2 Samuel 11:10
And when they had told David, saying, Uriah went not down unto his house, David said unto Uriah, Camest thou not from thy journey? why then didst thou not go down unto thine house? And when they had told David, saying, Uriah went not down unto his house, David said unto Uriah, Camest thou not from thy journey? why then didst thou not go down unto thine house?
The verse records David asking Uriah, newly returned from his journey, why he had not gone down to his house, noting Uriah's refusal to go home and David's dealing with him at that time. The question was part of David's effort to conceal his adultery; when that effort failed, he arranged Uriah's death to hide his guilt. The verse belongs to the course of events in which David misused his royal authority to bring about Uriah's death by having him placed in the fiercest fighting and abandoned there to be killed, so that obedience to David's command would violate God's law.
The setting is David's idleness, which left him open to temptation and led to Uriah's murder; useful employment might have kept him from it, and the story shows the consequences of his sin. In this matter David's indulgence of appetite and passion incurred God's displeasure. The verse is set during David's fall when, after turning from God's doctrines, he sullied a once-fair reputation.
The verse belongs to the account of his heinous sin involving Uriah and Bath-sheba; his wrongdoing blinded him to how far he had departed from God and he excused his conduct until Nathan rebuked him, then he repented and confessed with remorse, and God forgave him and spared his life, yet punishment remained because his sin gave the Lord's enemies occasion to blaspheme. His guilt was not justified. The account does not present God as approving his crime. The record shows that even a man favored by God and entrusted with great responsibility could be overcome by temptation and commit serious wrongdoing; the faithful account of his failure warns against sin and unbelief, while the account of rising again through grace encourages those who struggle and fall to renew the conflict.