DID YOU KNOW?
The answer
In the Bible. "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'" (2 Samuel 11:14-15). Uriah had twice refused to go home to his wife while the army was camped in the open (11:9-13).
Why it’s interesting
Uriah is called the Hittite, but his name is Israelite, and he is in the list of David's best soldiers, the Thirty (2 Samuel 23:39). The note in the New Oxford Annotated Bible reads Uriah carrying the letter himself as a mark of David's power: even if Uriah knew what it said, he delivered it. Joab could not carry it out cleanly, and other soldiers died beside Uriah (11:16-17).
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