Villains in the Bible: The Fallen Hero | October 4, 2026

Every villain has an origin story. For most of his life, King David was the hero. As a boy, he defeated Goliath, and as a musician, he composed much of the book of Psalms. But his power as king warped his heart. He began to believe he was above the law. His sin led to terrible consequences, but when God sent a prophet to confront him, David repented. There’s a lot we can learn from David’s story in week three of  this “Villains in the Bible” series (from Church Anew). 

Today’s Scripture readings are Psalm 23, 2 Samuel 11-12:7 included within the sermon, and Psalm 51. Here’s the sermon podcast audio and the livestream from Christ the King. The livestream includes this video from Lutheran World Relief about their baby care kit project, in which the Christ the King congregation participates.

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As I said before, our villain for today is King David. We’re calling him “The Fallen Hero” because David doesn’t start off as a villain.

He’s the little shepherd boy who stands up against Goliath, the boy hero who saves the kingdom. He’s the musician who wrote many of the Psalms in the Bible, including the 23rd Psalm we just heard. He’s called “a man after God’s own heart.”

So how does a hero become a villain?

Last week we talked about the Egyptian Pharaoh, who oppressed God’s people the Israelites as slaves. God calls Moses to rescue the people, and after the plagues and the Passover, Pharaoh finally lets them go.

They wander in the wilderness for forty years and eventually make their way to Canaan. In their new promised land, they’re ruled by judges, people God sends as leaders. For about 400 years, there’s this whole cycle where the people turn away from God, God allows enemies to attack them, they repent, and God sends a leader—a judge—to rescue them, they’re happy, and then they turn away again.

Eventually, the people get tired of this cycle, and they say, “We need a king. All the other nations around us have one, so we want one too.” Through the prophet Samuel, God warns them they won’t like having a king, because a king will tax them and lead them into war, but if they insist, sure, they can have a king. They say, “We definitely want a king.”

So, God and Samuel appoint a guy named Saul to be the first king of Israel. But Saul has some issues. He has trouble staying in his lane as the king, and he tries to take over the priests’ job, and he’s not always a great leader for his troops.

He also has spells where an evil spirit comes on him, and the only thing that makes him feel better is listening to music, played on the lyre by…a boy named David.

Unknown to Saul, God has rejected him as king and told Samuel to secretly anoint David as the next king. Then we get to the story of David and Goliath. Saul and the Israelite army are too afraid to fight this giant Philistine, but David, the little shepherd boy, the musician, the youngest in his family, steps up to do it. He trusts in God for strength, and he wins the battle. David’s a hero!

Saul gets jealous and throws his spear at him while he’s playing music, but David escapes. There’s a sort of civil war for a while as Saul keeps trying to kill David, but David and his followers escape over and over, they hide out in caves, even fleeing into Philistine territory.

Some of David’s psalms are about this part of his life, fleeing from Saul. No matter how hard things get for him, he trusts in God. Even when he has the opportunity, David refuses to kill Saul because he respects him too much as the king God chose.

Eventually, another battle against those nasty Philistines leads to Saul’s death, and at the age of 30, David is anointed as king. He does a lot of fighting, chasing enemies out, securing and expanding the borders of Israel. He’s only the second king, but he’s remembered as the greatest king in Israel’s history, and God’s on his side. David the hero.

And then we get to 2nd Samuel chapter 11, which is our main reading for today.

In the spring of the year, the time when kings go out to battle, David sent Joab with his officers and all Israel with him; they ravaged the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David remained at Jerusalem.

So first, notice that something’s off here. David is the king. He’s a military leader. And it’s spring, when kings are supposed to go out to war. But where’s David? He sends out his army, but he himself stays comfortably in Jerusalem. I don’t think he’s cowardly, but he’s comfortable with his success. He’s made it; he’s ready to relax and let someone else do the work.

How does a hero become a villain? The story continues:

It happened, late one afternoon when David rose from his couch and was walking about on the roof of the king’s house, that he saw from the roof a woman bathing; the woman was very beautiful. David sent someone to inquire about the woman.

It was reported, “This is Bathsheba daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite.” So David sent messengers to get her, and she came to him, and he lay with her. (Now she was purifying herself after her period.) Then she returned to her house.

Let’s talk about Bathsheba before we go on, because she is very much not a villain in this story. Some paintings and movies portray her as a temptress trying to get David to notice her. That’s not what this story is. Bathsheba is doing exactly what she’s supposed to do, purifying herself according to the law.

And by the way, it doesn’t say she’s on the roof, even though that’s how many paintings and movies frame it. (Here’s a whole reflection on why that’s important.) David is on his roof, peeping at his neighbor while she’s bathing. This is about him.

Or, sometimes people have treated this story like it’s a romance, like two people falling in forbidden love with each other. But there’s nothing romantic about a king sending messengers to retrieve a woman and bring her to his bedchamber.

The power dynamics in this story are pretty clear: She does not have the option to say no to her king. There’s no consent here. We call this assault or rape. David is the villain and Bathsheba is his victim.

But the story continues, and it gets worse. Verse 5:

The woman conceived, and she sent and told David, “I am pregnant.” So David sent word to Joab (Joab’s his army commander), “Send me Uriah the Hittite.” And Joab sent Uriah to David.

When Uriah came to him, David asked how Joab and the people fared and how the war was going. Then David said to Uriah, “Go down to your house and wash your feet.”

Just to be very clear what’s happening here, “feet” is a Hebrew euphemism—it doesn’t literally mean feet—so when David tells Uriah to go home and wash your feet, he means go “enjoy some private time” in your own bed with your wife.

Uriah went out of the king’s house, and there followed him a present from the king. But Uriah slept at the entrance of the king’s house with all the servants of his lord and did not go down to his house.

When they told David, “Uriah did not go down to his house,” David said to Uriah, “You have just come from a journey. Why did you not go down to your house?”

Uriah said to David, “The ark and Israel and Judah remain in booths, and my lord Joab and the servants of my lord are camping in the open field; shall I then go to my house to eat and to drink and to lie with my wife? As you live and as your soul lives, I will not do such a thing.”

David’s plan to have Uriah think Bathsheba’s child is his isn’t working because Uriah is committed to his duty as a soldier. (Not like David, who had stayed home when he should have gone out to fight. Uriah is loyal and brave.)

So David tries one more time, this time by getting Uriah drunk.

Then David said to Uriah, “Remain here today also, and tomorrow I will send you back.” So Uriah remained in Jerusalem that day. On the next day, David invited him to eat and drink in his presence and made him drunk, and in the evening he went out to lie on his couch with the servants of his lord, but he did not go down to his house.

In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it by the hand of Uriah. In the letter he wrote, “Set Uriah in the forefront of the hardest fighting, and then draw back from him, so that he may be struck down and die.”

As Joab kept watch over the city, he assigned Uriah to the place where he knew there were valiant warriors. The men of the city came out and fought with Joab, and some of the servants of David among the people fell. Uriah the Hittite was killed as well.

Then Joab sent and told David all the news about the fighting, and he instructed the messenger, “When you have finished telling the king all the news about the fighting, if the king’s anger rises and if he says to you, ‘Why did you go so near the city to fight?
Did you not know that they would shoot from the wall? Who killed Abimelech son of Jerubbaal? Did not a woman throw an upper millstone on him from the wall, so that he died at Thebez? Why did you go so near the wall?’ then you shall say, ‘Your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead, too.’ ”

So the messenger went and came and told David all that Joab had sent him to tell. The messenger said to David, “The men gained an advantage over us and came out against us in the field, but we drove them back to the entrance of the gate.

Then the archers shot at your servants from the wall; some of the king’s servants are dead, and your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead also.” David said to the messenger, “Thus you shall say to Joab, ‘Do not let this matter trouble you, for the sword devours now one and now another; press your attack on the city and overthrow it.’ And encourage him.”

When the wife of Uriah heard that her husband was dead, she made lamentation for him. When the mourning was over, David sent and brought her to his house, and she became his wife and bore him a son. But the thing that David had done displeased the Lord.

So to recap: David sins by raping Bathsheba. He tries to cover up his adultery, his assault, then he has Bathsheba’s husband killed. “But the thing that David had done displeased the Lord.”

How does the hero turn into a villain? How does the “man after God’s own heart” find himself here?

One decision at a time. He thinks he’s immune. He doesn’t realize how much power can corrupt. He has no accountability. No one can tell him no.

What happened to the Lord being his shepherd? Does he remember it was God who enabled him to defeat Goliath? God who chose him and anointed him as king? Now he feels entitled to everything and everyone around him.

Just like we talked about with Pharaoh last week, David does not see the people around him as people, as children of God; he sees Bathsheba as an object, and Uriah as an obstacle. Power has become more valuable than people. That’s a trap we can fall into. David’s story is a mirror for us, a warning that anyone can fall.

In the Lutheran tradition, we nearly always begin worship with confession. And I think sometimes—and I’ve had people say this too—confession is an odd way to start, especially for newcomers. But confession is an invitation for us to check in on our hearts, to pause just for a moment and reflect on where we’ve gone astray, where we’ve sinned.

It’s a moment to stand before God and say, “Here’s where I need help. I need forgiveness.” We need that accountability before God. And we need accountability as a community, from each other, the humility to admit when we’re wrong.

I’ll read one more section of the story:

And the Lord sent [the prophet] Nathan to David. He came to him and said to him, “There were two men in a certain city, the one rich and the other poor. The rich man had very many flocks and herds, but the poor man had nothing but one little ewe lamb that he had bought.

He brought it up, and it grew up with him and with his children; it used to eat of his meager fare and drink from his cup and lie in his bosom, and it was like a daughter to him.

Now there came a traveler to the rich man, and he was loath to take one of his own flock or herd to prepare for the wayfarer who had come to him, but he took the poor man’s lamb and prepared that for the guest who had come to him.”

Then David’s anger was greatly kindled against the man. He said to Nathan, “As the Lord lives, the man who has done this deserves to die; he shall restore the lamb fourfold because he did this thing and because he had no pity.”

Isn’t it interesting that David recognizes the others’ sin, but not his own? But then…

Verse 7: Nathan said to David, “You are the man!”

I’ll stop there, but after Nathan’s story, David finally owns his sin. Nathan is the first person to tell David “No” and it leads to David repenting. He says in verse 13, “I have sinned against the Lord.”

That’s the difference between David and Pharaoh in last week’s story: Pharaoh just doubled down on his sin. But David repents. He admits what he’s done wrong.

And God forgives him. Nathan says, “Now the Lord has put away your sin; you shall not die.” Absolution comes after confession. But the damage David has caused is clear. Uriah is still dead. And the ending of the story isn’t easy: The child dies.

But David’s sin doesn’t get the last word. After he confesses, after he repents, God is merciful to David. David’s story is a powerful example that even becoming a villain does not put us beyond repentance.

I want to end by inviting Leslie/Andy to lead us in reading together one more of David’s Psalms, Psalm 51, which is subtitled, “A Psalm of David, when the prophet Nathan came to him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba.”

This is David’s prayer of repentance. This is his prayer when he recognizes his brokenness, when he sees how far he’s strayed from the shepherd, how far he has fallen.

And as we read this together, I invite you to make it a prayer, to invite God to create in you a clean heart, and put a new and right spirit within you. Restore to me the joy of your salvation.

God hears us when we pray. When we go the wrong way, even when we try to cover it up like David and keep digging deeper and deeper, God doesn’t give up on us.

God sends people like Nathan to call us back, to call us to repentance. And in Jesus Christ, God offers forgiveness.

[Responsive reading of Psalm 51:1-12]

Villains in the Bible Series

Week 1: The Serpent
Week 2: The Pharaoh
Week 3: The Fallen Hero