Email Bible Study: 2 Samuel 12

God sends a message to David, through the prophet Nathan, to address his recent behavior. The metaphor used paints a powerful picture:

1 The Lord sent Nathan to David. When he came to him, he said, “There were two men in a certain town, one rich and the other poor.2 The rich man had a very large number of sheep and cattle,

3 but the poor man had nothing except one little ewe lamb he had bought. He raised it, and it grew up with him and his children. It shared his food, drank from his cup and even slept in his arms. It was like a daughter to him.

4 “Now a traveler came to the rich man, but the rich man refrained from taking one of his own sheep or cattle to prepare a meal for the traveler who had come to him. Instead, he took the ewe lamb that belonged to the poor man and prepared it for the one who had come to him.”

Of course, David is the rich man in this parable. God has made David rich with money, power, etc., yet David still found it necessary to reach beyond his bounds to Bathsheba. Even worse, he sacrificed Uriah to keep his own reputation intact. God's message is strong:

8 I gave your master's house to you, and your master's wives into your arms. I gave you the house of Israel and Judah. And if all this had been too little, I would have given you even more.9 Why did you despise the word of the Lord by doing what is evil in his eyes? You struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and took his wife to be your own. You killed him with the sword of the Ammonites.

God has given David all he needed. If asked, David certainly would not have said he "despised the word of the Lord." But by his sin, David essentially said as much by acting as if God had not given him enough.

Through Jesus, God gave us Himself - and by His sacrifice we have freedom from sin. This is more priceless than anything David could have dreamed of having. So why do we still sin?!

There's a lot more to be learned here. God promises David that some of his family will be killed by the sword, like Uriah. Also, David will publicly become the victim of adultery. But David's response shows that his character is not fully broken:

13 Then David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord.”
Nathan replied, “The Lord has taken away your sin. You are not going to die.

It is very exceptional that David obtains God's forgiveness here. I'd say it is a small taste of the forgiveness we experience today. And surely he wouldn't have received it without this show of humility.

David and Bathsheba's child also gets sick and dies as a result of the sin. David fasts and prays in hope that God will change his mind, but to no avail:

19 David noticed that his servants were whispering among themselves and he realized the child was dead. “Is the child dead?” he asked.
“Yes,” they replied, “he is dead.”

20 Then David got up from the ground. After he had washed, put on lotions and changed his clothes, he went into the house of the Lord and worshiped. Then he went to his own house, and at his request they served him food, and he ate.

By David's act of worship, it is clear that he has accepted God's punishment. And David seems able to move on in a pretty remarkable way, especially considering the death and "calamity" that he can expect to come to his family. For lack of a better term, it looks like he's been scared straight again.

God has of course moved on too - as evidenced by his blessing on David's next child:

24 Then David comforted his wife Bathsheba, and he went to her and lay with her. She gave birth to a son, and they named him Solomon. The Lord loved him;

25 and because the Lord loved him, he sent word through Nathan the prophet to name him Jedidiah.

We will hear a lot more about Solomon once he becomes king!

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