Now therefore the sword shall never depart from thy house; because thou hast despised me, and hast taken the wife of Urijah the Hittite to be thy wife.
Nathan has just exposed David's adultery and his arranged killing of Uriah. Now the prophet moves from the charge to the sentence: a lasting mark on the king's family. Two questions follow. Why does God call this despising Him? And why does the sword stay in a house God is ready to pardon?
God weighs the sin against what He had already given David. Nathan first lists the throne, the rescue from Saul, the kingdom — and only then names the sin.
The Lord reminds David of all that He had done for him: "I anointed you king over Israel. I delivered you out of the hand of Saul. I gave you your master's house and your master's wives into your care. I gave you the house of Israel and of Judah. And if that had been too little, I would have given you much more" (vv. 7-8). The treasures of My grace were yours and you sinned in the presence of My love! "Why have you despised the word of the Lord, to do evil in His sight?" How had David despised it? God had heaped blessings on him and David had preferred to satisfy his lust!
The charge also sharpens: from despising God's word to despising God Himself. David worked hard to keep the affair out of human sight. That effort showed whose eyes he feared.
Notice, "You have despised Me." David had tried to hide his sin from public view by putting Uriah out of the way. He forgot the all-seeing eye of the Lord. He forgot too the honour of His holy name. Had he remembered the Lord at the moment when his own nature was speaking inside him, he would not have fallen into the trap. The sense of God's presence is the great safeguard against evil. But how often we are more influenced by the presence of other people than by the presence of God!
God shapes the sentence to match the crime, item for item.
He had killed Uriah with the sword of the children of Ammon — the sword should now never depart from his house. He had taken Uriah's wife — others should take his wives. He had done it secretly — but, said the Lord, I will do this thing before all Israel, and before the sun. We shall find the sentence carried out in chapters 13:28-39; 16:21-22; 18:14.
David confesses, and God pardons him. The sword still stays. Darby sets the two side by side: God forgives the person, and God still governs His world.
David is pardoned, because he confesses his sin. But as to His government, God shows Himself inflexible. He spares the king — for he deserved death — yet He tells him that the sword will never depart out of his house. David's punishment also matches his sins.
The sentence ran on to the end of David's life, and the verse still calls Bathsheba the wife of Uriah. Yet this dealing has a limit.
Full and everlasting forgiveness does not free those who receive it from God's dealings with them in government. David had to experience that, right to the end of his life. The child born to him by Uriah's wife must die. (Bathsheba was still regarded in that light.) And the sword should never depart from his house. Amnon, Absalom and Adonijah were examples of that. Governmental dealing, however, ends with this life. God's favour to us, based on the sacrifice of Christ, lasts for ever.
The verse is not only about a king. Rossier turns the same word on the desires we quietly let into our own hearts.
Every natural heart has lusts that attract it. By "lusts" we do not mean only the defiling things of the world. We also mean "the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life" — pleasures, vanity, and ambition. These things find easy access into a Christian's heart. How many days and years often pass without our shutting the door to them! Every time we open the door to this visitor we are despising the Lord Himself.
- Despising — God weighs the sin against all He had already given David. To sin in the face of that love is to despise Him.
- Secrecy — David feared people's eyes more than God's. So God makes the judgment public.
- Sword — the punishment takes the shape of the sin: he killed by the sword, and the sword lodges in his house.
- Pardon — God forgives David and spares his life. In government He stays inflexible. Forgiveness and consequences are not the same thing.
- Limit — Amnon, Absalom and Adonijah fulfilled the word. But this kind of dealing ends with this life. God's favour, based on the sacrifice of Christ, lasts for ever.
Thus saith Jehovah Behold, I will raise up evil against thee out of thine own house, and I will take thy wives before thine eyes, and give them unto thy neighbour, and he shall lie with thy wives in the sight of this sun.
Nathan has just exposed David's sin, and God now names what will follow. Trouble will rise inside David's own family, and a neighbour will take his wives in the open. Two questions follow: how can a man God forgives still face a sentence, and why does the punishment match the crime so closely?
Pardon and sentence stand side by side. One writer sets two sounds together: mercy speaking, and something else moving behind it.
There, in that deep pit, the arrow of conviction reached his conscience. It drew out from his broken heart those penitent words: "I have sinned against the Lord." How were those words met? By the clear and ready response of that free grace in which our God always delights: "The Lord has put away your sin." This was absolute grace. God forgave David's sin completely. There can be no question about this. But the soothing words of grace fell on David's ears when he confessed his guilt. At the same time, the solemn wheels of government began to move in the distance. Mercy's tender hand had only just removed the guilt when "the sword" came out of its sheath to carry out the necessary judgment.
Notice how the trouble answers what David did. He took another man's wife in private; a neighbour would take his own wives in the open.
Note the solemn principle of retribution in this case, one found again and again in fact as in Scripture. Our sin always gives the form of our chastening... "You did it secretly." Here comes the contrast, as before there was the parallel. One or the other marks God's ways. Each shows in the strongest way how deceitful sin is for man, and how God hates it for ever.
The trouble did not come from outside. It grew inside David's own family, and it wore his own features.
Chastening arises for David from his own house. The uncontrolled evil in his own character reflects itself in the passions of his sons, in whom the power of heredity plainly shows itself... There is evil in our natures, but we are responsible to govern our natures, and grace and the power of God are stronger than these. Without the grace of God, or His restraining hand, nature will show itself. Here was the hound on the leash, ready to chase David.
David had hidden everything. God brought it all into daylight — "in the sight of this sun," as the verse says. The reason reached beyond David. His throne existed to show what God's rule looks like.
This was a very great sin: David committed it in secret; God punishes it in the sight of all Israel. If David did not know how to glorify God, nor how to keep a true testimony to the nature of God's kingdom while reigning in His name; if instead he falsified its character; then God Himself knows what to do. In the sight of all men He will trace those features again. He will do it through the chastisement He sends on the man who has so dishonoured Him.
When Nathan spoke, David did not yet know who the neighbour would be. One commentator weighs what David was not told.
What a shock it must have been when David heard that a neighbour of his would commit adultery with his wives! Not secretly, but with open contempt for David, and with the full knowledge of the people. How much more shocking it would have been if at this time the Lord had told him that the neighbour would be his own son (ch.16:21-22)! David had sinned in secret. He wanted to keep what he did from the people. But God would repay him in public, before them all.
Absalom later did this on Ahithophel's advice, a man set on ruining David. His plotting only carried out what God had said.
Ahithophel thought this would strengthen Absalom's hand. In fact he only worked out the fulfilment of God's word, advanced the goal of His ways, and hurried on the restoration of the man he meant to destroy. This wicked man will soon be caught in his own trap.
The consequences ran on for years, but they had a boundary that the forgiveness did not.
Full and everlasting forgiveness does not free those who receive it from God's dealings with them in government. David had to experience that, even to the end of his life... Governmental dealing, however, ends with this life. God's favour to us, based on the sacrifice of Christ, lasts for ever.
- Pardoned — God put away David's guilt as soon as he confessed, and that forgiveness was full and for ever.
- Patterned — the chastening takes the shape of the sin: a wife taken for a wife taken, a secret act answered in public.
- Personal — God raises the evil up "out of his own house": David's own uncontrolled nature comes back in his sons.
- Public — David's throne existed to show God's rule, so God restores that testimony in the sight of all Israel.
- Passing — the schemers only fulfilled God's word. This kind of government ends with this life; God's favour lasts for ever.
For thou didst [it] secretly; but I will do this thing before all Israel and before the sun.
David committed his sin in secret. Nathan's closing words tell him the cover-up has failed where it counts. God saw it, and He will answer a hidden crime in the open.
The word "secretly" describes what David managed with people, not with God. One writer links this verse to Psalm 139 and God's all-seeing eye:
David's flagrant sin in the matter of Uriah the Hittite was committed in secret. But God knew the whole sordid story, and exposed his guilt to all Israel. (2 Sam. 12:12) The king said within himself, "Surely the darkness shall cover me," but he had to learn that the darkness could not hide from Jehovah, and he found, to his shame, that his secret sin was revealed in the light of the sun (Ps. 139:11-12).
A quiet rebuke would have spared the king's reputation. But God's name was tied to the crime, so the answer had to be public:
the whole matter must be exposed. Satan had caught his victim in a dreadful tangle of evil, and it must all be undone. The holiness of God's house must be kept at all cost. His name and truth must be fully vindicated. His servant must be beaten in view of the whole congregation — yes, "in the sight of the sun." To man's judgement it might seem wiser to hide the chastening of one who stood so high. But that is not God's way. By the judgement He carries out among His people, He will prove to every onlooker that He has no fellowship with evil.
More than one man's character was at stake. David reigned in God's name, so his correction itself puts God's kingdom on display:
Suppose David did not know how to glorify God. Suppose that, while reigning in His name, he did not keep a true testimony to the nature of God's kingdom, but falsified its character instead. Then God Himself knows how to retrace its features in the sight of all men, through the chastening He sends on the man who has so dishonoured Him.
The punishment is not random trouble. It takes its shape from the sin itself: where David chose the dark, God chooses daylight.
Notice the solemn principle of retribution in this case, so often found in fact as in Scripture. Our sin always gives the form of our chastening… And further, "You did it secretly." Here comes contrast, where before there was likeness. One or the other marks God's ways. Each shows in the strongest way how sin deceives man, and how God hates it forever.
The threat was not a figure of speech. It came true in David's own household, in the open, through his own son:
What a shock it must have been to David to hear that a neighbour of his would commit adultery with David's wives. It would not be secret. It would be done with open contempt for David, and the people would know all about it. How much more shocking if at this time the Lord had told him that the neighbour would be his own son (ch.16:21-22)! David had sinned secretly, wanting to keep his actions from the people. But God would repay him in public, before all the people (v.12). The Lord Jesus warned His disciples against hypocrisy. He told them, "Nothing is covered up that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known" (Luke 12:1).
Verse 13 gives David immediate forgiveness. Verse 12 still stands. Both are true at once:
There, in that deep pit, the arrow of conviction reached his conscience. It drew from his broken heart those repentant words, "I have sinned against the Lord." How were those words met? By the clear and ready response of that free grace in which our God always delights: "The Lord has put away your sin." This was absolute grace. God forgave David's sin completely… Yet while the soothing words of grace fell on David's ears at his confession, the wheels of government were already turning, and their solemn sound came from the distance.
This verse is regularly read as a warning that God's reckoning need not wait for a future day:
It is not necessarily only in the day of judgment that this takes place: the Lord may deal with it now. "You did it secretly," says God through Nathan to David; "but I will do this thing before all Israel, and before the sun."
- Secret — David hid the matter from people. God knew the whole story and exposed it to all Israel.
- Shape — the chastening is cut to fit the crime: what he took, another takes; what he did in the dark, God does in daylight.
- Sight — the open dealing guards God's name. Every onlooker sees that He has no fellowship with evil among His own people.
- Sword — the words came true inside David's own family, in the open. Jesus taught the same rule: nothing hidden stays hidden.
- Sequel — God forgave at once and in full. Yet His government still ran its course. Pardon and consequences are not the same thing.
And David said to Nathan, I have sinned against Jehovah. And Nathan said to David, Jehovah has also put away thy sin thou shalt not die.
David had hidden his sin with Bathsheba and Uriah until God sent the prophet Nathan to confront him. This verse is the turning point: David confesses, and the answer comes at once — a pardon that does not cancel the consequences.
David's confession names the Lord. One writer marks the gap between being ashamed that people know and seeing that the act is evil before God.
Nathan speaks only one phrase, "You are the man," to convict David. David too says only one thing in God's presence: "I have sinned against the Lord." When a soul has seen this it has taken a tremendous step forward... Those we have offended may forgive our sins against them. We may make amends in some measure for the sins we commit against ourselves. But what can we say when we have sinned against the Lord? One person says, "I have sinned," because he is ashamed that men can see it. It is quite another thing when a person is convicted that what he has done is evil in the sight of the Lord.
Others in Scripture said the same words with no change of heart.
Pharaoh could say, "I have sinned this time," when the thunder and hail frightened him and he wanted them stopped. Yet he had not repented. He sinned still more and hardened his heart once the thunder stopped... Saul said to Samuel, "I have sinned." But he revealed the state of his heart when he added, "Yet honor me now before the elders of my people." ... In none of these cases was there real repentance. David's case is quite different. He was not thinking about his reputation with men and how to save it. He saw and confessed what his guilt was before God.
The pardon is startling. Under the law, David's case had only one outcome.
"I have sinned against the Lord." A short, real, but solemn confession. It admits that he was in God's hands and deserved only death for his offences... God's mercy could reach a man guilty of blood. The law could not meet the case. It demanded David's death on two counts, adultery and murder. He could offer no sacrifice, for he had sinned deliberately and defiantly. There was nothing for him but the sovereign mercy of God. Could that mercy reach him? God did not leave him in doubt for a moment. The prophet did not have to go away and wait before he could assure him of pardon.
Nathan speaks in the past tense, not the future.
Having produced this thorough conviction of sin, God does not keep His poor guilty servant waiting. Again He speaks only one sentence to him: "The Lord also has put away your sin." He does not say the Lord will put it away. He says the Lord has put it away. He had dealt with His servant's sin beforehand. He had made provision, so that the sin was gone from David and no longer came up before God. This is what we find at the cross of Christ.
He received no sign, no sacrifice, and no second announcement — and he did not ask for one.
On what could the convicted man rest? On the word of God. He had nothing else. That word was spoken once and, as far as we read, never repeated. Does God have to speak twice? David did not ask that. He heard, and he rejoiced in the mercy of his God... He did not cross-examine the prophet to make sure there was no mistake... Many of us have acted very differently. Many still do — slow to receive the gospel message, slow to bow to the free proclamation of forgiveness.
The same visit brings pardon and announces the child's death. One writer names two principles at work.
Grace meets this confession, as he hears, "The Lord also has put away your sin; you shall not die." But grace and government are two different principles. The first says, "The Lord has put away your sin"; the second can only say, "The child who is born to you shall surely die" — for the wheels of God's governmental chariot never stop, and "whatever one sows, that will he also reap."
The pardon rests on what God has done, not on David.
"The Lord has put away your sin," the prophet declared. God, who alone could do it, had done it. David could not put it away; Nathan could not either. God could, and did. Then it could never be charged to David.
- Convicted — one phrase from Nathan, "You are the man," reached David's conscience.
- Confessed — David owned the sin as against the Lord; Pharaoh and Saul said the same words with unchanged hearts.
- Cleared — the law demanded his death twice over, and no sacrifice covered his case. Only sovereign mercy was left, and it came at once.
- Completed — Nathan says God has already put the sin away; the provision was made beforehand, and one writer points to the cross.
- Chastened — the pardon stood, but the child still died; grace and government run on different tracks.
Howbeit, because by this deed thou hast given great occasion to the enemies of Jehovah to blaspheme, even the child that is born to thee shall certainly die.
The prophet Nathan has just told David that God has put his sin away and he will not die — then in the same breath he announces the child's death. Free pardon and public government run side by side here, because David's sin handed the world an argument against God.
A note on wording: the ESV says David "utterly scorned the LORD." Older translations read "you have given great occasion to the enemies of the LORD to blaspheme." The writers quoted below use that older wording.
The same chapter holds both a pardon and a sentence. One writer sets the two side by side:
Grace meets this confession, as he hears, "The Lord also has put away your sin; you shall not die." But grace and government are two different principles. Grace says, "The Lord has put away your sin." Government can only say, "The child also that is born to you shall surely die." The wheels of God's governmental chariot never stop, and "whatever a man sows that shall he also reap."
Forgiveness here is complete. What follows is not God re-opening the case:
Full and everlasting forgiveness, however, does not exempt those who receive it from God's dealings with them in government. David had to experience that, right to the end of his life. The child born to him by Uriah's wife must die, and the sword would never depart from his house... Governmental dealing, however, ends with this life. God's favour to us, based on the sacrifice of Christ, lasts for ever.
God's reason for the sentence is not the sin alone, but what it gave His enemies:
Such is the consequence that the world draws from our faults. Satan uses each of our sins to turn people's hearts openly against God and against Christ. Look, the world says, what their religion leads them to do! — and God is blasphemed. Satan stirs up desires in a Christian for two reasons: to be able to accuse him, and to turn those who watch his fall against Christ, so that they may not turn to Him for salvation.
The damage did not end with David's generation:
To this day unbelievers and people who reject the Word of God point to David's sin and blaspheme. Yet the very things they sneer at are the things they practise.
David was not a private man. His position made his sin weigh far more:
David's sin had openly defied God's law. By his own example it loosened the moral duty the people owed their God. David was God's anointed and God's representative in government, yet he had trampled one of God's basic laws underfoot. So the anointed king had become the guiltiest sinner in his kingdom.
The punishment matched the sin — and then answered it in the open:
Note the solemn principle of retribution here, seen as often in real life as in scripture. Our sin always gives the form of our chastening... "You did it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel, and before the sun." Here God's way is contrast, where before it was likeness. Either one marks His ways. Each shows how deeply sin deceives man, and how God hates it for ever.
The innocent child bears the blow, not the guilty father — the hardest edge of the verse:
Death does not strike David, the guilty one, but his cherished son. God's judgment must fall on the king's house at once, where everyone can see it. The child falls sick. The poor father is in anguish, and he fasts and pleads with God. If it were possible, may God show him grace! No, discipline must run its course.
Nor was this the whole of it:
The death of the child, however, was but the first sound of the storm of judgement about to burst upon David's house. He might fast, pray, humble himself, and lie face down in the dust, but the child must die.
The story does not end in ruin. David bowed to the sentence and came out the other side:
While the child lived, he pleaded with the Lord for it. He did not despise the chastening of the Lord; he felt it very deeply. But when the child is dead, he accepts God's will in full submission... While we pass under such discipline for our sin, we are aware of no light and no talking with Him. Still, we may come out of it with renewed strength and power, as David did... God shows him that, however unbending He is in righteousness, His love and interest in him are unchanged.
In David's answer to his servants, commentators find real hope:
The child had gone where David himself would follow, and where he would find him: in this he certainly expresses the comfort that remains for him of meeting in eternity the baby of a few days' existence upon earth.
- Pardoned — "You shall not die" is pure grace. God put David's sin away the moment he confessed it, and never charged it against him again.
- Governed — pardon does not cancel consequence. Grace and government are two different principles. The wheels of government never stop.
- Exposed — David sinned in secret, so God judged him in the open. Our sin always gives the form of our chastening.
- Blasphemed — God gives the reason: the sin gave His enemies occasion to blaspheme. Unbelievers still point at David and sneer. Satan uses a believer's fall to turn onlookers away from Christ.
- Restored — David bowed to God's will and rose with renewed strength, comforted that he would go to his child. God is unbending in righteousness, and His love never changes.
And Nathan departed to his house. And Jehovah smote the child that Urijah's wife bore to David, and it became very sick.
Nathan has gone home, and the sentence he announced begins to fall on the child born to David and Bathsheba. David has just heard that his sin is put away, so why does the blow still land — and why on the child instead of the guilty king?
The verse opens with the prophet going home. Nathan had brought both pardon and sentence, and then he withdrew.
Nathan knew that David's confession was real. At once he assured David that the Lord had put away his sin, and that he would not die, as justice would demand... Nathan, as a true prophet, has delivered only the message from God, then he leaves David alone with God.
Forgiveness of the sin and cancelling of its results are two different things. One writer sets them side by side, as two sounds heard at the same moment.
There, in that deep pit, the arrow of conviction reached his conscience. It drew out of his broken heart these words of repentance: "I have sinned against the Lord." How were those words met? By the clear and ready response of that free grace in which our God always delights: "The Lord has put away your sin." This was absolute grace. David's sin was fully forgiven... But when he confessed his guilt, the soothing words of grace fell on David's ears — and in the distance the wheels of government began their solemn movement.
Scripture does not call the baby's illness an accident. The Lord Himself afflicts the child, and that stroke begins a long chain through David's family.
Listen! "The Lord afflicted the child that Uriah's wife bore to David" (2 Sam. 12:15), and it died. His son, Amnon, forced his sister, Tamar, and was murdered by another son, Absalom. Absalom, the murderer, brought back in unrighteousness, rose in rebellion against his father... Surely David in God's government reaped what he had sown.
Bathsheba was David's wife by now, yet the text withholds that title here. The wording keeps the crime in view. God's dealings with His people in this life also have a limit.
Full and everlasting forgiveness, however, does not spare those who receive it from God's dealings with them in government. David had to experience that, even to the end of his life. The child born to him by Uriah's wife (for in that light Bathsheba was still regarded) must die... Governmental dealing, however, ends with this life. God's favour to us, based on the sacrifice of Christ, lasts for ever.
David had been told he would not die. The one who suffers is the son, and the pain to the father is the point.
Death does not strike David, the guilty one, but his cherished son. God's judgment had to fall on the king's house at once, where everyone could see it. The child falls sick; the poor father is distressed and fasts and prays to God. If it were possible, may God show him grace! No, discipline must run its course. What anguish for David's very tender heart in the presence of the innocent victim of his sin!
The child does not die at once. The illness drags on, and the delay works on the father.
In His faithful government, God did not take the child away at once. Instead He afflicted him with serious illness. This searched David's soul more deeply and kept him in prayer and fasting for the seven days of his son's illness.
The child's death was not God's last word about this mother.
Yet from that very mother — from her who had been the wife of Uriah the Hittite — the grace of God raised up the heir to the throne of Israel. God made him His firstborn, higher than the kings of the earth — a picture of Christ in peaceful glory, as David had been in suffering and warlike power.
- Word. Nathan announced both pardon and sentence, then left. From that moment David deals with God alone.
- Wound. The illness is not bad luck. The Lord Himself struck the child, and that stroke starts a chain running on through Amnon and Absalom.
- Pardon. Forgiveness came at once and in full. It removed the guilt, not the results. Mercy spoke while the wheels of government were already turning.
- Purpose. The blow fell on the son, in public and over seven slow days, so the guilty father would feel it to the depths.
- Grace. God's government has a limit: it ends with this life. From the same mother He raised up the heir who pictures Christ in peaceful glory.
And David besought God for the child; and David fasted, and went in, and lay all night on the earth.
God had forgiven David's sin, but his child lay dying, and the king spent the night face down on the ground. Why plead for a life that must be given up, and what does that pleading do in a forgiven man?
One writer reads David's body language as confession:
"And David fasted and went in and lay all night on the ground" (2 Sam. 12:16). Here we have David lying on the ground in the attitude of a true penitent. The arrow of conviction had entered his conscience. Nathan's pointed word, "You are the man," had fallen with divine power upon his heart. He takes his place in the dust, conscience-smitten and heart-broken before God.
David confessed, and God pardoned him. The discipline still came:
The sin of David has been extremely great; but we can plainly see in him the precious work of the Spirit. Confounded by the simple faithfulness of Uriah, he cannot escape the hand of God! David is pardoned, for he confesses his sin. But in His government God shows Himself to be unbending. He spares the king — who deserved death — yet He tells him that the sword will never depart from his house. As to David's affections, the chastisement was in the death of his child, a chastisement which he deeply felt.
Grace does not remove God's government. Another writer explains why:
Yet the government of God is not displaced by the grace shown, nor would it be grace that did displace it. The throne becomes a "throne of grace," but is no less — one may reverently say, all the more — a throne. If there is evil, He must be seen standing against it, even as He seeks in His love to deliver men from it. His chastenings are needed by His children, because they are children; they are needed, also, as witness to the world of what He is.
The child was not taken at once, and the delay kept David on the ground:
God, in His faithful government, did not take the child away at once, but struck him with serious illness. This searched David's soul more deeply, keeping him in prayer and fasting for the seven days of his son's illness. Evidently he thought that the earnestness of his prayer might change God's mind. His servants did everything they could to draw him away from his deep distress as he lay on the ground.
David's own words explain the fasting. He had no promise to hold on to, so he asked:
David's child, the fruit of his terrible sin, was about to die. Face down in the dust before God, fasting and praying, the king begged Him in tears for the life of the child. He said, "Who knows whether the LORD will be gracious to me, that the child may live?" But his prayer could not be granted; the fruit of sin must die.
One writer reads that pleading as a wrestling with God. The wrestling ended only when David's will gave way:
David sees his dear child sick. He fasts and prays, but he wrestles with God; his will was not submissive. When the child was dead, David changed his clothes, ate and drank, and could come to worship before the Lord. The struggle in his heart had ended, and his will was broken.
The night on the ground was not the end. David got up a different man:
The child dies. David rises from the earth, washes himself, anoints himself with oil, and changes his clothing. It is as though he were a new man beginning a new career. He goes into the house of the Lord and bows down. Is he mourning? No. He acknowledges God's righteousness, holiness and love, and he acknowledges that the discipline has cleared God's character. After having bowed down before the Lord he is on his way to renewed fellowship with Him.
- Conviction. Nathan's word struck David's conscience, and he took his place in the dust, heart-broken before God.
- Pardon. David confessed, and God pardoned him — He spared the king who deserved death.
- Government. Forgiveness does not lift the rod. The throne of grace is still a throne, and God disciplines a forgiven child because he is a child.
- Pleading. "Who knows?" is honest prayer when God has given no promise. David begged for seven days, and the answer was no.
- Worship. When his will broke, David rose, washed, and bowed before the Lord — on the road back to fellowship with Him.
And the elders of his house arose, [and went] to him, to raise him up from the earth; but he would not, and he ate no bread with them.
David's newborn son by Bathsheba is dying. The king lies on the ground for seven days and will not get up, eat, or listen to his elders. God had already forgiven the sin. So why is David still in the dust, and what is he hoping for?
The illness is not God taking back His pardon. Forgiveness is one thing; how God deals with sin's results in this life is another.
Forgiveness is full and everlasting. Even so, it does not free those who receive it from God's dealings with them in government. David had to experience that, even to the end of his life. The child born to him by Uriah's wife (for Bathsheba was still regarded in that light) had to die. And the sword would never depart from his house. Of that, Amnon, Absalom, and Adonijah were examples. Governmental dealing, however, ends with this life. God's favour to us, based on the sacrifice of Christ, lasts for ever.
Those three names are David's own sons: the sword fell inside his own family. The discipline had a limit, though — it ran out at the end of his life.
God could have taken the child at once. Instead the boy lay ill for seven days. Those days worked on David, and they show what he hoped his prayers might do.
In His faithful government, God did not take the child away at once. Instead He gave him a serious illness. This searched David's soul more deeply and kept him praying and fasting for the seven days of his son's illness. It seems he thought that his earnest prayer might change God's mind. His servants did everything they could to draw him away from the intensity of his distress as he lay on the ground.
The elders do what anyone would: get the king up and get food into him. He refuses, and the reason lies in who he blames for the illness.
God took Bathsheba's nameless child from the earth. This was His government on the father for his sin. David sought by fasting and earnest prayer that the child might live. The elders of his house tried to raise him from the ground where he had thrown himself down. But he would not let them lift him, and he would not eat bread. His anguish was deep. He felt he had brought this judgment on the child.
David already knew the child must die. He prayed anyway — not on a promise, but on the bare chance that God might be gracious.
David's child, the fruit of his terrible sin, was about to die. The king lay face down in the dust before God, fasting and praying. With tears he begged God for the life of the child, for he said, "Who can tell whether the Lord may be gracious to me, that the child may live?" But his prayer could not be granted; the fruit of sin had to die.
Commentators read David's posture in two ways. One sees a man still fighting God, who can eat and worship only when that fight is over.
David sees the child sick who is dear to him; then he fasts and prays, but he wrestles with God; his will was not submissive. When the child was dead, David changed his clothes, ate, and drank. Now he could come and worship before the Lord, because the struggle in his heart had ceased. His will was broken.
Another sees real repentance already at work in him, driven home by Nathan's word.
Here we have David lying on the ground in the posture of a true penitent. The arrow of conviction had entered his conscience. Nathan's pointed word, "You are the man," had fallen with divine power upon his heart. He takes his place in the dust, conscience-smitten and heart-broken before God.
- Forgiven. God had already forgiven the sin in full. What follows is His government, not the loss of His favour — and it ends with this life.
- Disciplined. God did not take the child at once. A slow illness kept David praying and fasting for seven days.
- Distressed. He would not let the elders lift him up or feed him. He knew whose sin had brought this on his son.
- Hoping. His prayer rested on nothing but a "who can tell." God did not grant it; the fruit of sin had to die.
- Broken. When the struggle in his heart ended, he rose, ate, and worshipped. The discipline had done its work. It did not crush him.
And it came to pass on the seventh day, that the child died. And the servants of David feared to tell him that the child was dead; for they said, Behold, while the child was yet alive, we spoke to him, and he would not hearken to our voice; and how shall we say to him, The child is dead? he may do some harm.
The child born to David and Bathsheba lingers seven days and then dies. The men closest to the king are too frightened to tell him. Two questions run through this verse. Why does a child die for a father's sin when God has already forgiven that father? And what turns David's week of weeping into worship?
Nathan had told David that God had put his sin away. In the same visit Nathan said the child would die. Writers treat these as two lines of God's dealing running at once.
But grace and government are two different principles. The former says, "The Lord has put away your sin." The latter can only say, "The child who is born to you shall surely die." For the wheels of God's governmental chariot never stop, and "whatever a man sows, that will he also reap" (Gal. 6:7).
This is not God changing His mind about David. It is God showing the world, in public, that He stands against the evil He forgives.
If there is evil, He must be seen standing against that evil, even while He seeks in His love to deliver people from it. His children need His chastenings, because they are children. They are needed also to show the world what He is.
The sin had been hidden; the loss is not. One writer points out that God matched the form of the discipline to the form of the offence.
Notice the solemn principle of retribution in this case. It is found in real life as regularly as in Scripture. Our sin always gives the form of our chastening… "For you did it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel and before the sun."
The blow did not fall at once, and the week of delay did its own work in David.
God, in His faithful government, did not take the child away at once, but afflicted him with serious illness. This searched David's soul more deeply, keeping him in prayer and fasting for the seven days of his son's illness. It seems he thought that the earnestness of his prayer might change God's mind. His servants did everything they could to turn him from his intense distress as he lay on the ground. But he would not listen until he heard them whispering together, and questioning them, found that the child had died.
No word came from God during that week to soften the blow. One writer treats that silence as normal when God is dealing with us over sin.
While the child lived, he begged the Lord for it. Far from despising the chastening of the Lord, he clearly felt it most intensely. But when the child is dead, he accepts God's will in perfect submission… It had been a moment of thickest darkness to him, because no word came from the Lord to ease the sorrow of his heart. I believe this is usually the case when we are suffering under God's judgment. We need to feel the righteous government of God. While we are passing under it for our sin, we are not aware of light or communion with Him. But still, we may come out of it with renewed strength and power, as David did.
His servants feared he might "do himself some harm." The news did the opposite.
The child dies. David rises from the earth, washes himself, anoints himself with oil, and changes his clothing. It is as though he were a new man beginning a new career. He goes into the house of the Lord and bows down. Is he mourning? No, he acknowledges the righteousness, holiness, and love of God as well as the clearing of His character through discipline.
Another writer holds this up as the pattern for anyone standing beside a grave.
There was grief, and deep grief, and God would not blame him for it. But in his touch with God he triumphed. He worshipped.
David's answer to his servants looks forward, not back.
The child had gone where David himself would follow, and where he would find him. In this he certainly expresses the comfort that remains for him: meeting in eternity the baby who lived only a few days on earth.
- Sin. Forgiveness was real and instant. But it did not cancel God's government: the sin sown still bore its harvest.
- Sentence. The discipline took the shape of the offence — done in secret, judged before all Israel and before the sun.
- Silence. Seven days of illness and no word from God: the darkness of being under His hand is felt, not explained.
- Surrender. When the news came, David washed, changed, and worshipped. He grieved without complaining, and he owned that God was right.
- Seeing again. David's comfort is that he will go where the child has gone: the parting is real, but it is only for a while.