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.
But David saw that his servants whispered, and David perceived that the child was dead; and David said to his servants, Is the child dead? And they said, He is dead.
For seven days David had fasted on the ground, begging God for his sick child. The verse turns on what he does the moment hope is gone.
The servants now had worse news than the illness, and they weighed what it would do to him.
On the seventh day of the child's sore sickness, the little life flickered out. David's servants were afraid to tell the distressed parent the truth. If he grieved so much while life was there, what would he do when hope was gone? David noticed the servants whispering to each other, and asked, Is the child dead? They said, He is dead. How then did David behave in his sore sorrow?
The death was not random. It was the third judgment announced after David's sin, and it fell where everyone would see it.
David had been told that violence and corruption would be found in his house as the fruit of his sin. The third judgment is the death of his child. Death does not strike down David, the guilty one, but rather his cherished son. It is necessary for God's judgment to fall on the king's house in a visible, immediate way before the eyes of all. The child falls sick; the poor father is distressed and fasts and begs God. If it were possible, may God show him grace! No, discipline must run its course. What anguish for David's extremely tender heart in the presence of the innocent victim of his sin!
Why did the grief stop once the worst had happened? One writer answers by looking at David's will.
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, drank, and could come to worship before the Lord. He could do this because the struggle in his heart had ceased, and his will was broken.
Grief and worship stood together in what David did next.
His conduct was beautiful. He arose from the earth, washed himself, changed his clothes, and came into the house of the Lord and WORSHIPPED. There was no giving way to grief unworthy of a man. Grief there was, and sore grief, and God would not rebuke him for this. But in his touch with God he triumphed. He WORSHIPPED.
David's own stated comfort was that he would one day go to the child. Writers value that word differently. One takes it as a lesson for believers who do have more light than David had:
We sometimes look with pity on Old Testament saints as people with little light… But here is a lesson we New Testament believers would do well to think over and gain from. David also comforted himself with the thought, "I shall go to him, but he will not return to me." We part, but not forever. We part for only a very little while.
Another argues that the Christian's ground of comfort has moved on from David's:
The bereaved one is not entitled to draw his comfort from the reflection, "I shall go to him, but he will not return to me," as David in his day rightly did. He should find his comfort rather in this… that "if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep."
For seven days God sent David no word to soften the sentence. One writer treats that silence as normal when God's hand is on us for our sin.
It had been a moment of thickest darkness to him, for there had been no communication 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 conscious of light or of conversation with Him. But even so, we may come out of it with renewed strength and power, as David did… And God shows him that, however unbending He is in righteousness, His love and interest in him are unchanged.
- Sentence. God had announced this death as the fruit of David's sin. It fell in full view on the king's house, while the guilty man himself lived.
- Silence. Seven days of fasting brought no word from God to ease the sorrow. Under His government a man may feel only darkness, with no light and no conversation with Him.
- Surrender. The change at "He is dead" was not numbness. David's will was broken, the wrestling stopped, and he could worship.
- Worship. David's grief was real, and God did not rebuke it. He still rose, washed, and worshipped, and in that touch with God he triumphed.
- Strength. A man may come out of such dealings with new strength. God is unbending in righteousness, and His love toward him does not change.
Then David arose from the earth, and washed, and anointed himself, and changed his clothing, and entered into the house of Jehovah and worshipped; then he came to his own house and required them to set bread before him, and he ate.
David's child by Bathsheba dies while he is fasting and praying for him. Instead of breaking down, David gets up, washes, and goes in to worship — and his servants cannot understand it.
Every action here reverses what David had been doing while the child lived. One writer sees a man starting a new life.
The child dies. 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. David rises up a restored man; he can go to his house and ask for a meal. After bowing down before the Lord, he is on his way to renewed fellowship with Him.
While the child lived, David pleaded. Once the child died, something inside him settled — and that, not the news itself, is what made worship possible.
David sees his dear child sick. He fasts and prays, but he wrestles with God, and his will would not submit. When the child died, David changed his clothes, ate, drank, and could come and worship before the Lord. He could do this because the struggle in his heart had ended, and his will was broken.
Why does the verse bother to mention oil? Anointing after washing had a plain, everyday meaning.
The word means to anoint the body after washing. It was used for the practice, common in the East, of anointing the body or parts of it for comfort, appearance, friendliness, healing, or burial. For the ordinary daily routine compare Ruth 3:3; 2 Sam. 12:20; 2 Chr. 28:15; Matt. 6:17. To neglect this was a sign of mourning, 2 Sam. 14:2; Dan. 10:3.
The verse says David worshiped, and what he did was bow. Others in Scripture did the same, and one writer draws out what they share.
Israel worshipped when they bowed the head at God's revelation by Moses. So David worshipped (2 Sam. 12:20)... Job worshipped when he fell down in subjection to God's dealings with him... What were all these acts? They were a thankful acknowledgment of God for what He had done or said, and an acceptance of His mercy.
David's sin had already been forgiven, and yet the child still died. One writer explains how forgiveness and consequence can both be true at once.
"Whatever one sows, that will he also reap." The sin of sowing weeds may be forgiven, but the reaping must be according to the sowing. The former is grace, the latter is government. Each acts in its own sphere, and neither interferes with the other. God let David walk the courts of the sanctuary as a subject of grace (2 Sam. 12:20) before He called him to climb the rugged slopes of Mount Olivet as a subject of government (2 Sam. 15:30). And we can say with confidence that David's heart never felt God's grace more deeply than at the very moment when he was feeling the righteous action of God's government.
Through the whole ordeal God said nothing. One writer treats that silence as normal, and not as the end of the story.
It had been a time of deepest darkness to him, for no word came from the Lord to soften the sorrow of his heart. And 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 pass under it for our sin, we are not aware of any light or any talking with Him. Even so, we may come out of it with renewed strength and power, as David did. We next find him fighting against Rabbah in the full tide of victory.
One writer points to David's behaviour as a model for anyone who has lost someone they love. The point is not that David felt less.
His conduct was beautiful. He did not give way to weak grief. There was grief, and deep grief, and God would not scold him for it. But in his touch with God he triumphed. He WORSHIPPED. Are we tested by a painful loss? If we worship, give God the glory, and accept the trial from His hand, we will be greatly helped to bear it.
- Rise — David gets up off the ground because his will has stopped fighting God's. The struggle ended before the washing began.
- Wash — Washing, oil and fresh clothes were ordinary daily care. Mourners went without them, so taking them up again ended the mourning.
- Worship — Bowing before God is a thankful acknowledgment of Him for what He has done or said, and an acceptance of His mercy.
- Bread — He eats and returns to his house, a restored man on his way back to fellowship with God.
- War — No word from God came in the darkness. Yet David came out with renewed strength, and next appears victorious at Rabbah.
And his servants said to him, What thing is this which thou hast done? thou didst fast and weep for the child alive; but as soon as the child is dead, thou dost rise and eat bread.
David has confessed his sin, and Nathan has told him the child born to Bathsheba will die. His household watches him fast and lie on the ground for seven days. Then, at the moment they expect his grief to break out, he gets up, washes, worships, and eats.
One writer sets out what the servants assumed, and the answer David gave them:
His servants were puzzled by this. Like most people, they assumed that death would call for far more distress and sorrow than sickness would. David replied that while the child was alive there was some hope he might recover, and so he had prayed and fasted for that. But now that death had come, prayer and fasting could never bring the child back again.
David had already heard that God had put his sin away. So why did the child still have to die? One writer separates forgiveness from God's government:
Full and everlasting forgiveness, however, does not free those who receive it from God's dealings with them in His government. David had to live with that, right to the end of his life. The child born to him by Uriah's wife (for Bathsheba was still seen in that light) must die, and the sword would never depart from his house.
Another writer notes who bore the blow, and why it had to be public:
Death does not strike down David, the guilty one, but rather his cherished son. It is necessary for God's judgment to fall on the king's house in a visible, immediate way before the eyes of all. The child falls sick; the poor father is distressed; he fasts and pleads with God. If it were possible, may God show him grace! No, discipline must run its course.
David's fasting was not quiet acceptance. One writer reads it as a struggle with God, and the change afterwards as the end of that struggle:
David sees his dear child sick. He fasts and prays, but he is wrestling 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.
Commentators differ slightly in emphasis here. Others describe the same seven days as genuine soul-searching rather than a struggle against God — the illness "deepened the soul-exercise of David, keeping him in prayer and fasting."
One writer follows David step by step, from the ground to the table:
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, and he sees that God's discipline has cleared God's character. David rises up a restored man. He can go home and ask for a meal to be brought to him.
One commentary weighs what David's answer was saying, and what it was not:
The king mourns, but he submits. His servants ask why his behaviour changed when he heard the child was dead. He answers by showing that plain natural grief was not what had been driving him. Nor would he fret against the Lord with useless sorrow. The child had gone where David himself would follow, and where he would find him. In this he expresses the comfort left to him: he would meet in eternity the baby who lived only a few days on earth.
Another writer turns that same sentence toward anyone standing at a graveside today:
We sometimes look with pity on Old Testament believers, as people who had little light. True, our privileges in truth and light, and our access to the whole Word of God, are far greater than any Old Testament believer ever had. But here is a lesson we New Testament believers would do well to think over and gain from. David also comforted himself with the thought, "I shall go to him, but he will not return to me." We part, but not forever. We part for only a very little while.
- Forgiven, still governed. God put David's sin away, yet His dealings with David's house went on. Pardon and consequence are not the same thing.
- While there was hope, he prayed. Fasting belonged to the time when the child might still recover; once death came, prayer could not bring him back.
- When hope closed, the will broke. He stopped wrestling, and the struggle in his heart ceased.
- A broken will can worship. He washed, changed, bowed before God, and ate — a restored man, not a crushed one.
- The parting is short. "I shall go to him" — he would follow the child and find him, and that was his comfort.
And he said, While the child was yet alive, I fasted and wept; for I thought, Who knows? [perhaps] Jehovah will be gracious to me, that the child may live.
David's servants could not understand him. He had fasted and wept over a dying child. Then he rose and ate the moment the child died. His answer explains the whole week: he prayed while there was still something to pray for.
The turning point was not the sickness but the death:
David answered their questions. While the child was alive, there was some hope that he might recover. To that end he had prayed and fasted. But now that death had taken place, prayer and fasting could never bring the child back again... He might have realised that all his prayers and fasting would not heal his son, for God had told him plainly through Nathan that the child would die.
David already knew the sentence. Yet while the child breathed, there was still room to plead.
The words are a question, not a claim. One writer sets them beside the decree of the king of Nineveh:
We see the same effect of the Spirit of God in the remarkable decree of the king of Nineveh. But its closing words, "Who knows whether God will turn," remind us of the words of a greater king than he. I mean king David, whose deep and genuine repentance in Psalm 51 has just been mentioned. 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. He wept as he begged God for the life of the child... But his prayer could not be granted; the fruit of sin must die.
David prayed anyway, and one writer says what he hoped from it:
The child's illness deepened David's distress of soul. It kept him in prayer and fasting through the seven days that his son was ill. It seems he thought that the earnestness of his prayer might change God's mind.
The outcome was never in doubt, and no amount of self-humbling could alter it:
The death of the child, however, was only the first sound of the storm of judgment about to burst on David's house. He might fast, pray, humble himself, and lie face down in the dust, but the child had to die; judgment had to take its course.
God had already forgiven David's sin. So why did the child still die? Pardon and God's dealings with us in this life are not the same thing:
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. 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.
One writer reads David's fasting as the cry of a father who knows the child is suffering for his fault: the king "is distressed and fasts and begs God. If it were possible, may God show him grace! No, discipline must run its course."
David's answer to his servants shows how he grieved:
The king mourns but submits. His servants asked why his conduct changed when he heard that the child was dead. He answers by showing that it was not merely natural grief that had moved him, and that he would not fret against the Lord with useless sorrow.
One writer explains what changed when David rose and worshipped:
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, drank, and could come and worship before the Lord. He could do this because the struggle in his heart had ceased, and his will was broken.
- Sentence. Nathan had announced that the child would die. David's fasting could not overturn it: "judgment had to take its course."
- Pardon. God forgave the sin, but forgiveness does not free a person from His dealings in government. Those dealings end with this life.
- Plea. "Who knows?" is a question, not a demand. While the child lived, David could still ask God for grace.
- Submission. His sorrow was not mere natural grief, and he would not "fret against the Lord with useless sorrow."
- Worship. When the struggle in his heart ceased, David rose, ate, and worshipped — on the day God refused his prayer.
But now he is dead, why should I fast? can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he will not return to me.
David has just lost the child born to Bathsheba, after days of fasting and prayer for the child's life. His calm when the news comes shocks his servants, and his answer points to a meeting still ahead of him.
David's behaviour looks backwards until you see what he had been praying for. One commentator sets out his reasoning, and what David had already been told:
David answered their questions. While the child was alive, there was some hope that he might recover, and to that end he had prayed and fasted. But now that death had come, prayer and fasting could never bring the child back again. In fact, he might have realised that all his prayers and fasting would not heal his son, because God had told him plainly through the prophet Nathan that the child would die.
David's sorrow was real, but he would not turn it against God. Another writer sets out what David still had to look forward to:
The king mourns, but he submits. His servants ask why his behaviour changed when he heard that the child had died. His answer shows that it was not merely natural grief that had moved him, and that he would not fret against the Lord with useless sorrow. The child had gone where David himself would follow, and where he would find him. In this he expresses the comfort that remains for him: meeting in eternity the baby who lived only a few days on earth.
The first half of the sentence is the comfort; the second half is the discipline David accepts. One commentator draws out both:
"I shall go to him." David is now content to carry the mark of this discipline to the end of his life — the discipline that his son's death bears witness to. "He will not return to me." David can never have that joy, but he accepts the path of death as necessary. One day he must walk it to find his son.
David's words assume two living persons on either side of death. One writer used that assumption against those who taught that the dead no longer exist at all:
David says, when speaking of the death of his child, "I shall go to him, but he will not return to me." Scripture rebukes your doctrines at every turn! According to you, the child was not in existence for David to go to, and David, on dying, would be no more in existence to go to him!
David's question is not a real question. Notice too the direction he expects: he goes to the child, and the child does not come back to him:
When David heard that Bathsheba's child had died, after agonising in prayer for the child's life, he asked his question as a rhetorical one, stating a strong negative. "I shall go to him, but he will not return to me." It is clear that David knew nothing of contact with the spirits of the departed.
Set beside another grieving father, David's response stands out. Jacob, believing Joseph dead, spoke of going down to the grave in mourning:
Both men face the death of a child. One says, "I will go down into the grave mourning." The other says, "I will go up to the house of the Lord and worship." Yet both were true believers. One looked no further than death and the grave. The other looked beyond death to resurrection, into a scene where "death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore."
David expects to find his child. One commentator states the same confidence about children who die young:
Are you not certain that all who die in infancy are saved? That just as their little bodies bear the penalty of Adam's sin, their precious souls share the benefit of Christ's atonement!
David's hope reached as far as reunion beyond death. One writer points out that the Christian's hope reaches further:
The Old Testament believer looked for reunion with those who had died, in the realm of the dead. The New Testament believer looks to meet in the air, in resurrection life and glory, everyone he has said goodbye to in the faith of Christ.
- Prayer — David prayed while the outcome was still open. When God's answer was final, he stopped asking and worshipped.
- Submission — David took the loss as discipline from God's hand. He would not fret against the Lord with useless sorrow.
- Reunion — The comfort is not that the child returns, but that David will one day go where the child already is.
- Existence — David speaks of someone to go to. Father and son both stay real persons after death.
- Beyond — David looked past death to reunion. Writers say the Christian looks further still, to resurrection and glory.
And David comforted Bathsheba his wife, and went in to her and lay with her; and she bore a son, and he called his name Solomon; and Jehovah loved him.
David's fasting is over, the first child is dead, and the story turns at once from a grave to a cradle. It puts two unlikely things side by side: a husband comforting the wife he had wronged, and the Lord loving the son born of that union.
The mourning is over. Now David can comfort his wife instead of needing comfort himself. One writer follows that same grace as it reaches Bathsheba:
The king is now able to console Bathsheba. Grace flows out to him anew. He has a son whom he names Solomon (meaning, Peaceable) and whom the Lord through Nathan calls "Jedidiah" (meaning, Beloved of Jehovah). Defilement would have kept Bathsheba from any share in God's blessings, yet grace brings her into the Messiah's line of descent (Matt. 1:6). She becomes the mother of the king of peace and glory. Grace delights to work for fallen creatures. It joins them to Christ, to show its "exceeding riches" in the ages to come.
David named this son "Peaceable" while God's word about a sword on his house still stood. One writer explains where such peace comes from:
The birth and naming of Solomon shows us how complete God's forgiveness was, and how fully it filled David's heart. He could be at peace, and could call this child of Bathsheba "Peaceful", even though the declaration about the sword on his house had not been withdrawn. The future is not untroubled, and yet his heart is. There is a true peace in submission, where we know God in His perfect love: that "perfect love casts out fear". How else could anyone ever reach it?
Nathan had come once before to expose the king's guilt. God sends him a second time on a very different errand:
Again Nathan, by God's direction, visited the king (2 Sam. 12:24-25), not to revive the memory of his guilt, but to assure him that divine favour continued. Bathsheba again bore a son, and David called his name Solomon, as God had directed beforehand (1 Chron. 22:9). The name itself was a pledge of peace and quietness in Israel during that son's reign. But we read that "the Lord loved him, and He sent by the hand of Nathan the prophet, and He called his name Jedidiah," that is, Beloved of Jehovah. What a touching, tender proof of grace on God's part, and of His desire to reassure His servant of it. Solomon spoke of the character of his reign. Jedidiah assured David that his child was an object of Jehovah's love.
Bathsheba lost one son and saw another crowned. Set side by side, the two births show two sides of God's dealings:
What happened to Bathsheba's children reminds us of the Scripture, "Note then the kindness and the severity of God" (Rom. 11:22). The Lord struck the child that was born of David's sin, and he died. But God chose her second child, Solomon, to succeed David as King of Israel... It was Jehovah's love for Solomon, sovereign love, that put him on the throne.
The second name echoes David's own name, and it points beyond Solomon:
Nathan calls the infant Jedidiah (Jedid-yah), that is, the darling of the Lord. He points directly to the meaning of the King's own name: David means the darling, the beloved one. Loved by God; chosen by God; preferred by Him above all others for the throne — what an expressive type of our blessed Lord! He is God's true beloved (Isa. 42:1), who in His due time "shall speak peace to the nations, and his rule shall be from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth" (Zech. 9:10).
Forgiveness did not cancel the consequences. Both realities run on together through the rest of David's life:
"Whatever one sows, that will he also reap." No wonder, then, that adultery and murder sprang up again and again in David's path. It is no surprise that the sword never departs from his house... All this thorn and thistle is the sure fruit of sin. But in the middle of it, one little flower springs up from this cursed ground. It is a type and witness that where sin had abounded, grace over-abounds. From this David and this Bathsheba, joined together by sin, a child springs. His name stands next in the line of the Lord's ancestry. And, as if to confirm it, he receives a special name, "Jedidiah," "beloved of the Lord."
Naming the chosen son here made David responsible later. When his affection drifted toward Absalom, he already had God's answer in hand:
Through the prophet's mouth the Lord had let him know (2 Sam. 12:24-25) which of his sons He had chosen; this son was Solomon... Could the king hesitate between God's positive word and Joab's self-seeking insinuations?... It is a serious thing to allow ourselves to be directed by our natural affections, however legitimate they may be, rather than by the spiritual judgment God has given us.
- Comfort. David can comfort Bathsheba only after the discipline has run its course. Grace flows out to him again, and through him to her.
- Peace. "Solomon" means Peaceable. David could give that name while the sword still hung over his house. Peace comes from knowing God's love, not from calm circumstances.
- Love. Nathan's second visit does not reopen the guilt. It brings the name Jedidiah, "Beloved of Jehovah" — God's own word that He loves this child.
- Choice. Sovereign love, not David's merit, put Solomon on the throne, and made him a picture of God's true Beloved.
- Reach. The consequences of sin still ran their course. Yet from this marriage came the line of the Messiah: grace over-abounding where sin abounded.
And he sent by the hand of Nathan the prophet; and he called his name Jedidiah, for Jehovah's sake.
David's sin with Bathsheba had cost a child's life. Why then does God send Nathan the prophet to name the next son Jedidiah — "beloved of the LORD"?
Nathan had already confronted David over his sin. This second visit had a different aim.
That meeting between Nathan and David ended. God struck the child, and the child died. Afterwards Solomon was born. Again Nathan, at God's direction, visited the king (2 Sam. 12:24-25), not to stir up the memory of his guilt, but to assure him that divine favour continued... What a touching, tender proof of grace on God's part, and of His desire to reassure His servant of it.
David named the boy Solomon; God named him Jedidiah. Each word carries its own weight.
When Solomon was born his father named him Solomon, which means "Peaceable" (2 Sam. 12:24). The LORD had named him this before his birth (1 Chron. 22:9). But when the child was born, the LORD sent Nathan the prophet to David with a second name for him — Jedidiah, which means "beloved of the LORD" (2 Sam. 12:25)... Another writer has noted the link with David's own name. David means the darling, the beloved one. Nathan calls the infant Jedidiah, that is, the darling of the LORD.
One writer draws out what each name told David:
Solomon spoke of the character of his reign. Jedidiah assured David that his child was an object of the LORD's love.
The gift came at the point of David's deepest failure.
This son of Bathsheba was a son of peace to his father's heart. God seals him to David as His gift, with a love whose barrier cannot be broken through. That is what the name Jedidiah means: "beloved of the LORD." Let us bless God for a love that can so triumph over sin.
This grace did not stop with the king.
Grace flows out to David again. He has a son whom he names Solomon (meaning Peaceable) and whom the LORD through Nathan calls "Jedidiah" (meaning Beloved of the LORD). Defilement would have kept Bathsheba from a portion in God's blessings, but grace brings her into the Messiah's line of descent (Matt. 1:6). She becomes the mother of the king of peace and glory.
The name also settled who would rule Israel next.
The LORD struck the child born of David's sin, and he died. But God chose her second child, Solomon, to succeed David as king of Israel... It was the LORD's love for Solomon, sovereign love, that put him on the throne.
Years later that same word tested David's own heart.
Through the prophet's mouth the LORD had let him know (2 Sam. 12:24-25) which of his sons He had chosen; this son was Solomon, the son of Bathsheba, whom God had called "Jedidiah, the beloved of the LORD." Joab realised that David's heart secretly cherished the thought of making Absalom his successor, though perhaps David would not even have admitted this desire to himself. Could the king hesitate between God's clear word and Joab's self-serving hints?... It is a serious thing to let ourselves be guided by our natural affections instead of the spiritual judgment God has given us — however proper those affections may be.
God's choice of Solomon makes him a picture of someone greater.
Loved by God; chosen by God; preferred by Him above all others for the throne — what a clear picture of our blessed Lord! He is God's true beloved (Isa. 42:1). In His own time He will "speak peace to the nations," and His "rule shall be from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth" (Zech. 9:10).
Another writer connects Solomon's name to a title of the Messiah.
The title "wellbeloved" points to the Messiah. The LORD's own name for Solomon (Jedidiah), the "beloved of his God" (2 Sam. 12:25; Neh. 13:26), carries that title. Solomon is a picture of Him who was the true Heir of the LORD's vineyard (Mark 12:6-7).
- Grace answers. God gives the name Jedidiah right after David's worst failure. It is a love that triumphs over sin.
- Grace names. He sent a prophet to attach the word "beloved" to the child, so David would know His favour continued.
- Grace includes. The same love that comforted David brought Bathsheba into the Messiah's line of descent.
- Grace enthrones. Sovereign love, not merit, set Solomon on the throne. David was meant to hold God's word above his own feelings for Absalom.
- Grace foreshadows. Solomon was loved, chosen, and preferred above all others. He pictures the true Beloved, whose rule will reach from sea to sea.