Good morning — regarding the question of why David was punished, according to the rabbi who gave the lecture, it was because even though according to his approach David acted lawfully, he was forbidden to publicize it, because this is the kind of thing that is revealed only to the discreet, and publicizing such a permission publicly could cause harm.

Well, now we’ve entered the realm of bizarre pilpul. The act itself was fine, and only publicizing it was problematic, and for that he was accused and punished. So that’s why Nathan the prophet rebuked him—for publicizing the permission to steal the poor man’s lamb. And what about all my other questions, like why the Sages needed the bill of divorce given by those who went out to war? Beyond that, what exactly is wrong with publicizing it? Would the public allow themselves to take a married woman just because the king is allowed to? This really doesn’t seem worth discussing.

Support for the idea that a king cannot confiscate a woman: in Samuel’s speech to the children of Israel when they asked for a king, he threatened them with “he will take your daughters…,” but it never occurred to him to threaten them with the confiscation of their wives.

If the act of betrothal was done with money, then ostensibly the king could confiscate the betrothal money and thereby permit her to the general public, but it’s not clear that this is how it worked with Bathsheba (it seems to me that even in the time of the Talmud there was betrothal through intercourse).

What about with a document as well—does confiscating ownership of the document retroactively void the betrothal? (It seems to me that I once saw that with money the Talmud explicitly says that confiscating the money retroactively undoes the betrothal; with intercourse certainly not, and with a document I’m not sure.)

Y.D., the Sages can annul even betrothal through intercourse and through a document, and according to the plain meaning of the Talmud and almost all the medieval authorities (Rishonim), it is all retroactive. See, for example, Ketubot 3a and the commentaries there, among many other places. Though I have a different approach to the issue, and this is not the place.
With Bathsheba that wasn’t the case, because the Sages explain it through the bill of divorce given by one who went out to war.

Thank you very much.

Regarding annulment of betrothal: could only the sages of the Talmud annul it? Or can sages in our own day do so as well? Can a religious court today annul the betrothal of a woman whose husband refuses to give her a divorce, for example?
Ostensibly, if we compare betrothal to a monetary act, and the principle that “property declared ownerless by a religious court is ownerless” still applies today, then annulment by a religious court should also still apply today. The question is whether it requires a religious court appointed with the consent of the majority of the Jewish people, and if so, that would seemingly be impossible today; only when there is religious representation with broad consent would they be able to declare property ownerless and annul betrothal.

Both with regard to declaring property ownerless and with regard to “the Sages annulled it,” according to most medieval authorities (Rishonim) this applies only to the supreme religious court of the generation, though not necessarily judges with classical ordination. And some wrote: for example, a court like that of Rabbi Ami and Rabbi Assi, meaning on their level. Then, according to the accepted notions of decline of the generations, this can’t be done nowadays at all.

According to Shmuel Shimoni, a document has the same status as money:
https://www.google.co.il/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=http://asif.co.il/%3Fwpfb_dl%3D1490&ved=2ahUKEwiZmuf86JnbAhVGGZoKHU72DqsQFjADegQIBRAB&usg=AOvVaw0KoBVJieYMEH_Mz_J0gTNB

The state also has the power to confiscate property…
(In fact, according to the plain meaning of the passage, the Sages’ authority to confiscate property derives from the state.)

Regarding the supreme religious court of the generation in connection with the principle that property declared ownerless by a religious court is ownerless, I came across a gloss of Rabbi Moshe Isserles from which it seems that within the framework of communal ordinances they could declare property ownerless:
Shulchan Aruch, Even HaEzer, Laws of Betrothal, siman 28, סעיף 21
Gloss: If a community enacted and agreed among themselves that anyone who betroths without ten men present, or something similar, and someone violated this and betrothed, we still take the betrothal into account and she requires a divorce. Even though the community explicitly stipulated that his betrothal would not be valid and they declared his property ownerless, nevertheless in practice one should be stringent.
Or perhaps it needs to be explained that confiscation of property receives legal force because the Jewish community in Ashkenaz in Rabbi Moshe Isserles’s time had autonomy similar to Jewish kingship, and therefore the law of the kingdom is the law?

Y.D., I didn’t understand. What does it mean that a document has the same status as money? As I wrote, in both of them (and also in intercourse) the Sages have authority to annul. That’s not according to Shimoni but according to the Talmud.
I do not know where you saw that the authority of the Sages comes from the authority of the state.

Oren, indeed there are disputes about this. In any case, it seems that he is speaking there only about confiscation of the money, not about intercourse and a document. It seems that the rule “whoever betroths, betroths subject to the Sages” does not apply there; rather, they are concerned only for the principle that property declared ownerless by a religious court is ownerless (on the view that this is entrusted to any religious court over the people of its locale. As noted, there is a dispute about this).
See the Talmudic Encyclopedia, entry “Property Declared Ownerless by a Religious Court,” especially around notes 126–128.
And also see the entry “The Sages Annulled It,” especially in the section “Annulment after the Talmud” (it is brought there that the Rosh holds that community sages can annul even betrothal through intercourse and a document, and apparently that is what Rabbi Moshe Isserles was concerned about).

With God’s help, 12 Elul 5780

To A. — greetings,

A similar reasoning is raised by the Radbaz (part 7, siman 29) as David’s mistaken initial assumption: that Abigail was permitted to him because Naval had already been sentenced to death as a rebel against the crown—so his wife too would pass to the king under the law of “the property of one who rebels against the crown.” David erred by deriving from monetary law to the prohibition of a married woman. Another explanation the Radbaz offers for David’s error regarding Abigail is that there may have been room to annul Naval’s betrothal because he was a “rebel against the crown.”

In any case, this is presented as David’s mistaken reasoning, not as reasoning that stands as Jewish law. So perhaps in the lecture you heard as well, these things were said only as an explanation of David’s mistaken initial assumption, and not as a halakhic justification.

With blessings for a good and blessed year, S.Z.

And thanks to Mr. “Shweik,” because through the discussion with him about Abigail (in column 329), I came to the words of the Radbaz quoted in Professor Yehuda Eisenberg’s article, “David and Abigail,” in the virtual journal for education and teaching “Limudim,” on the Da’at website.)