2 Samuel 12:1-15--Nathan Rebukes David

2 Samuel 12:1-15
English Standard Version

Nathan Rebukes David
12 And the LORD sent Nathan to David. He came to him and said to him, “There were two men in a certain city, the one rich and the other poor. 2 The rich man had very many flocks and herds, 3 but the poor man had nothing but one little ewe lamb, which he had bought. And he brought it up, and it grew up with him and with his children. It used to eat of his morsel and drink from his cup and lie in his arms, and it was like a daughter to him. 4 Now there came a traveler to the rich man, and he was unwilling to take one of his own flock or herd to prepare for the guest who had come to him, but he took the poor man's lamb and prepared it for the man who had come to him.” 5 Then David's anger was greatly kindled against the man, and he said to Nathan, “As the LORD lives, the man who has done this deserves to die, 6 and he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity.”

​7 Nathan said to David, “You are the man! Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, ‘I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you out of the hand of Saul. 8 And I gave you your master's house and your master's wives into your arms and gave you the house of Israel and of Judah. And if this were too little, I would add to you as much more. 9 Why have you despised the word of the LORD, to do what is evil in his sight? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and have taken his wife to be your wife and have killed him with the sword of the Ammonites. 10 Now therefore the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised me and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife.’ 11 Thus says the LORD, ‘Behold, I will raise up evil against you out of your own house. And I will take your wives before your eyes and give them to your neighbor, and he shall lie with your wives in the sight of this sun. 12 For you did it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel and before the sun.’” 13 David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the LORD.” And Nathan said to David, “The LORD also has put away your sin; you shall not die. 14 Nevertheless, because by this deed you have utterly scorned the LORD, the child who is born to you shall die.” 15 Then Nathan went to his house.  And the Lord afflicted the child that Uriah's wife bore to David, and he became sick.

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In God's grace, He did not allow David to to be cut off from His people, the Tabernacle, and Himself as the Law demanded, nor did He require David's life for these awful sins that he had committed.  The LORD instead sent a prophet to David.  We have not seen prophets being sent to David usually because he's been doing well at asking the LORD's guidance when it comes to issues about going to war and listening to the LORD's commandments, but it seems that he has failed now in his duty to faithfully uphold the Law and live a life that would be an example for all the Israelites to follow after.

Nathan comes to David and speaks to him in a parable saying, “There were two men in a certain city, the one rich and the other poor. The rich man had very many flocks and herds, but the poor man had nothing but one little ewe lamb, which he had bought. And he brought it up, and it grew up with him and with his children. It used to eat of his morsel and drink from his cup and lie in his arms, and it was like a daughter to him. Now there came a traveler to the rich man, and he was unwilling to take one of his own flock or herd to prepare for the guest who had come to him, but he took the poor man's lamb and prepared it for the man who had come to him.”
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This spoke directly to David's heart as a shepherd.  He would understand the connection the shepherd had with this little lamb and how it was spoiled and treated like a member of the family.  The story had its intended purpose to enrage David at the actions of a man so heartless that he would not sacrifice even one of his own sheep when he had so many for the traveler coming to see him and instead he would climb over the wall and go and steal the lamb away from his neighbor, kill it, and cook it for his traveler friend.  On top of this the one with many sheep was rich and the one with only one lamb was poor--this was all he had.

As I said, it provoked the proper reaction in David when David proclaimed with all the authority vested in him as king over all of Israel, “As the LORD lives, the man who has done this deserves to die, and he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity.”

It's one thing when the theft was of an animal that you can replace out of your own flock with another of equal or greater value.  It's another when the theft was of a woman's purity and the life of her husband which can never be replaced.  By David's own mouth though he has been proclaimed guilty and David points his finger and David and says "You are the man!" It sinks in and David knows that his sin has found him out.  He has hidden nothing from the LORD and the LORD has sought out David when David had no intent to seek after the LORD.  Then once Nathan and the LORD have David's attention does Nathan speak the words of prophecy (in this case indictment) that the LORD had for David to hear:
"I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you out of the hand of Saul. 8 And I gave you your master's house and your master's wives into your arms and gave you the house of Israel and of Judah. And if this were too little, I would add to you as much more. 9 Why have you despised the word of the LORD, to do what is evil in his sight? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and have taken his wife to be your wife and have killed him with the sword of the Ammonites. 10 Now therefore the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised me and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife."

​The LORD knew about all of it and had seen all of it, even the parts that David thought that only he and Joab knew about.  The LORD shows David that this has all sprung up from the sin of covetousness that was within him, for he was not content with what the LORD had given to him and thought that he needed something that someone else had to make him happy and he desired it so much that he was willing to take it by force and even kill to get it.  The LORD puts the death of Uriah the Hittite squarely on the shoulders of David, though it was done by the sword of the Ammonites, and then the LORD proclaims His judgment on David, "Now therefore the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised me and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife."  We won't fully understand what this judgment means until we read the books of 1 and 2 Kings, but we start to get some idea of it here in the rest of 2 Samuel.  The LORD promises that he will raise up evil against David out of his own house (his sons would rebel against him) and that David's neighbors would take his wives from him and do to them publicly what David did in secret (it would actually be one of David's own sons that would set up a tent on the roof of the palace to do this in plain view of the whole city of Jerusalem, and would do it in broad daylight, just as the LORD has said would happen here).

David finally breaks down and repents.  Maybe he's hoping to avoid the judgment that has been proclaimed, but I don't think that's it, as we have Psalm 51 to go along with this passage and it lets us know that David is mostly concerned about his own salvation.  Let's take a look at that now since we are at the point in the story where David is broken and repenting, for it is at this very moment when Nathan has confronted David that the Holy Spirit gives these words to David.


Psalm 51
English Standard Version

Create in Me a Clean Heart, O God
To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet went to him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba.
51 Have mercy on me, O God,
    according to your steadfast love;
according to your abundant mercy
    blot out my transgressions.
2 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
    and cleanse me from my sin!

3 For I know my transgressions,
    and my sin is ever before me.
4 Against you, you only, have I sinned
    and done what is evil in your sight,
so that you may be justified in your words
    and blameless in your judgment.
5 Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity,
    and in sin did my mother conceive me.
6 Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being,
    and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart.

7 Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;
    wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
8 Let me hear joy and gladness;
    let the bones that you have broken rejoice.
9 Hide your face from my sins,
    and blot out all my iniquities.
10 Create in me a clean heart, O God,
    and renew a right spirit within me.
11 Cast me not away from your presence,
    and take not your Holy Spirit from me.
12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
    and uphold me with a willing spirit.

13 Then I will teach transgressors your ways,
    and sinners will return to you.
14 Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God,
    O God of my salvation,
    and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness.
15 O Lord, open my lips,
    and my mouth will declare your praise.
16 For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it;
    you will not be pleased with a burnt offering.
17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
    a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

​18 Do good to Zion in your good pleasure;
    build up the walls of Jerusalem;
19 then will you delight in right sacrifices,
    in burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings;
    then bulls will be offered on your altar.

Read this Psalm in the context of what we just read in 1 Samuel--all the David has done, the fact that he's been trying to hide it, and the fact that the LORD has to send Nathan the prophet to him.  David will not even mention the LORD here, but instead he speaks to the Lord (that's a different word in Hebrew), and it means he's speaking directly to the second person of the Trinity, the one we would call "Jesus," to ask Him to take away David's sin.  Did David understand through the Holy Spirit that the only answer to his high-handed sins of rebellion would be the double-imputation that Christ would give where He would take all of our sin upon Himself so that we might receive all His righteousness?  It seems so!  David's main concern here is for his own soul when he prays that he may not be cast away from the LORD's presence and that the Holy Spirit would not be taken from him (as it was with King Saul).

He knows there is no sacrifice he can make, for if there was he would make it.  All he can do is pray for God to forgive him and choose to not remember his sins, and to blot them out from the record books that he knows God is keeping.  He asks for God to deliver him from the bloodguilt of his sin and to restore to him the joy of his salvation so that he could return to praising God for who He is and what He has done (it would seem that David had not desired to worship the LORD during this time that he was living in sin, which is quite common for us too when we have unconfessed sin and are living unrepentant lives).

Let's return now to the end of our test from 2 Samuel 12.  A final judgment is passed that because of the way in which David has scorned the LORD through his actions, that the child that Bathsheba is pregnant with would die.  One bit of good news was delivered that David himself would not die as a result of this--he would die eventually, but he had many years ahead of him to see the LORD's curse on his household play out, but he will never fully get to see the LORD's covenant fulfilled--he will only get to see it slightly fulfilled through his son Solomon who will be a very imperfect prophetic type of Christ (Jesus' kingdom would also be one of peace, but it will not come by marrying with the kingdoms of the world and setting up all kinds of places for the worship of foreign gods who Saul and David had fought to destroy in the Land).

The text for today ends with the fulfillment of this prophecy by saying that the LORD afflicted the child of Uriah's wife (it wants to point out that David's marriage to her is illegitimate and remind us of the adultery and murder) and that the child became sick.  We'll look more next time how David will fast and pray for this child while the child is ill, but will make a great statement of faith at the child's death "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.”  We'll talk about this and how it speak to a New Testament commandment that we have as Christians to not grieve like the world does next time.