The mourning: for the Israelites this period of mourning usually consisted of seven days (Gen 50.10; 1 Sam 31.13) to three weeks (Dan 10.2). No precise time is given in this case, but it was probably no more than seven days. Apparently David did not wait much beyond the mourning period before having Bathsheba brought to the royal palace, because to wait longer would make it impossible for him to pretend to be the legitimate father of the child that would soon be born.
Sent and brought: this is another of the serial verb constructions using the verb “send” without an object. What it means is that David issued an order that resulted in Bathsheba’s being brought to live with the king. New Century Version says “sent servants to bring her to his house.”
House: in those languages that make such a distinction, the word house, of course, refers to the royal “palace.”
She became his wife: in some languages it may be more natural to make David the subject of the sentence here: “David took her as his wife” or “David married her.”
But translates the common Hebrew conjunction. In some languages the use of this kind of conjunction will give a wrong impression. It indicates something contrary to expectation, but it is to be expected that the LORD would not be pleased with what David had done. Both Contemporary English Version and Anchor Bible omit this conjunction. Moffatt begins this sentence with “Now…,” which seems more logical. The translation But, however, is a suitable translation for introducing the idea that something bad is going to happen to David, despite outward appearances that everything has been done properly.
Displeased the LORD: some renderings of these words are rather weak and fail to show the gravity of the situation. New Century Version, for example, says simply “the LORD did not like what David had done.” But a more literal rendering is “[it] was evil in the eyes of the LORD.” Some may prefer to translate “the LORD considered what David had done as evil.”
Good News Translation alters the structure of the concluding sentence. Also Contemporary English Version, New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh, Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch, and Anchor Bible all make the last sentence of this chapter the beginning of the next section. In fact this statement seems to serve both as a conclusion to the story of David and Bathsheba and as an introduction to the section about the prophet Nathan’s encounter with David over the affair.
Quoted with permission from Omanson, Roger L. and Ellington, John E. A Handbook on the First and Second Books of Samuel, Volume 2. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2001. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .