A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Bathsheba, or Bathchuah
BATHSHEBA, or BATHCHUAH,
Daughter of Eliam Ammiel, was the wife of Uriah the Hittite. While her husband was absent at the siege of Kabbah, David, king of Israel, accidentally saw, and fell violently in love with her. In consequence of this, he contrived the death of her husband, and married her. Bathsheba's eldest child by David died, but she bore four others to him, of whom Solomon and Nathan are reckoned in the genealogy of Jesus Christ.
Bathsheba is represented as very beautiful; and she must have been a woman of extraordinary powers of mind, as she exercised over her husband, king David, such paramount influence. Though he had, by his other wives, several sons older than Solomon, and Adonijah seems to have been his favourite, yet she induced him to promise that Solomon her son should succeed to the throne. The scene in David's death-chamber, when, at her appeal, the old king calls back, as it were, the full powers of his strong mind to give her again the solemn promise that her son shall reign, is sufficient confirmation of her influence. After David's death she was treated with profound reverence by her son, king Solomon. The period of her death is not recorded ; but the last time she is mentioned, when she "sat on the right hand" of her son, who was "on his throne," was about B. C. 1012.