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.