2 Samuel 11:11

The ark, it seems, was now carried with them for their encouragement and direction, as was usual: see Numbers 10:35 1 Samuel 4:4. In the open fields, to wit, in tents which are in the fields. And to lie with my wife: he might possibly add these words, to insinuate his apprehension of the king's design, and to awaken his conscience to the consideration of his sin, and of the injury which he had done him. His meaning is, Now when God's people are in a doubtful and dangerous condition, it becomes me to sympathize with them, and to abstain even from lawful delights. Whereby he might possibly intimate how unworthy it was for David in such a season to indulge himself in sinful and injurious pleasures. But David's ear was now deaf, his heart being hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.