2 Samuel 12:1 - Meaning and Application

It seems a long time passed after David’s adultery with Bath-sheba before he was brought to repentance. When Nathan came to him, the child had already been born (2 Samuel 12:14), so David had carried the guilt of that sin for about nine months. As far as we can tell, he had not yet repented openly, though we may hope his heart did trouble him in secret before God.

I would like to think that Nathan was sent soon after the child’s birth, when the matter had become known and was being talked about. That would have drawn David to confess the sin openly, bringing glory to God, warning others, and allowing him to receive forgiveness with some limits. During those months, however, we can fairly suppose that his joy and the life of his faith were pressed down, and his fellowship with God was broken.

He seems to have written no psalms during that time, his harp was out of tune, and his soul was like a tree in winter, alive only in the root. So after Nathan had come to him, David prayed, “Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and grant me a willing spirit” (Psalm 51:12, Psalm 51:15).

Now notice, first, the messenger God sent to David. From the end of the previous chapter, we were told that what David had done displeased the Lord. You might think the Lord would have sent enemies to attack him, fears to seize him, or death to arrest him. Instead, he sent a prophet, Nathan, David’s faithful friend and counselor, to teach and correct him (2 Samuel 12:1).

David did not send for Nathan, though he had never had more need of a spiritual advisor. God sent Nathan to David. This shows that though God may allow his people to fall into sin, he will not let them stay there. David was going on stubbornly in the path of his own heart, and if left alone, he would have gone farther and farther from God. But the Lord says, “I have seen his ways, and I will heal him” (Isaiah 57:17, Isaiah 57:18).

God often comes after us before we ever seek him. If he did not, we would surely be lost. Nathan had been the prophet through whom God had earlier given David a message of kindness and promise (2 Samuel 7:4), and now through the same man he sends a message of rebuke. We must receive God’s word from his ministers, whether it brings comfort or warning.

Nathan obeyed the heavenly call and went on God’s errand to David. He did not say, “David has sinned, so I will not go near him.” No, he treated him as a brother to be corrected, not as an enemy to be hated (2 Thessalonians 3:15). He also did not say, “David is a king, so I dare not reprove him.” No, when God sends him, he sets his face like flint (Isaiah 50:7).

Second, consider the message Nathan delivered to convict him. He began with a parable, so that David would hear what sounded like a complaint against one of his subjects who had wronged a poor neighbor. Nathan likely had often come to David on such matters, so this approach would not seem suspicious. It is fitting for those who have access to rulers to speak up for the wronged, so justice may be done.

Nathan told of a serious injustice. A rich man had many flocks and herds (2 Samuel 12:2), while a poor man had only one small ewe lamb (2 Samuel 12:3). The world is divided very unevenly, yet God orders it with wisdom, justice, and goodness, so that the rich may learn generosity and the poor contentment. The poor man’s one lamb was like a pet lamb, one he had raised with his children. He loved it, and it ate from his hand and was like a family member.

When a traveler came to the rich man, the rich man took the poor man’s lamb by force and used that one instead (2 Samuel 12:4). He did this either from greed, because he hated to use one of his own, or more likely from luxury, because he thought the tenderly raised lamb would be finer food. Nathan used this story to show David the evil of what he had done to Bath-sheba.

David had many wives and concubines, though he kept them apart, as rich men keep their flocks in the fields. If he had had only one wife, dear to him as the ewe lamb was to its owner, and beloved as Scripture describes a loving wife, her love would have been enough for him, and he would not have looked elsewhere (Proverbs 5:19). Marriage is a guard against sexual sin, but having many wives is not. Once a person breaks God’s law of one-flesh faithfulness, lust rarely stops on its own.

Uriah, like the poor man in the story, had only one wife, and she was to him as his very life. He desired no other to lie in his bosom. Some Jewish writers, as Bishop Patrick notes, understood the traveler in the parable to be the evil desire that came into David’s heart. They say it could have been satisfied with what David already had, but nothing would do except Uriah’s beloved wife. They also noted that this evil desire is called a traveler because at first it only passes through, then it stays, and at last it rules the house. In the story, the traveler is called a man at the end, showing how lust grows into mastery.

Yet some observe that in David’s case, lust was only like a traveler who stays one night. It did not always live and rule in his heart. Through the parable, Nathan drew from David a judgment against himself. Believing it to be a real case, and trusting Nathan’s report, David immediately pronounced sentence and backed it with an oath (2 Samuel 12:5, 2 Samuel 12:6). He said the man should restore fourfold, according to the law (Exodus 22:1), and that he deserved to die for his cruelty and tyranny.

If a poor man steals from a rich man because he is hungry, he must make restitution, even if it costs him everything he has (Proverbs 6:30, Proverbs 6:31). Solomon later compares adultery to that sin (Proverbs 6:32). But if a rich man steals out of wantonness, not need, only to be harsh and abusive, he deserves death, because making restitution would hardly punish him at all. If David’s sentence seems severe, it may be because his own temper was sharp at that moment, since he was still under guilt and had not yet received mercy.

Then Nathan at last pressed the parable home and applied it directly to David.

Nathan began with a parable, and that showed his wisdom. Much care is needed when we rebuke someone. It is well handled when, as here, the offender is led to condemn himself before he knows it. But when Nathan applied the lesson, he was also faithful, speaking as directly to King David as he would to anyone else. In plain words, he said, “You are the man who did this wrong, and a far greater wrong to your neighbor. By your own judgment, you deserve to die, and you will be judged by your own words.”

Nathan speaks at once from God and in God’s name. He begins, “Thus says the Lord God of Israel,” a name sacred and weighty to David, one that should have commanded his full attention. Nathan is no longer speaking as a petitioner for a poor man, but as an ambassador from the great God, with whom there is no favoritism. God first reminds David, through Nathan, of the great things he had done for him and planned for him. He had anointed him king, kept him in the kingdom, and given him authority over the household and possessions of his predecessor, and of others who had once ruled over him, such as Nabal. He had also given him the house of Israel and Judah, so that the wealth of the kingdom was at his service and people were eager to please him.

God had even been ready to give David still more if he had needed it. This shows how generous God is with his gifts. We are never shorted by him. When he has already given much, he is still able to give more. That makes our discontent and our craving for forbidden things even worse. It is ungrateful to desire what God has forbidden while we are free to ask for what he has promised, and that should be enough.

Nathan then charges David with a proud and serious contempt for God’s authority in the sins he had committed: “Why have you, presuming on your royal power, despised the commandment of the Lord?” This is the root and ugliness of sin, that it treats God’s law and the Lawgiver as if they matter little. It acts as if the law is weak, the commands are small, and the threats are no threat at all. David had spoken more honorably about God’s law than almost anyone, yet in this matter he is rightly accused of despising it.

His adultery with Bathsheba, Uriah’s wife, which started the whole evil, is not mentioned here, perhaps because he was already convicted of it. But the murder of Uriah is mentioned twice. “You have killed Uriah with the sword,” Nathan says, though not with David’s own sword, but in effect by his own order, when he placed Uriah in the front line of battle. Those who plan wickedness and command it are just as guilty as those who carry it out. Nathan repeats it with more force, saying he killed Uriah by the sword of the Ammonites, those uncircumcised enemies of God and Israel.

Bathsheba’s marriage is also mentioned twice, because David may have thought there was no wrong in it. “You have taken his wife to be your wife,” Nathan says, and repeats it again. To marry the woman he had first dishonored, after killing her husband, was an insult to marriage itself. It almost turned marriage into a cover for wickedness. In all this, he despised the word of the Lord, not only God’s command against such sins, but also the special promise God had earlier sent him through Nathan, that God would build him a house. If David had truly prized that holy promise, he would not have polluted his home with lust and blood.

Nathan then warns David of lasting judgment on his family because of this sin: “The sword shall never leave your house.” That means trouble and violence would continue in his family, during his life and after him, with much of his life and his descendants’ lives marked by war. It points ahead to the killings among his sons, Amnon, Absalom, and Adonijah, all of whom were cut off by the sword. God had promised that his mercy would not depart from David and his house (2 Samuel 7:15), yet he now says the sword will not depart either. Can mercy and the sword stand together? Yes, they can. A person may suffer severe and long troubles and still not be cut off from the grace of God’s covenant.

The reason is given plainly: “Because you have despised me.” Those who despise God’s word and law despise God himself, and they will be treated lightly. Nathan also says David’s own family would become his grief: “I will raise up evil against you out of your own house.” Sin brings trouble into a family, and one sin is often used to punish another. He also says David’s wives would become his shame, and that they would be publicly dishonored before all Israel (2 Samuel 12:11, 12). Nathan does not say it would be done by David’s own son, perhaps so the prophecy would not be blocked by being too plain. Yet Absalom later did this at the advice of Ahithophel (2 Samuel 16:21, 22).

He who had defiled his neighbor’s wife would have his own wives defiled, for that was often how such sin was punished. Job hinted at the same thing in his solemn oath (Job 31:10), and Hosea also speaks of it (Hosea 4:14). David’s sin had been hidden and carefully covered up, but his punishment would be open and widely known, bringing shame on him. His old sin in the matter of Uriah, though done many years earlier, would then be brought back into public memory and talked about everywhere. As one face reflects another in a mirror, so punishment often matches the sin. Here it is blood for blood and uncleanness for uncleanness. In this way God would show how much he hates sin, even in his own people, and that wherever he finds it, he will not leave it unpunished.

David then confessed his sin with a truly repentant heart. He did not try to excuse himself or soften what he had done. He said simply, “I have sinned against the Lord” (2 Samuel 12:13). He probably said more than that, but this is enough to show that Nathan’s words had truly humbled him and that he accepted the charge. He owns his guilt, “I have sinned,” and he makes the offense heavier by saying, “against the Lord.” He dwells on that same thought in the psalm he wrote about this event, “Against you, you only, have I sinned” (Psalm 51:4).

When David confessed, Nathan declared his pardon, though with a warning still attached. Seeing that David was truly sorry, Nathan assured him in God’s name that his sin was forgiven: “The Lord has put away your sin. You shall not die.” That means he would not die forever, nor be cast off from God forever, which is what would have happened if God had not removed his sin. The guilt that deserved punishment was canceled and set aside.

Forgiveness means this: your sin will not be your lasting ruin. The sword would still remain in David’s house, but it would not cut David off in judgment. He had deserved death as an adulterer and murderer, yet God would not strike him down as he could have done justly. Even though David would be disciplined by the Lord all his life, he would not be condemned with the world.

This shows how ready God is to forgive sin. David may have been thinking of this when he said, “I confessed, and you forgave” (Psalm 32:5). So great sinners should not despair of mercy if they truly repent. Who is a God like the Lord, one who pardons sin?

Yet God also passed sentence of death on the child (2 Samuel 12:14). Here we see God’s rule and authority. The guilty father lives, and the innocent infant dies, but all souls belong to God, and he may glorify himself in his creatures as he chooses.

David had sinned against God’s honor and given the Lord’s enemies reason to blaspheme. The wicked people of that time, unbelievers, idolaters, and the ungodly, would take joy in David’s fall. They would speak badly of God and his law when they saw a man guilty of such serious sins who still claimed to honor both. They would say, “These are your believers. This is the man who prays, sings psalms, and acts so devout. What good are such practices if they do not keep men from adultery and murder?” They might also ask, “Was not Saul rejected for a smaller matter? Why then does David still live and reign?” They failed to see that God judges by the heart, not as humans judge.

Even now, some people are hardened in sin because of David’s example. No one has any real excuse for speaking against God, his word, or his ways because of David. Their blame is their own sin. Yet the one who put the stumbling block in their path will still answer for giving them, if not the cause, at least the excuse for their reproach. This is the great evil in scandalous sins among those who profess faith and belong to God, they give God’s enemies material for mocking and blasphemy (Romans 2:24).

God will therefore defend his honor by showing his displeasure against David’s sin and making the world see that, although he loves David, he hates his sin. He chooses to do this through the death of the child. A landlord may seize whatever part of the property he chooses. Perhaps the death of infants was less common then than it is now, which would make this unusual loss an especially clear sign of God’s displeasure. It also matched what God had often said, that he would visit the sins of the fathers on the children.