Ahh, yes. Not just Rehab, but Tamar and Bathsheba as well.
One thing we learn about women in the Scriptures. Especially in the Old Testament era. Women were a commodity, that few men respected. This attitude surely must have made them feel that, IF, they had a chance to better their lot in life, even if it meant to debase themselves that history would not look down on them.
After all, I could also add another women in that mix, Abigail. Her husband Nabal was a very wealthy man with much, but when David sent his men to ask Nabal for help, he refused them. David was ready to slaughter all the male servants and Nabal himself for refusing the help.
We are told that she was intelligent and beautiful. When she heard that her husband had refused, she sent everything David asked for without her husband being aware. She even spoke ill of her husband to David, Something that would usually not fare well for women. Yet she was obviously playing David against her husband. After he learned of what his wife did though, God killed him. He died after getting drunk.
David then took her as his second wife, and she bore him a child named Daniel. We hear of her maybe once or twice more, but nothing of much importance though. Yet when you consider the story, it’s almost as scandalous as David and Bathsheba’s relationship was.
So, the author not reading too much into Esther’s actions is quite normal for the way most writers looked at these things. Nathan’s rebuke was so powerful because Uriah was an honorable man who little deserved the treatment he received.
As an aside, I find it interesting that God had the child from David and Bathsheba’s adulterous affair killed. Had the child lived, then he would have been the rightful heir of David’s throne. Under Code of Hammurabi, and levitical law, there’s an argument that the child could have been legally considered Uriah’s son and thus be the rightful heir since David had Uriah murdered. Blood line not withstanding.
If nothing else, I believe God wanted to be sure there wasn’t more problems than God had already saw David having in the next 20 years.
What I'm saying is that sometimes God's silence is loudest. When He allows us to work our own way, with the Spirit's guidance, to His intended meaning, we are affected most deeply.