2 Samuel 12:15 - Meaning and Application

After Nathan delivered his message, he did not stay at court. He went home, likely to pray for David, the very man he had just warned. God used Nathan as an instrument to bring David to repentance, and as a messenger of both mercy and judgment. In doing this, God honored the ministry and showed the power of his word above all else.

David later named one of Bathsheba’s sons Nathan in honor of the prophet (1 Chronicles 3:5). That son was an ancestor of Christ, the great Prophet, through the line of David (Luke 3:31). After Nathan left, David probably went into private prayer and wrote Psalm 51. Even though he had already been told that his sin was forgiven, he still pleaded for mercy and deeply mourned his sin. True repentance makes a person ashamed of what they did, even after God has turned back his anger (Ezekiel 16:63).

The child then became very ill, because the Lord struck him, and he was extremely sick (2 Samuel 12:15). He may have suffered convulsions or some other terrible disease. The sickness and death of infants, who have not sinned in the same deliberate way Adam did, are strong signs of original sin, the sinfulness people inherit at birth.

David also humbled himself under this sign of God’s displeasure and prayed for the child’s life (2 Samuel 12:16-17). He fasted, lay on the ground all night, and would not let anyone urge him to eat or get up. This showed that his repentance was real.

First, he was willing to bear the shame of his sin and keep it before him. That child would always remind him of what he had done, both to himself and to others, if the child lived. So far from wanting the child to die, as many people would in that situation, David earnestly prayed for his life. True penitents patiently bear the shame of their youthful sins (Jeremiah 31:19).

Second, this showed a tender and compassionate spirit, far beyond what is usually found in men, especially men of war, toward little children, even their own. That tenderness was another sign of a broken and contrite heart. Those who truly repent become more pitiful toward others.

Third, David showed great concern for the child’s eternal state, and that also points to repentance. Nathan had told him plainly that the child would die. Yet while prayer was still possible, David kept asking God for mercy. Most likely he prayed that the child’s soul would be safe and blessed in the next world, and that his own sin would not harm the child there.

Fourth, David showed a holy fear of God and of God’s anger. He dreaded the child’s death mainly because it was a sign of God’s displeasure against him and his house, and because it fulfilled a warning God had given. So he prayed so earnestly that, if it were God’s will, the child might live, because that would show that God was reconciled to him. “Lord, do not rebuke me in your anger” (Psalm 6:1).

The child died on the seventh day, when he was seven days old, before he had been circumcised, the sign of the covenant (2 Samuel 12:18). David may have taken that as another sign of God’s displeasure, since the child died before receiving the covenant sign. Even so, David did not doubt that the child was safe, because God’s saving benefits do not depend on the outward signs themselves.

David’s servants were afraid to tell him the child was dead, because they thought he would be overwhelmed with grief. They judged him by their own feelings and assumed he would be most troubled then. So he did not learn of the child’s death until he asked them directly (2 Samuel 12:19).

When David learned the child was dead, he showed a remarkable calmness and self-control. He ended his mourning, washed and anointed himself, and put on clean clothes so he could appear properly before God in his house. Then he went to the tabernacle and worshiped, just as Job did after hearing of his children’s death. He came to acknowledge God’s hand in the suffering, humble himself under it, and submit to God’s holy will. He also thanked God that he himself had been spared and forgiven, and he prayed that God would not go on in anger against him. If anyone is afflicted, let him pray. Weeping should never keep us from worship.

After that, he went home and refreshed himself, finding real help from his faith in the day of trouble. Having worshiped, he ate, and his face was no longer sad.

His servants thought this was strange, since he had grieved so deeply while the child was sick, yet now accepted the death so calmly. They asked him why (2 Samuel 12:21). David explained plainly that while the child was alive, he believed it was his duty to keep pleading with God for mercy (2 Samuel 12:22). Nathan had said the child would die, but David did not know whether the warning was absolute or conditional, like the warning given in Hezekiah’s day. He thought that, through his great humility and earnest prayer, God might still change the sentence and spare the child. “Who knows whether God will be gracious to me?” God allows us to pray earnestly for specific gifts, trusting his power and mercy, even when we have no special promise to claim. We cannot be certain, but we should still pray, because who knows whether God may be gracious to us in this matter? When our relatives and friends are sick, prayer often does great things. While there is life, there is hope, and while there is hope, there is room for prayer.

Now that the child was dead, David believed it was also his duty to accept God’s decision about it (2 Samuel 12:23). Two thoughts restrained his grief. First, he could not bring the child back. The child would not return to him, and the dead are beyond the reach of prayer. Our tears cannot help them, and we cannot pray or weep them back into this life. So why fast any longer? There would be no purpose in that. Still, David did fast and weep for Jonathan after his death, as a way of honoring him.

Second, David said, “I shall go to him.” He meant, first, that he too would go to the grave. The thought of our own death should soften our sorrow when we lose relatives. Death is everyone’s lot. Instead of grieving only for them, we should remember that we ourselves will die soon and go the same way. He also meant that he would go to the child in heaven, to a state of blessedness, which even Old Testament believers looked toward in some measure. Godly parents have good reason to hope that infants who die are well with God in the other world, because the promise is to believers and their children, as long as they do not shut the door against it, and infants do not do that.

Favours already received should make us hopeful of more. God calls those who are born to him his children, and if they belong to him, he will save them. This can comfort us when our children are taken from us by death. They are better cared for in work and in blessing than they could have been in this world, and we will be with them soon, never to be separated again.

The birth of Solomon follows. Though David’s marriage to Bath-sheba had displeased the Lord, God did not command him to divorce her. In fact, God gave them the son through whom the royal promise would continue. Bath-sheba was surely deeply troubled by her sin and by God’s displeasure, but when God restored to David the joy of his salvation, he also comforted her with the same comfort (2 Samuel 12:24). David comforted Bath-sheba.

Both of them had reason to be comforted by the signs of God’s kindness. First, God gave them a son by his providence, not like the former child, who had been given in anger and taken away in wrath, but a child given in grace and counted among the living in Jerusalem. They named him Solomon, which means peaceful, because his birth showed that God was at peace with them, because of the prosperity promised to him, and because he would be a picture of Christ, the Prince of Peace. God had taken one son from them, but now he gave them another in his place, like Seth instead of Abel (Genesis 4:25). In this way, God often balances the griefs of his people with comforts in the very place where he has afflicted them.

David had quietly submitted to God’s will in the death of the other child, and now God made up that loss in a way that was greatly for his good. The way to have our earthly comforts kept, restored, or made up in another way is to gladly give them up to God. Second, God especially claimed this son as his own and showed him favor. “The Lord loved him” (2 Samuel 12:24, 2 Samuel 12:25), and by the prophet Nathan he ordered that his name be Jedidiah, meaning Beloved of the Lord.

Though he was a child of people who had sinned, David and Bath-sheba, the covenant was so ordered, and the crown was settled through it, that it removed all disgrace and any stain of inherited guilt. This shows that those who are by nature children of wrath and disobedience can, through the covenant of grace, not only be forgiven but also made God’s favorites. In this name, Solomon also pointed to Jesus Christ, that blessed Jedidiah, the Son of God’s love, of whom God said again and again, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”