That was Ahimelech's compromise on Moses' law. Non-priests were not allowed to eat the bread of the Presence. Given David's circumstances, he compromised and let David and his men eat but demanded at least that they were clean from sexual intercourse.

Feel free to follow up. I'm not sure I have addressed your concern.

This was also old bread that had already been removed from the Presence.

KevinT · Oct 2, 2024

I'm going to change course a bit here and go back to the OP about David not allowing his soldiers to have intercourse.

I think this has to do with David not wanting his men to have sex with camp followers, women that were not the wives of the soldiers. It is my understanding that the soldiers would not bring along their wives with them. (Deut 24:5). So if they were having sex, it would be outside marriage, which David would have known was not be in accordance with God's will. So if David wanted God's blessing on his battles, he wouldn't turn around and allow fornication.

The issue of soldiers and sex is an issue that many armies have faced. If the soldiers invade a country, and have sex with the women there, they might contract new unexpected sexually transmitted diseases. I think that pagan armies would bring along camp women to provide sexual services -- with the idea that nothing new was going to coming into the company. I think Alexander the Great did this.

So it seems David solved the problem by just swearing his men to celibacy until the campaign was done.

KT

RDKirk · Oct 2, 2024

KevinT said:
I'm going to change course a bit here and go back to the OP about David not allowing his soldiers to have intercourse.

I think this has to do with David not wanting his men to have sex with camp followers, women that were not the wives of the soldiers. It is my understanding that the soldiers would not bring along their wives with them. (Deut 24:5). So if they were having sex, it would be outside marriage, which David would have known was not be in accordance with God's will. So if David wanted God's blessing on his battles, he wouldn't turn around and allow fornication.

The issue of soldiers and sex is an issue that many armies have faced. If the soldiers invade a country, and have sex with the women there, they might contract new unexpected sexually transmitted diseases. I think that pagan armies would bring along camp women to provide sexual services -- with the idea that nothing new was going to coming into the company. I think Alexander the Great did this.

So it seems David solved the problem by just swearing his men to celibacy until the campaign was done.

KT

That may well have something to do with it. In addition, the law required a "decompression" period after combat before the men could return home to their wives (which David was also breaching by exhorting Uriah to go in to Bathsheba).

Did David universally prohibit his men at war from engaging in sexual intercourse?

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