This document is a commentary on II Samuel 12, focusing on themes of sin, forgiveness, and the repercussions of wrongdoing, particularly through the story of David's adultery with Bathsheba. The text emphasizes that being forgiven does not eliminate the consequences of sin, highlighting the significant emotional and spiritual costs associated with transgressions. It features a parable told by the prophet Nathan to confront David, showcasing how individuals often judge others harshly while being oblivious to their own moral failings.

1. II SAMUEL 12 COMME
TARY
Written and edited by Glenn Pease
PREFACE
I quote many authors and commentators in this commentary, for many minds give
us insights that no one or two minds can give us. They each have something to add
to our understanding of the passage. If there is anyone quoted who does not want
their wisdom to be shared with others in this way they can let me know, and I will
remove their quotes. If anyone discovers a quote by an unknown author and knows
who it is who wrote it, they can let me know, and I will give credit where it is due.
My e-mail is glenn_p86@yahoo.com
I
TRODUCTIO
A major mistake in our thinking is the assumption that forgiveness of sin means
that there are no consequences to our lives once we are forgiven. This chapter shows
us that it is folly to think this way. David is forgiven for his adultery with
Bathsheba, and he is allowed to live rather than die as the law of God demanded.
However, there is a heavy load of judgment that comes upon David for his sin of
adultery and murder. God is the judge and he does not carry out capital
punishment, but he still has very harsh penalties to inflict on David. He does not get
by with his sin, and God does not treat it lightly. He pays an enormous price for his
folly. It is important that we see this lest we think that we can confess our sin and be
forgiven, and that ends the matter. It is not so, for we still reap as we sow, and the
hope of forgiveness ought not to be an enticement to go ahead and sin. Forgiveness
does not wipe away the threat of punishment at all. We want forgiveness to mean
that all is forgotten, but that is not how it works. Forgive and forget can apply to
many offenses, but not when it comes to breaking one of God's major
commandments. There are penalties to pay even if you are forgiven, and that should
make anyone pause a long time before they fall for the temptation to sin because
God is so full of grace that he will forgive and restore us to fellowship. Looking at
what David's sin cost him, it should make us pause permanently.
athan Rebukes David
1 The LORD sent
athan to David. When he came to

2. him, he said, "There were two men in a certain town,
one rich and the other poor.
1. The text does not tell us that God gave the story to tell David, and so it was likely
athans own clever way to get to David. God chose
athan because he knew he was
clever, and able to get the job done in reaching the conscience of his king. His story
is one of great contrasts with the rich man and the poor man. It is such an excellent
story of injustice, that there could not be a more powerful way of making hearers
angry at the conduct of the rich man.
2. Pink, “An interval of some months elapsed between what is recorded in 2 Samuel
11 and that which is found at the beginning of chapter 12. During this interval
David was free to enjoy to the full that which he had acquired through his
wrongdoing. The one obstacle which lay in the way of the free indulgence of his
passion was removed; Bathsheba was now his. Apparently, the king, in his palace,
was secure and immune. So far there had been no intervention of God in judgment,
and throughout those months David had remained impenitent for the fearful crimes
he had committed. Alas, how dull the conscience of a saint may become. But if
David was pleased with the consummation of his vile plans, there was One who was
displeased. The eyes of God had marked his evil conduct, and the divine
righteousness would not pass it by. "These things hast thou done, and I kept
silence," yet He adds "but I will reprove thee, and set them in order before thine
eyes" (Ps. 50:21).
The coarse pleasures of sin cannot long content a child of God. It has been truly said
that "
obody buys a little passing pleasure in evil at so dear a rate, or keeps it so
short a time, as a good man." The conscience of the righteous soon reasserts itself,
and makes its disconcerting voice heard. He may yet be far from true repentance,
but he will soon experience keen remorse. Months may pass before he again enjoys
communion with God, but self-disgust will quickly fill his soul. The saint has to pay
a fearfully high price for enjoying "the pleasures of sin for a season." Stolen waters
may be sweet for a moment, but how quickly his "mouth is filled with gravel" (Prov.
20:17). Soon will the guilty one have to cry out, "He hath made my chain heavy . . .
He hath made me desolate: He hath filled me with bitterness . . . Thou hast removed
my soul far off from peace" (Lam. 3:7, 11, 15, 17).
3. Maclaren, “David learned, what we all learn (and the holier a man is, the more
speedily and sharply the lesson follows on the heels of his sin), that every
transgression is a blunder, that we never get the satisfaction which we expect from
any sin, or if we do, we get something with it which spoils it all. A nauseous drug is
added to the exciting, intoxicating drink which temptation offers, and though its
flavor is at first disguised by the pleasanter taste of sin, its bitterness is persistent
though slow, and clings to the palate long after that has faded away utterly"
4. Pink continues, "And the Lord sent
athan unto David" (12:1). It is to be duly

3. noted that it was not David who sent for the prophet, though never did he more
sorely need his counsel than now.
o, it was God who took the initiative: it is ever
thus, for we never seek Him, until He seeks us. It was thus with Moses when a
fugitive in Midian, with Elijah when fleeing from Jezebel, with Jonah under the
juniper tree, with Peter after his denial (1 Cor. 15:5). O the marvel of it! How it
should melt our hearts. "If we believe not, yet He abideth faithful: He cannot deny
Himself" (2 Tim. 2:13). Though He says, "I will visit their transgression with the
rod, and their iniquity with stripes." it is at once added, "
evertheless My
lovingkindness will I not utterly take from him, nor suffer My faithfulness to fail"
(Ps. 89:32, 33). So it was here: David still had an interest in that everlasting
covenant "ordered in all things and sure" (2 Sam. 23:5).
"And the Lord sent
athan unto David." The prophet’s task was far from being an
enviable one: to meet the guilty king alone, face to face. As yet David had evinced no
sign of repentance. God had not cast off His erring child, but He would not condone
his grievous offenses: all must come out into the light. The divine displeasure must
be made evident: the culprit must be charged and rebuked: David must judge
himself, and then discover that where sin had abounded grace did much more
abound. Wondrous uniting of divine righteousness and mercy―made possible by
the Cross of Christ! The righteousness of God required that David should be
faithfully dealt with; the mercy of God moved Him to send
athan for the recovery
of His strayed sheep. "Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace
have kissed each other" (Ps. 85:10).
5. Deffinbaugh points out that
athan comes to David as a friend, and so we can
assume that he is filled with grief to come and tell this story and God's judgment on
David.
athan knows everything that David has been trying to cover up. God gave
him all the details. Deffinbaugh wrote, “
athan is, of course, a prophet. However it
comes about, he knows what David has done. If you will pardon the pun, David
cannot pull the wool over his eyes. His words are, in the final analysis, the very word
of God (see 12:11). If
athan is a prophet, he is also a man who seems to be a friend
to David. One of David's sons is named
athan (2 Samuel 5:14). David informs
athan of his desire to build a temple (chapter 7).
athan will name Bathsheba and
David's second son (12:25). He will remain loyal to the king and to Solomon when
Adonijah seeks to usurp the throne (1 Kings 2).
athan does not come to David only
as God's spokesman, he comes to David as his friend. Faithful are the wounds of a
friend, But deceitful are the kisses of an enemy (Proverbs 27:6).”
6. Henry, “It seems to have been a great while after David had been guilty of
adultery with Bath-sheba before he was brought to repentance for it. For, when
athan was sent to him, the child was born (2 Samuel 12:14), so that it was about
nine months that David lay under the guilt of that sin, and, for aught that appears,
unrepented of. What shall we think of David's state all this while? Can we imagine
that his heart never smote him for it, or that he never lamented it in secret before
God? I would willingly hope that he did, and that
athan was sent to him,
immediately upon the birth of the child, when the thing by that means came to be

4. publicly known and talked of, to draw from him an open confession of the sin, to the
glory of God, the admonition of others, and that he might receive, by
athan,
absolution with certain limitations. But, during these nine months, we may well
suppose his comforts and the exercises of his graces suspended, and his communion
with God interrupted; during all that time, it is certain, he penned no psalms, his
harp was out of tune, and his soul like a tree in winter, that has life in the root only.
Therefore, after
athan had been with him, he prays, Restore unto me the joy of thy
salvation, and open thou my lips, Psalms 51:12,15.”
2 The rich man had a very large number of sheep and
cattle,
1. His abundance made it inexcusable that he would take the lamb of the poor man
for his feast. Here is a story where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, and
that is the case with David and Uriah. David had an abundance of wives and Uriah
had one, and David took that one.
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.
1. Jamison, “The use of parables is a favorite style of speaking among Oriental
people, especially in the conveyance of unwelcome truth. This exquisitely pathetic
parable was founded on a common custom of pastoral people who have pet lambs,
which they bring up with their children, and which they address in terms of
endearment. The atrocity of the real, however, far exceeded that of the fictitious
offense.”
2. If you have ever had a pet that was so close that it slept with you, you can identify
with this poor man, and understand the kind of love that one can have with an
animal. I had a dog that slept with me for years as a child, and I did not hesitate to
let it take a bite of my hot dog, and then continue to eat it as if I shared it with my
sister. I don't ever remember letting it drink from my cup, but had there been any
need for this I would not have a problem with it. This was a special pet that meant
the world to this man. There is not a lot in the Bible about pets, but this one account
is enough to make it clear that people can love pets just like they love their own
children. They add a dimension of love to life that is precious, and part of God's

5. plan in creating such creatures that can mean so much to humans.
3. Deffinbaugh, “I must conclude that the author is making it very clear that Uriah
and Bathsheba dearly loved each other. When David “took” this woman to his
bedroom that fateful night, and then as his wife after the murder of Uriah, he took
her from the man she loved. Bathsheba and Uriah were devoted to each other,
which adds further weight to the arguments for her not being a willing participant
in David's sins. It also emphasizes the character of Uriah, who is so near to his wife,
who is being urged by the king to go to her, and yet who refuses to do so out of
principle.”
4 "
ow 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."
1. When an animal is loved as a pet, it is a precious relationship, and this parable
makes it clear that an animal can be loved like a child, and to kill that creature on
purpose for convenience is a serious crime against humanity. It is an evil act of
disrespect for the value placed on the animal by the owner. It is a crime worthy of
judgment, for it is the destruction of a source of love. I think animal rights activists
sometimes go to extremes, but the fact is, God's Word does place a high value on
animals and their value to man. God expected his people to treat them with love and
respect, and this story makes it clear that they can sometime have a value close to
that of a person. Anything greatly loved deserves protection from abuse.
1B. This was a brilliant use of the story to get to the heart of David. He had been a
shepherd all his early life, and he knew what it was to fall in love with a lamb. He
may have had just such a pet as
athan is describing here, and he would feel the
sorrow of the family who was so abused by the rich man's taking of their lamb. It
was the perfect story to touch David the way it did. Many of us would not be moved
as strongly, for we have never had a pet lamb, but the same story dealing with a pet
cat or dog would touch us as it did David. David, however, did not understand wives
like he did lambs. He had so many that he did not have the kind of love that Uriah
would have with his one wife. He had the one flesh relationship of deep intimacy
that David did not have with his harem. David was like the rich man in that he
thought the one lamb of the poor man was no big deal. Lambs are a dime a dozen,
and so what is the big deal if I kill one belonging to another. David looked at women
like this. So I take a wife from another man. It is no big deal, for women are

6. everywhere. He had no concept of the depth of his evil in taking this one wife from
her husband, just as the rich man had no concept of the value and importance of
that one lamb to that poor man. We sin against others because we do not know them
and what is meaningful to them. Our ignorance makes it easier on our conscience to
do them wrong.
2. Pink, “did not immediately charge David with his crimes: instead, he approached
his conscience indirectly by means of a parable―clear intimation that he was out of
communion with God, for He never employed that method of revelation with those
who were walking in fellowship with Him. The method employed by the prophet
had the great advantage of presenting the facts of the case before David without
stirring up his opposition of self-love and kindling resentment against being directly
rebuked; yet causing him to pass sentence against himself without being aware of
it―sure proof that
athan had been given wisdom from above! "There scarcely
ever was any thing more calculated, on the one hand, to awaken emotions of
sympathy, and, on the other, those of indignation, than the case here supposed; and
the several circumstances by which the heart must be interested in the poor man’s
case, and by which the unfeeling oppression of his rich neighbor was aggravated"
(Thomas Scott).
3. W. Taylor, “On that parable we dare hardly presume to offer a remark. It is so
finished in its beauty, so admirable in its construction, so perfect in its adaptation to
the end which the divine messenger had in view, as to stand out incomparably the
finest thing of its kind which the Old Testament contains.”
5 David burned with anger against the man and said to
athan, "As surely as the LORD lives, the man who did
this deserves to die!
1. David is burning with anger at the callous hard heart of this rich scoundrel, and
he pronounces him worthy of the death penalty for such cruelty to the animal and
the owners. David is unaware at this point that he is declaring himself worthy of the
death penalty. He judges himself as the cruel hardened scoundrel who stole a
precious and loved thing from an innocent person. Pastor Donald J Gettys says of
David's sin of adultery, “This sin stands out like a black fly in a cup of cream.” Yet,
David does not see this black fly until this story opens his eyes to the reality of abuse
of power, which is what he did in taking another man's wife.
2. Pink, “And David’s anger was greatly kindled against the man; and he said to
athan, As the Lord liveth, the man that hath done this thing shall surely die" (v.
5). David supposed that a complaint was being preferred against one of his subjects.
Forgetful of his own crimes, he was fired with indignation at the supposed offender,

7. and with a solemn oath condemned him to death. In condemning the rich man,
David unwittingly condemned himself. What a strange thing the heart of a believer
is! what a medley dwells within it, often filled with righteous indignation against the
sins of others, while blind to its own! Real need has each of us to solemnly and
prayerfully ponder the questions of Romans 2:21-23. Self-flattery makes us quick to
mark the faults of others, but blind to our own grievous sins. Just in proportion as a
man is in love with his own sins, and resentful of being rebuked, will he be unduly
severe in condemning those of his neighbors.”
3. Strauss “Guilt does that to us. We usually lash out most harshly and severely at
the sins of others when we have the most to hide ourselves. Our subconscious anger
with ourselves erupts against them.”
4. Brian Morgan, “This powerful story is designed to evoke David's deepest sense of
justice. And so it does! David is drawn in, hook, line and sinker. His anger provoked
beyond ordinary dimensions, he pronounces the immediate and severe judgment:
"This man must die. He must make restitution fourfold, because he did this thing,
and he had no pity." David grasps at the truth, and pronounces a guilty verdict on
his own two crimes. This truth had already been working on him, but he had
expended enormous amounts of energy suppressing it.”
5. Someone wrote, "So
athan told David a story, knowing good and well how
human beings tend to drop their defenses while they are listening to a story about
someone else. When words are not aimed right at us, we can usually receive the
message more purely. And so when
athan told him about the rich man with many
flocks and the poor man with nothing but one little ewe lamb, and how the rich man
stole even the poor man's lamb, David's heart and conscience saw the thing clearly,
and he pronounced a swift verdict and a death sentence on that one who had done
such a despicable thing. He pronounced a verdict on that rich man, on that man
who already had so much, and whose appetite was so roaring out of control that he
felt that anything he could get was his fair share, and it didn't matter how his
rapacious appetite affected others.”
6.
athan's story fits David perfectly, for he had a harem of wives to satisfy his
needs, and Uriah had only one wife to meet his needs. David then took his one wife
and defiled her rather than get sexual relief through the legitimate channels of one
of his wives. It was cruel and evil, and should make any person angry just as it did
David. He was right to be furious at the rich man who killed the lamb of the poor
man, but he did not see himself and his actions in the same light because that is how
sin blinds us to our own folly. He passes sentence on a lamb killer, but did not
condemn himself for his adultery until
athan made it clear that he was just like
that rich man he so despised. When he saw the truth he was horrified that he could
be guilty of such despicable behavior. David is shocked that he could be as evil as
this rich man. We all need to be shocked at what we are capable of doing that is evil,
for if we are shocked before we fall, we are more likely to avoid the fall. When we

8. think we could never be so evil, we are not prepared to walk away from some
sudden opportunity to do it. It is in knowing that we are just as capable as David
was of doing what is evil folly that will help us put on the brakes when such an
opportunity comes our way.
7. In Great Texts of the Bible we read, "It is one of those sad and lamentable stories
which make us ashamed of our passions, which make us feel a sort of degradation in
the possession of powers which can be potent with such infernal mischief, and can
lead to such foul and tragic consequences. As we read the story we are ashamed of
human nature, and it is not difficult to despair of it. " If," we say, " the sweet singer
of Israel, a man so true, so valiant, so heroically manly, could fall so deeply, who is
safe in the presence of temptation ? "
8. Deffinbaugh, “David identifies two evils that have been committed by this
fictional rich man. First, the man has stolen a lamb, for which the law prescribed a
fourfold restitution (Exodus 22:1). Second, David recognizes what he views as the
greater sin, and that is the rich man's total lack of compassion. David is furious
because a rich man stole and slaughtered a poor man's pet. He does not yet see the
connection to his lack of compassion for stealing a poor man's beloved companion,
Uriah's wife, Bathsheba. The slaughtering of Uriah is most certainly an act which
lacks compassion. The crowning touch in David's display of righteous indignation is
the religious flavoring he gives it by the words, “as the Lord lives”
9. “It is much easier to see the sin in others, than it is to see the sin in our own lives. I
am reminded of Jesus' words in Matthew 7:3 when he said, "And why do you look
at the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your
own eye?" (
ASB) David was quick to pass judgment on the rich shepherd without
pausing for a moment to consider his own sin. Lurking in the background of this
encounter was the great sin that he'd committed against God, one which was far
greater than killing an animal-he'd killed a man after committing adultery with the
man's wife.” author unknown
10. David was a man who let his emotions control him too much. He was a man of
feeling. He was sensitive and controlled by moods. His lust was a strong emotion
that took over his life. Carl Haak wrote, “
ow the power of sin was seen in the life
of David. David's sin with Bathsheba controlled him so that he swept aside all other
interests and considerations, all interests of his family and all considerations of the
nation over which he was king. Lust, when he saw Bathsheba, was the sin that
gripped him. At the expense of everything else, he was going to have his own way in
sin. And apparently all the nobility of God's grace is overthrown in him. Lust seems
to make a different man out of him.”
ow we see him in an angry rage ready to
have a man killed for stealing a lamb. It was over kill because David let his emotions
determine his actions. Emotions are wonderful for producing poetry, and in fighting

9. a battle with the enemy, but they will not be adequate to keep you out of trouble
with sin. There is a need for balance where you think things through before you let
your emotions decide your actions. We see David overreacting when he wanted to
go and kill a host of innocent people when the husband of Abigail rubbed hims the
wrong way, and now he is ready to kill a man for killing a lamb. Emotions are
wonderful, but out of balance they will damage your life like they did David's.
6 He must pay for that lamb four times over, because he
did such a thing and had no pity."
1. David knew he was taking another man's wife. He had a castle full of wives, and
he could have sex any time he wanted it. Uriah, on the other hand, had one wife, and
he could not have sex until the battle was won, for it was not right in his eyes to do
so when his fellow soldiers were in combat. So there is such a perfect parallel with
the fiction story and the factual history of David and his taking of Uriah's wife to
himself.
1B. David knew his law well, but he did not apply it to himself. “If a man steal an ox
or a sheep, he shall restore FIVE OXE for an ox, and FOUR SHEEP for a sheep,
Exodus 22:1; and hence David immediately says, He shall restore the lamb
FOURFOLD.”
1C. Clarke, “It is indulging fancy too much to say David was called, in the course of
a just Providence to pay this fourfold debt? to lose four sons by untimely deaths,
viz., this son of Bath-sheba, on whom David had set his heart, was slain by the Lord;
Amnon, murdered by his brother Absalom; Absalom, slain in the oak by Joab; and
Adonijah, slain by the order of his brother Solomon, even at the altar of the Lord!
The sword and calamity did not depart from his house, from the murder of
wretched Amnon by his brother to the slaughter of the sons of Zedekiah, before their
father's eyes, by the king of Babylon. His daughter was dishonored by her own
brother, and his wives contaminated publicly by his own son! How dreadfully, then,
was David punished for his sin! Who would repeat his transgression to share in its
penalty? Can his conduct ever be an inducement to, or an encouragement in, sin?
Surely,
o. It must ever fill the reader and the hearer with horror. Behold the
goodness and severity of God! Reader, lay all these solemn things to heart.”
2. Pink, “ It was a vision of the Lord’s exalted glory which made Isaiah cry out,
Woe is me for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips (Isa. 6:1-5). A
sight of Christ’s miraculous power moved Peter to cry, Depart from me, for I am a
sinful man, O Lord (Luke 5:8). Those on the day of Pentecost were pricked in
their heart (Acts 2:37) by hearing the apostle’s sermon. In the case of David God
employed a parable in the mouth of His prophet to produce conviction.
athan

10. depicted a case where one was so vilely treated that any who heard the account of it
must perforce censure him who was guilty of such an outrage. For though it is the
very nature of sin to blind its perpetrator, yet it does not take away his sense of right
and wrong. Even when a man is insensible to the enormity of his own
transgressions, he is still capable of discerning evil in others; yea, in most instances
it seems that the one who has a beam in his own eye is readier to perceive the mote
in his fellow. It was according to this principle that
athan's parable was addressed
to David: if the king was slow to confess his own wickedness, he would be quick
enough to condemn like evil in another.
3. Spurgeon, “The description of the traveler who came to the rich man, who then
went and took the one ewe lamb from the poor man with which to make a feast for
the traveler, was well conceived. It was a trap in which David was cleverly caught,
and made to see himself, though he had not the slightest idea, at the moment, that he
was seeing himself at all. But when
athan said to him, “Thou art the man,” he was
made to feel that he was a mean wretch, who deserved to be condemned to death.
His indignation was aroused against himself, and against his own actions; and thus
the Lord took care that David should not receive pardon till he had realized the
greatness of his sin, and this would be a strong check to him in the future, keeping
him from ever falling into that sin again.”
7 Then
athan said to David, You are the man! This is
what the LORD , the God of Israel, says: 'I anointed
you king over Israel, and I delivered you from the hand
of Saul.
1. Pink, “Having brought David to pronounce sentence upon a supposed offender
for crimes of far less malignity than his own, the prophet now, with great courage
and plainness, declared Thou art the man (v. 7), and speaks directly in the name
of God: Thus saith the Lord God of Israel. First, David is reminded of the signal
favors which had been bestowed upon him (vv. 7, 8), among them the wives or
women of Saul’s court, from which he might have selected a wife. Second, God was
willing to bestow yet more (v. 6): had he considered anything was lacking, he might
have asked for it, and had it been for his good the Lord had freely granted it―cf.
Psalm 84:11. Third, in view of God’s tender mercies, faithful love, and all-sufficient
gifts, he is asked Wherefore hast thou despised the commandment of the Lord, to
do evil in His sight? (v. 9). Ah, it is contempt of the divine authority which is the
occasion of all sin―making light of the Law and its Giver, acting as though its
precepts were mere trifles, and its threats meaningless.
1B. Henry, “Thou art the man who hast done this wrong, and a much greater, to

11. thy neighbour; and therefore, by thy own sentence, thou deservest to die, and shalt
be judged out of thy own mouth. Did he deserve to die who took his neighbour's
lamb? and dost not thou who hast taken thy neighbour's wife? Though he took the
lamb, he did not cause the owner thereof to lose his life, as thou hast done, and
therefore much more art thou worthy to die.
2. You are that man!?
athan told him; and David's heart split in two. I have
sinned against the Lord, he said, not because
athan had told him so but because he
saw it for himself. And that was the beginning of his coming back to life again.
Think about it: he had broken three commandments in short order: thou shalt not
covet, thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not kill. And in the depth of his
conscientious confession, he even condemned himself to death. But that was not
what God had in mind for him.” author unknown
3. Brian Morgan, “
ine months have now passed since these terrible events, and
David has been living in a hell of his own silence. He absolutely refuses to call for
help. This confrontation between prophet and king is woven with meticulous care.
Fokkelman observes: The prophet in motion is a poet in motion. Rather than
confronting David directly,
athan crafts a story outside of David's life. This is
designed to draw David in, and evoke his own sense of injustice, so that a complete
self- exposure will result. Thus the story, which may appear untrue on the surface,
will penetrate David's soul with the truth in a much deeper way than would a direct
accusation.
3B. Morgan goes on,
ow God does all the talking and David does all the listening.
God prosecutes the king with a terrifying intensity. David's crimes are first and
foremost a breach of trust against God.
otice that the word I is used five times.
David is guilty of acts of treachery that spurned his Creator. He has returned a slap
in the face to a generous God, a God who had given all, provided all, and was by no
means finished with his generosity. This is why David says, in Psalm 51:4, Against
Thee, Thee only I have sinned. We can hear the pain of God's amazement in his
question, Why? (v 9). We can feel the weight of his anger.
4. Great Texts says, The Bible is very frank. It conceals, it extenuates nothing. It
shows us the defects as well as the virtues in the noblest characters. It depicts none
moving on heights of impossible perfection; and by that very fact, by the manifest
humanness of its purest, grandest heroes ; by the calm, terrible truthfulness of their
falls into sin, as here recorded, the divineness of this Book is brought home to our
consciousness, and it lays a larger, firmer, and more salutary hold upon universal
man. Abraham by his faith, Moses by his meekness, Job by his patience, seem to rise
above us in superhuman excellence. But when we read of Abraham's falsehoods,
Moses petulance, Job s impatience, they each come nearer to us, and say, as did
Peter to Cornelius in a later day, Stand up ; I myself also am a man.
5. So many preachers use the honesty of the Bible in pointing out the sins and

12. defects of the great men and women of the Bible to encourage us to realize that our
sins do not disqualify us from being saints of God that can be used by him for his
purpose. This is a valid and precious truth, but sometimes it almost sounds like a
way of justifying our sins by saying they were godly people and they did it, so why
can't we be just as sinful and stupid and still be God's chosen? It is sort of like
saying everybody does it, and so it is alright to get your fair share of sinning in. The
problem with this perspective is that it fails to point out the terrible cost the saints of
old had to pay for their sins. Yes they were forgiven and still used, but they paid a
price we should never be willing to pay to be like them in their folly. Christians can
commit adultery just like David did, and they can be restored to usefulness, but it is
still pure stupidity that leads to so much suffering and loss. This account of David's
sin is not given to us so that we can feel free to do the same thing in our human
weakness, but to shock the devil out of us by waking us up to the reality that any of
us can be just as stupid as he was, and so do whatever is necessary to prevent it. It is
not here to comfort us by telling us we are no worst than David if we fall, but to
challenge us to not be what we are capable of being by overcoming lust and not
falling. The point is not comfort but warning so such folly can be prevented in our
lives.
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.
1. God's generosity to David was open ended so that if he would have asked for
more God would have given more. David had it all and then some, yet he took the
wife of another man as if he was somehow deprived of beauty and sex. God had
given him Abigail one of the most beautiful women in all the Bible, and yet he
needed to take the wife of Uriah to satisfy his lust. It was totally uncalled for, and a
senseless sin of passion that defied the Lord who had given him all any man could
ask for. God is now as angry at him as he was angry at the rich man who took the
poor man's lamb.
2. Great Texts sees the sin of David as pure selfishness, which is the root of most all
sin. “David's self-indulgence was simply selfishness in one of its forms.
ow, just as
unselfishness is the true triumph of life, so selfishness is the degradation of life, and
is the secret of its failure. Reduce sin to its primal elements, and the last result is
always selfishness. Begin where you will among those common and well-known sins
and defects of habit, whose nature is perfectly ascertainable by sad experience and
bitter knowledge, and see if this is not true.
Lo! from that idol of self another idol is born.

13. The idol of self is the mother of all idols;
Those are the snakes, but this is the dragon;
Self is the flint and steel, and the idol is the spark;
The spark indeed may be quenched by water,
But how shall water quench the flint and steel ?
Take, for instance, temper. That is a common sin enough. There are thousands of
households wrecked by the ungovernable irritability of an individual. He cannot
restrain his tongue. The slightest provocation produces an explosion. Then follows a
torrent of bitter, biting, sarcastic words, which fill the air like a cloud of poisoned
arrows, and rankle in the wounded heart long after the careless archer has gone
upon his way and for gotten them. We may explain the phenomenon by euphemistic
talk about a hasty nature, or the irritability of genius, or what we will ; but the real
root of it lies in the unregenerate selfishness of the man s nature. Because passionate
sarcasm is a momentary relief to his nervous irritation, he indulges in it. The essence
unselfishness is to realize what another feels, to interpret his needs, to share his
thoughts by the revealing power of sympathy, to be able instinctively to understand
what will wound or grieve, and to exercise a severe self-repression in order to avoid
it. But the angry man has no such realization of the nature of others, and cannot
understand the havoc which his hasty words produce.”
3. Great Texts quotes this poem that shows the need to think of others before we
make choices, and pray that we choose only that which is a caring for others, and
not a selfish damaging of others for our pleasure.
O howsoever dear The love I long for, seek, and find a near
So near, so dear, the bliss Sweetest of all that is,
If I must win by treachery or art, Or wrong one other heart,
Though it should bring me death, my soul, that day, Grant me to turn away !
That in the life so far And yet so near, I be without a scar
Of wounds dealt others ; greet with lifted eyes The pure of Paradise !
So I may never know The agony of tears I caused to flow !
4.
o man ever had it more made than David. He had all that life could offer, and he
had the full favor of God. Yet he still chose to do what was utter folly. William
Taylor wrote about the danger of such a fall at any age. He wrote, “We often speak
of youth as the most dangerous time of life ; and indeed, when one has regard to the
new nature which begins to assert itself in the opening years of manhood ; to the
inexperience with which those who are at that stage of existence are characterized;
and to the self-suffciency by which, for the most part, they are distinguished, it
would be difficult to exaggerate the dangers which, especially in our great cities,
beset the years of youth. But that is not the only dangerous time. It might often seem
as if we believed that it was ; and for a hundred lectures addressed to young men,
there is hardly one delivered to those in middle life, or who are verging toward the
period of old age.

14. Yet, if we take the Word of God for our guide, it would almost appear as if these
latter stages of existence were more trying and dangerous even than that of youth.
This at least is true, that the saddest moral catastrophes of which the Bible tells
occurred in the history of men who were no longer young.
oah and Lot were far
from youth when they fell before the influence of strong drink : and Demas was not
by any means a novice when he forsook Paul, having loved this present
world. So David here was past the mid-time of his days when he committed these
great transgressions. Moreover, against these instances we have those of Joseph, of
Moses, and of Daniel, who in the opening time of life stood true to duty and to God.
I say not these things, however, to make young men less watchful, but to make men
in middle life, and all through life, continue vigilant. So long as we are in the world,
we are in an enemy's country ; and if we are not particularly on our guard, we shall
be sure to suffer. The world is full of defilement ; and in passing through it we must
gather our garments tightly round us, if we would keep ourselves unspotted from it.
Even Paul could say that he kept his body under, bringing it into subjection, lest
that by any means, having preached to others, he should be a cast- away ; and if all
this self-control and vigilance was necessary for him, how much more for us !Watch,
therefore, lest ye enter into temptation.”
5. Donald Gettys, “Rich Polygamist David descended into the home of a poor man
and took his one lamb while his own fold was more than filled with sheep.”
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.
1. Life is sometimes even a mystery to God and he has to ask why. Why in the world
would you be so foolish David? You chose evil when choosing good was ever before
you. You had the choice to be the best man alive, and you chose to be the worst, for
you broke one commandment after another for no good reason. Why? God does not
come up with any rational reason for his choices because there are no such reasons.
Men try to explain why David did these terrible things, but God does not explain it,
for they have no explanation. It was pure folly with no valid or understandable
reason under the sun. David played the fool, and there is no good reason for folly,
and no explanation that makes sense.
1B.
otice how God says David struck down Uriah with the sword, and you killed
him with the sword of the Ammonites. Other people killed Uriah, but God says
David did it. God goes to the ultimate source of his death, and it was David. It was
his plan to get him killed. People plan murders by using other people to do their
dirty work, but nobody fools God. He is fully aware of the root cause of any murder.

15. It can be hidden from man, and there are murderers who get by with it, but they do
not escape God's judgment, for he knows in whose heart the plan is devised to take
another life. Some will say it was Joab who killed him for such a stupid order to get
close to the city gate. Others will blame the Ammonites, but God knows the origin of
Uriah's death was in the heart of David.
1C. The good news in the midst of all this bad news is that the worst of sinners are
not beyond the grace of God. Few in all of history have been worse than David. He
despised the Word of God, and deliberately chose to have sex with a married
woman, and then schemed to murder her husband. That puts him near the bottom
of the list of bad guys.
evertheless, here was a man who went on to experience the
favor of God, and God used him to be a blessing to people for all the rest of history.
This should make it clear that no person is hopeless who will turn to God for his
forgiveness and mercy.
2. Henry, “He charges him with a high contempt of the divine authority, in the sins
he had been guilty of: Wherefore hast thou (presuming upon thy royal dignity and
power) despised the commandment of the Lord? 2 Samuel 12:9 . This is the spring and
this is the malignity of sin, that it is making light of the divine law and the law-maker;
as if the obligation of it were weak, the precepts of it trifling, and the threats
not at all formidable. Though no man ever wrote more honourably of the law of
God than David did, yet, in this instance, he is justly charged with a contempt of it.
His adultery with Bath-sheba, which began the mischief, is not mentioned, perhaps
because he was already convinced of that, but, [1.] The murder of Uriah is twice
mentioned: Thou hast killed Uriah with the sword, though not with thy sword, yet,
which is equally heinous, with thy pen, by ordering him to be set in the forefront of
the battle. Those that contrive wickedness and command it are as truly guilty of it
as those that execute it. It is repeated with an aggravation: Thou hast slain him with
the sword of the children of Ammon, those uncircumcised enemies of God and Israel.
[2.] The marrying of Bath-sheba is likewise twice mentioned, because he thought
there was no harm in that ( 2 Samuel 12:9 ): Thou hast taken his wife to be thy wife,
and again, 2 Samuel 12:10 . To marry her whom he had before defiled, and whose
husband he had slain, was an affront upon the ordinance of marriage, making that
not only to palliate, but in a manner to consecrate, such villanies. In all this he
despised the word of the Lord (so it is in the Hebrew), not only his commandment in
general which forbade such things, but the particular word of promise which God
had, by
athan, sent to him some time before, that he would build him a house. If he
had had a due value and veneration for this sacred promise, he would not thus have
polluted his house with lust and blood.”
2B. A prisoner, in a recent trial, pleaded as an excuse, an uncontrollable impulse,
but the judge smartly replied that an uncontrollable impulse was simply an impulse
uncontrolled.” It is till an act of the will, and it is a free choice. Did God make David
choose to defy his will? Of course not. It was a free choice that he was fully
responsible for, and no excuse can get him off the hook. Some deny the reality of

16. free will, but God does not do so, for he is angry that David used his free will to do
something so stupid and so far out of line with his will. Those who teach
determinism like to blame the early years, and the poor parenting, and the crisis
situations of life. David had his share of crisis, but none of this is valid before God,
for he sees nothing but pure selfish use of his power and freedom. There is no
rational excuse for David's sin.
3. To despise the Word of God is spiritual adultery. This is where sin begins in the
heart where we no longer are committed to the revealed will of God. We despise it in
the sense that it is now nothing to us as far as the guide of our life. We cast it aside
and divorce our Lord and go whoring after other gods. It is being unfaithful to God
that leads to being unfaithful to our mates. James 4:4-5 (Phi) You are like
unfaithful wives... never realizing that to be the world's lover means becoming the
enemy of God! Anyone who deliberately chooses to be the world's friend is thereby
making himself God's enemy.
4. God makes it clear beyond all doubt that there is no excuse for defying his will. It
is abuse of freedom, and a choosing the self rather than the Lord. He has given us
many verses in the Bible that make this obvious. God's people became immoral time
and time again in going after other gods, which God considered adultery. All of
God's condemnation is based on the reality of free will. There are temptations of the
culture to be sure, but God allows no excuse for their sin, for it was a free choice.
Here is a partial list:
Eze 16:30 (
IV) How weak-willed you are, declares the Sovereign Lord, when you
do all these things, acting like a brazen prostitute!
Jer 2:20 (
IV) Long ago you broke off your yoke and tore off your bonds; you
said, 'I will not serve you!' Indeed, on every high hill and under every spreading tree
you lay down as a prostitute.
Jer 3:1-3 (
IV, all, except where noted) If a man divorces his wife and she leaves
him and marries another man, should he return to her again? Would not the land
be completely defiled? But you have lived as a prostitute with many lovers--would
you now return to me? declares the Lord. Look up to the barren heights and see.
Is there any place where you have not been ravished? By the roadside you sat
waiting for lovers, sat like a nomad in the desert. You have defiled the land with
your prostitution and wickedness... Yet you have the brazen look of a prostitute;
you refuse to blush with shame.
Jer 3:6-10 ...Have you seen what faithless Israel has done? She has gone up on
every high hill and under every spreading tree and has committed adultery there. I
thought that after she had done all this she would return to me but she did not, and
her unfaithful sister Judah saw it. I gave faithless Israel her certificate of divorce
and sent her away because of all her adulteries. Yet I saw that her unfaithful sister
Judah had no fear; she also went out and committed adultery. Because Israel's
immorality mattered so little to her, she defiled the land and committed adultery
with stone and wood. In spite of all this, her unfaithful sister Judah did not return to
me with all her heart, but only in pretense, declares the Lord.

17. Jer 5:7-13 Why should I forgive you? Your children have forsaken me and sworn
by gods that are not gods. I supplied all their needs, yet they committed adultery
and thronged to the houses of prostitutes. They are well-fed, lusty stallions, each
neighing for another man's wife. Should I not punish them for this? declares the
Lord. Should I not avenge myself on such a nation as this? Go through her
vineyards and ravage them, but do not destroy them completely. Strip off her
branches, for these people do not belong to the Lord. The house of Israel and the
house of Judah have been utterly unfaithful to me, declares the Lord. They have
lied about the Lord; they said, He will do nothing!
o harm will come to us; we
will never see sword or famine. The prophets are but wind and the word is not in
them; so let what they say be done to them.
Jer 13:22-27 And if you ask yourself, 'Why has this happened to me?'--it is because
of your many sins that your skirts have been torn off and your body mistreated.
Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard its spots?
either can you do good
who are accustomed to doing evil. I will scatter you like chaff driven by the desert
wind. This is your lot, the portion I have decreed for you, declares the Lord,
because you have forgotten me and trusted in false gods. I will pull up your skirts
over your face that your shame may be seen--your adulteries and lustful neighings,
your shameless prostitution! I have seen your detestable acts on the hills and in the
fields. Woe to you, O Jerusalem! How long will you be unclean?
Eze 16:15-17 But you trusted in your beauty and used your fame to become a
prostitute. You lavished your favors on anyone who passed by and your beauty
became his. You took some of your garments to make gaudy high places, where you
carried on your prostitution. Such things should not happen, nor should they ever
occur. You also took the fine jewelry I gave you, the jewelry made of my gold and
silver, and you made for yourself male idols and engaged in prostitution with them.
Eze 16:22,25-26,28-30 In all your detestable practices and your prostitution you
did not remember the days of your youth, when you were naked and bare, kicking
about in your blood. Woe! Woe to you, declares the Sovereign Lord... At the head of
every street you built your lofty shrines and degraded your beauty, offering your
body with increasing promiscuity to anyone who passed by. You engaged in
prostitution with the Egyptians, your lustful neighbors, and provoked me to anger
with your increasing promiscuity... You engaged in prostitution with the Assyrians
too, because you were insatiable; and even after that, you still were not satisfied.
Then you increased your promiscuity to include Babylonia, a land of merchants, but
even with this you were not satisfied. How weak-willed you are, declares the
Sovereign Lord, when you do all these things, acting like a brazen prostitute!
5. It is generally agreed that the worst of the two sins of David was the plot to kill
Uriah. An unknown author says it well: “David's sin of adultery was a capital crime.
But there is no doubt in the narrative that his sin against Uriah was the far greater
crime and the one for which he is most severely punished. Terrible as the adultery

18. was, it was more an act of temporary passion. But the murder of Uriah was pure
pre-meditation. It took four days to send a messenger to Joab and bring Uriah back.
Uriah was with David in Jerusalem three days and nights as David attempted to
cover up his crime. And then the death sentence was sent by Uriah's own hand back
to Joab and involved, at the last, the killing of other innocent men to mask the plot
to eliminate Uriah. This is cold calculation on David's part. And, as we shall see, it is
this that David and his family will pay such a steep price for.”
6. It is s shocking paradox that a large portion of God's Word was written by men
who were guilty of murder. Moses, David and Paul were all guilty of taking the lives
of innocent people, but by the grace of God they were forgiven and used to
communicate the Word of God to billions of people.
10
ow, therefore, the sword will never depart from
your house, because you despised me and took the wife
of Uriah the Hittite to be your own.'
1. This does not sound very forgiving of God does it? We often think forgiveness
means that there are no consequences for our sin, but here we see that David
though forgiven was greatly punished. Forgiven means God will not cut off
relationship with David, but will still bless and use him in many ways, but he will
still pay for what he did. Your son breaks a window by hitting the ball too close to
the house where you demanded that he never do. You forgive him, but that does not
mean he does not have to fork over his allowance to pay for that window.
1B. Henry, “The sword shall never depart from thy house, not in thy time nor
afterwards, but, for the most part, thou and thy posterity shall be engaged in war.
Or it points at the slaughters that should be among his children, Amnon, Absalom,
and Adonijah, all falling by the sword. God had promised that his mercy should not
depart from him and his house ( 2 Samuel 7:15 ), yet here threatens that the sword
should not depart. Can the mercy and the sword consist with each other? Yes, those
may lie under great and long afflictions who yet shall not be excluded from the
grace of the covenant. The reason given is, Because thou hast despised me.
ote,
Those who despise the word and law of God despise God himself and shall be lightly
esteemed.”
2. God says David despised him. These are strong words that had to cut into the
heart and mind of David. He despised the God he worshiped by making the choices
that he made. It was bad enough that he despised his loyal comrade Uriah, but to
despise the Lord is the absolute ultimate in sinful behavior. David is the greatest
sinner in the Bible in the light of God's judgment. The wonder is that God did not

19. kill David. He probably did not do so for it would be too easy. Instead, he would
make his life miserable because of his folly and evil behavior. He and his family
would pay for this folly for the rest of his life. David thought he was getting by with
cheap sex, and instead it was the most costly sex any man has ever had.
3. Brain Morgan, “It is this scorning of God's word that explains why the
punishments imposed appear more severe than the crime. But David had brought
God's name to shame. And David was no private individual, but the Lord's
anointed; thus there was a national dimension to his sins: The whole nation must
therefore be witness to the punishment.[6] Jesus said, By your measure it shall be
measured unto you. David had perverted the holy office of war to accomplish a
private murder and cover- up.
ow the sword would never depart from his house:
4. “Read the story of David’s life and see the fulfillment of this promise for yourself:
Amnon’s rape of Tamar, Absalom’s murder of Amnon, Absalom’s rebellion against
David, Adonijah’s attempt to seize the throne when David was old. There was
certainly evil in David’s house. would soon reveal David’s loss of four sons to
premature death (Bathsheba’s baby―12:18; Amnon―13:29; Absalom―18:14-15;
Adonijah―1 Kings 2:25).”
5. Great Texts put it like this: “David paid dearly for his few moments of pleasure.
His family life and political career fell apart at the seams from that time on. His
oldest son Amnon raped his younger half-sister Tamar. Absalom, who was David's
heir apparent, murdered Amnon in retaliation. Absalom rebelled against David and
drove him from the throne, and then, as a sign of disdain for his father, lay with his
wives -- in broad daylight on the roof of David's house where everyone could see it
(2 Samuel 16:20-22). He did so at the advice of David's embittered counselor,
Ahithophel, who never forgot what David had done to his dear granddaughter,
Bathsheba, and her husband, Uriah. Absalom himself, who despite his disloyalty
remained David's favorite son, was brutally killed by one of David's soldiers. And
finally, as
athan had predicted, the little boy born of David's affair with
Bathsheba, who in a short time had wound his way around David's heart, died
suddenly.”
6. Great Texts adds, “God restored His favor to him ; David walked again in
the light of God s countenance; he was most truly His child forgiven, cleansed,
received back. It was not that God forgave him only partially, and so punished him
still. There is no such thing as a partial forgiveness ; it is yes or no ; God forgives all
or none ; a man is in his sin, or he is not in his sin. David was not in his sin ; God's
word by the prophet had absolved him from that; and yet this stroke came upon
him at once, and in a little while those others which were behind it ; for this was
only the beginning of sorrows, and far sadder and more searching were behind. The
sword never did depart from his house; evil did rise up against him from the bosom
of his own family. It is hardly too much to say that his after-story, to the end of his

20. life, is a scroll written within and without with lamentations, and mourning, and
woe.
I made the cross myself, whose weight
Was later laid on me.
The thought is torture as I toil
Up life s steep Calvary.
To think mine own hands drove the nails!
I sang a merry song,
And chose the heaviest wood I had
To build it firm and strong.
If I had guessed if I had dreamed
Its weight was meant for me,
I should have made a lighter cross
To bear up Calvary.
11 This is what the LORD says: 'Out of your own
household I am going to bring calamity upon you.
Before your very eyes I will take your wives and give
them to one who is close to you, and he will lie with your
wives in broad daylight.
1. God is going to make David reap what he sowed. He took another man's wife to
his bed, and now he will have to watch another man take his wives to bed. He did his
act of adultery in secret, but his wives will be raped in broad daylight before the
eyes of all Israel. He will suffer in ways that Uriah never had to suffer, for he will be
exposed to all the world. We are reading about it now several thousand years later,
for God exposed David's sin for all time. Millions upon millions have gazed upon his
folly, as books, movies and artists have portrayed his uncontrolled lust in action.
David could never escape the exposure of his sinful folly, and God made sure that it
would be exposed forever through all time by having it recorded in his Word. David
suffered far more than Uriah did, for he died in battle not even knowing of the
horrible things that David did. David had to live and feel the pain of his folly for the
rest of his life.
2222.... ““““During Absalom’s rebellion, his followers pitched a tent on the palace roof, and
Absalom had relations with his father’s concubines in the sight of all Israel,
fulfilling this prediction.” (2 Sam. 16:22). After his return, the handsome and
cunning Absalom leads a rebellion against his father.
ow it's David who gets out of
Jerusalem, leaving ten concubines behind in the palace to keep house. Absalom asks

21. Ahithophel, a royal counsellor turned traitor, what to do next. Go into thy father's
concubines, Ahithophel tells him. Such an ostentatious power play will show the
people who is now in charge
When Ahithophel speaks, all listen. A tent is accordingly spread on top of the house,
and Absalom has sexual intercourse with David's ten concubines in the sight of all
Israel. (This fulfills a prophecy of
athan following David's adultery with
Bathsheba and the killing of her husband Uriah: a neighbor, God tells David
through the prophet, shall lie with thy wives in the sight of this sun.) As for the
ten concubines, David never again has sex with them. The king keeps them shut up,
in widowhood, unto the day of their death. (2 Sam. 12:11, 13:1-20:3) author
unknown
3. “Amnon, David’s eldest son by Ahinoam (1 Chron. 3:1), raped his half-sister,
Tamar. Two years afterward, Absalom, the king’s son by Maacah (2 Sam. 3:3), had
Amnon murdered (2 Sam. 13). Then, later, Absalom “stole the hearts of the men of
Israel,” rebelled against his father, and was ultimately killed by Joab (2 Sam. 18).
And even after David’s death, Adonijah, the king’s son by Haggith (2 Sam. 3:4), was
slain by Solomon (1 Kgs. 2:24-25). A truly bloody price was paid for David’s lust
and violence.” author unknown
4. Great Texts, “His tower of pride is crumbled into dust by some unseen hand.
Henceforth he is a changed man. He is no more light-hearted and joyous and
hopeful. He has tangled a coil of difficulties about him, from which he can never
again extricate himself. He has loaded himself with a burden of sorrow under which
he must stagger through life, only bo bury it finally in the grave. Troubles gather
thick upon him, troubles the most acute and numbing gross crimes and
irregularities in his own family, the rebellion of his sons, even of a favorite son,
annoyances and perplexities and trials of all kinds. He has placed himself at the
mercy of an unscrupulous and arrogant relative the agent in his stratagem and the
master of his secret. Everything goes wrong henceforth. From this time onward
the sword never departs from his house.
5. Pink points out that God often punishes sins by bringing on the sinner the very
thing they have done to others. He wrote, “Jacob deceived his father by means of the
skin of a kid (Gen. 29:16), and he in turn was thus deceived by his sons, who
brought him Joseph’s coat dipped in the blood of a kid (Gen. 37:31), saying he had
been devoured by a wild beast. Because Pharaoh had cruelly ordered that the male
infants of the Hebrews should be drowned (Ex. 1:24), the Egyptian king and all his
hosts were swallowed up by the Red Sea (Ex. 14:26).
adab and Abihu sinned
grievously by offering strange fire unto the Lord, and accordingly they were
consumed by fire from heaven (Lev. 10:1, 2). Adonibezek cut off the thumbs and
toes of the kings he took in battle, and in like manner the Lord rewarded him
(Judges 1:6, 7). Agag’s sword made women childless, and so his own mother was
made childless by his being torn in pieces before the Lord (1 Sam. 15:33).”

22. 6. Spurgeon, “The earlier part of David’s life was full of music and dancing; the
latter part had far more of mourning and lamentation in it. After his great fall, he
had to go softly all the rest of his days, and his dying testimony, though full of faith,
was marred by the regret, “although my house be not so with God.” He was a man
so highly favored of God, and so much after God’s own heart in many ways, that, if
he could have been without the rod, God would have spared him. If this sin of his
could have been winked at, and he could have been delivered from its consequences
without chastisement, God would have delivered him; but it was not possible. God
does not give such exemption as that to any of his children, and he did not give it to
David. That warm heart of his, which, in many respects, was so excellent, was apt,
from its very fervor of affection, to crave too much of the love of the creature; so
David had to be smitten again and again. God did not afflict him willingly; he did it
because it was for his good. This folly in the heart of his child could not be driven
out by anything but the rod, and therefore the rod he must have. He was a grand
man, one in whom the grace of God shone very conspicuously, but he was a man of
like passions with ourselves, and we have reason to thank God that he was, because
his experience becomes all the more instructive to us from the fact that, while it
teaches us that God can and will forgive us if we repent of even our great and gross
sins, yet it also teaches us that sin is an evil and a bitter thing, and that, though the
guilt of it may be removed, the evil consequences of it will cling to us, and be a
subject of sorrow to us, till God shall wipe away all tears from our eyes.”
7. Spurgeon adds, “God’s aim is, not merely to forgive us, and to free us from the
penalty of sin, but to take sin out of us, and get rid of it altogether. The Lord might
have forgiven David, and yet not have used the rod upon him as he did. That child
might not have died, but might have grown up to be David’s comfort and joy; and
Absalom might not have burned out such a scapegrace, but might have been his
father’s best helper. God might have arranged matters so, but he did not see fit to
do it. He seems to say, “My dear child David, I love you so well that, while I fully
forgive you, I will take such measures with you as will effectually prevent you from
ever falling into that sin again; I will so deal with you that, should you ever have
such a temptation as this again, your tendency to that sin shall be very decidedly
checked.” Long before his sin with Bathsheba, there were various indications as to
David’s special liability to temptation. That sin only threw out upon the surface the
evil that was always within him; and now God, having him see that the deadly
cancer is there, begins to use the knife to cut it out of him. God’s business with you,
if you are his child, is to get rid of the sin that is within you; ― to purge you, not
merely with blood and with hyssop, but with fire, till he has made your nature very
different from what it now is.

23. 8. Alan Carr, “Let me give you a brief overview of the pain David endured for the
moment of pleasure he enjoyed.
1. David suffered the death of an infant son – 2 Sam. 12:15, 18
2. David’s eldest son Amnon raped his half-sister Tamar – 2 Sam. 13:1-2
3. David’s son Absalom grew to hate Amnon – 2 Sam. 13:22
4. Absalom conspires to have Amnon killed – 2 Sam. 13:23-29
5. Absalom flees from his father and the two are estranged for some 5 years. 2
Sam. 13:37-39; 2 Sam. 14:24
6. Absalom leads a public rebellion against David – 2 Sam. 15-17
7. Absalom publicly disgraces David by committing adultery with David’s
concubines on top of the King’s palace – 2 Sam. 16:21-22
8. Absalom is murdered by David’s nephew Joab – 2 Sam. 18:32-33
9. Keil, “David's twofold sin was to be followed by a twofold punishment. For his
murder he would have to witness the commission of murder in his own family, and
for his adultery the violation of his wives, and both of them in an intensified form.
As his sin began with adultery, and was consummated in murder, so the law of just
retribution was also carried out in the punishment, in the fact that the judgments
which fell upon his house commenced with Amnon's incest, whilst Absalom's
rebellion culminated in the open violation of his father's concubines, and even
Adonijah lost his life, simply because he asked for Abishag the Shunammite, who
had lain in David's bosom to warm and cherish him in his old age (1Ki_2:23-24).”
12 You did it in secret, but I will do this thing in broad
daylight before all Israel.'
1. David sinned in secret and did all he could to cover it up, but he forgot the
omniscience of God who sees all.
ow God is going to expose his folly for all the
world to see. It had to be the most embarrassing experience of life to have his sin
exposed for all his admirers to see. He was a hero, and now he is portrayed as a
wicked fool.
2. Paul Dunbar wrote,
This is the debt I pay
Just for one riotous day,
Years of regret and grief,

24. Sorrow without relief.
Slight was the thing I bought,
Small was the debt I thought,
Poor was the loan at best --
God! but the interest!
3. David would be paying interest for the rest of his life because he looked only at a
present need to satisfy his lust, but did not look at the long range effects it would
produce. He could well have written these words:
I dreamed of bliss in pleasure's bowers,
While pillowing roses stayed my head :
But serpents hissed among the flowers;
I woke, and thorns were all my bed.
His bed of adultery, no doubt, felt very good and comfortable, but his bed of
judgment would be like sleeping on thorns. What a painful result for a temporary
pleasure.
4. Ray Stedman, “There is a popular song that says The Lord above has
commanded that man should love his neighbor but the song goes on to say With a
little bit of luck, with a little bit of luck, when your neighbor comes around, you
won't be home. The Lord above has said that man should be faithful to his wife
and never go out philandering, but with a little bit of luck, with a little bit of luck,
she will never find out. And so it goes, with an exquisite capturing of the world's
philosophy about God's program: You can get by. God's not going to bring these
things to pass. If you eat of this tree, you will not die, Satan said to Eve. And with
a little bit of luck things will work out. But, as God shows in the story of David, this
philosophy is a lie.”
5. The question many ask is, “Why did David have to suffer so much judgment for a
sin that was forgiven and taken away?” I like the answer found in Great Texts
which says, “One very obvious reason why God does not detach their natural results
from our sins, even when He forgives our sins, is that to do so would necessitate an
incessant display of miraculous power before which all law and certainty would be
swept away, and our very conceptions of right and wrong would be confused. God
has so made the world and so ordered human life that every seed brings forth fruit
of its kind, every action issues in a corresponding result. This is the constant
invariable law. Holding fast by this law, we know what to expect, we can foresee
what fruit our actions will bring forth. But were God for ever to violate the law by
lifting every penitent beyond the reach of the painful results whose natural causes
he had set in motion, no man would any longer know what to expect, an element of
bewildering uncertainty would enter into every lot. Instead of that noble being, with
large discourse of reason, looking before and after, instead of being able to calculate

25. the results of action and to rely on the certainties of law, man would sink into the
slave of an incalculable and unintelligible Caprice, pleasure and pain would be
exalted over right and wrong, the sacredness of duty would be impaired, the very
pillar* of the universe would be shaken and removed out of their place.”
My father called me to him. John, said he, very kindly,
I wish you would get the hammer. Yes, sir.
ow a nail
and a piece of pine board from the wood shed. Here they are.
Will you drive the nail into the board ? It was done. Please
pull it out again. That s easy.
ow, John, and my father s
voice dropped to a lower, sadder key, pull out the nail hole.
6. I love the way Steve Zeisler shows how
athan made it impossible for David to
squirm out of this with any justification and excuse. He wrote, “The speech of
athan showed no effort to soften the blow or spare David's feelings. It was
devastating, hard-hitting. It was a clear and thoughtful destruction of all victimhood
arguments that David might have raised. There were no extenuating circumstances,
no set of rationalizations that was going to be accepted.
athan gave most of this
speech before David was able to utter one word, and everything that might have
occurred to David to say in his own defense was disallowed before he could say it.
When the person we really are is displayed in our own sight before God and
perhaps before others, we often retreat to explanations of extenuating circumstances
and rationalizations.
Let's consider three kinds of rationalizations that occur to most of us and that
probably occurred to David.
The first one is, You need to understand that I'm from a deprived background. I
had a hurtful upbringing. I was denied many things in my life. If I've done anything
to hurt anyone, I'm sorry, but I really couldn't help what I did.
What
athan, speaking for the Lord, said to David contradicted that, insisting
instead, You have been given everything, and you are a man who doesn't know a
thing about thankfulness. I have given you protection, honor, standing, authority,
wives, everything that might occur to you, and if there were anything else, I would
have given you that as well. What claim of needs gone unmet in your life makes any
sense? What deprivation have you suffered that hasn't been met by the supply of
God?
The second rationalization is, I didn't mean to do this. I didn't understand. It was
an inadvertent slip-up. I was ignorant of some of the fine points, and I wandered
into an area where I shouldn't have been.

26. Twice
athan said to David, You despised, a very strong word. He despised the
word of the Lord and in fact he despised the Lord himself. He trampled on four of
the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:1-17) in this affair. Everyone in Israel, if they
knew anything, knew the Ten Commandments. The sixth commandment is
unambiguous: You shall not murder. The seventh: You shall not commit
adultery. The ninth: You shall not give false testimony [lie]... The tenth: You
shall not covet....
athan was saying, You despised the word of the Lord. There
was no ignorance. You did mean to do what you were doing. You decided to be God
yourself and to affront the God of heaven.
The third rationalization is, It's not my fault. Remember, David and Joab had
cooked up the lie at the end of chapter 11 that said, People die in wars. Maybe
Uriah would have gotten killed anyway. Other people get killed. After all, the
Ammonites were really the ones who killed him. We didn't kill him. It's not our
fault.
athan would have none of it. He said, You took his wife, and you killed him by
the sword of the Ammonites. It is your fault. And David had nowhere to hide. The
brave prophet of God had said all of the hard things that he had avoided for the
many months that he had been distant from God.”
13 Then David said to
athan, I have sinned against
the LORD .
athan replied, The LORD has taken away your sin.
You are not going to die.
1. Finally David confesses his sin, but how could he do anything else. God is
exposing him and passing judgment. It is a little late for any more schemes to cover
up and avoid the consequences of his sin. He is no hero here for finally confessing. It
was a good thing that he finally did acknowledge it, but it was way too late to be a
virtue to do so. It has been close to a year that he has kept his sin hidden, and not
taken it to the Lord seeking forgiveness. He is now forced to confess, for God has
put all his dirty linen on the line, and he is headlines in the Jerusalem Gazette as a
fallen king. To deny the story is to call God a liar, and David is not so stupid that he
will do that. He is caught, and so he confesses. Later, when he writes of his sorrow
for his sin it is more real and authentic, but here he is filled with fear that he will be
struck dead by God. In spite of his way too late confession, God takes the sin away,
meaning he will not be sentenced to death as he should be according to the law of
God. Here is mercy on the highest level, for no one ever deserved the death penalty
more than David.

27. My opinion is that preachers make too big an issue out of David confessing his sin
here. What else could he do? God has already convicted him and sentenced him to a
life of great sorrow, and penalties galore. To confess after you are already convicted
and sentenced to prison for your crime is not to be considered a noble act. David's
acknowledgment of his sin at this point is more a cry of fear. He is saying something
like, “
athan I am under the wrath of God, and I fear for my life because of my
defying of his will.” That is why
athan assures him that he will not die for his sin.
Many write as if his confession was what made God have mercy on him, and let him
live, but it is obvious that God had already told
athan that he would not die for his
sin. It is superficial to suggest, as so many do, that it was his noble confession that
softened the heart of God at that moment, and immediately he was forgiven. God
has already decided how he is going to deal with David, and his agreeing with God's
judgment that he has sinned terribly is not a valid reason to give praise to David. All
the praise in this context goes to the grace and mercy of God. David knew he had
sinned against the Lord from the beginning, and that is why he worked so hard to
cover it up. Any child in Israel would know that he was defying two of God's Ten
Commandments, and David knew it too. It is absurd to think that by repeating what
God said to him, that he was somehow pleasing to God. David is not to be honored
here in my estimation, for his being spared had nothing to do with his confession,
but it was totally due to the undeserved favor of God. There is no merit here at all
on David's part, but all his deliverance and forgiveness is due to the loving heart of
God. His repentance is seen clearly later in his Psalms, but to give him any credit
here for his being spared is to minimize the amazing grace that is being
demonstrated by God.
An unknown preacher wrote, “David is guilty, he was caught red-handed. What is
worse, he didn't confess his sins to God on his own, he didn't come to God to
acknowledge what he had done. He didn't confess until his sins were disclosed by
athan. In our Presbyterian Church in America's Book of Church Order, if a
minister confesses to a scandalous sin only because he has been found out or knows
that he is about to be found out, he must be deposed immediately. But David was
found out, he didn't confess his sins out of his own sense of guilt and remorse. Only
when he was found out did he feel remorse and did he confess.”
1B. Clarke, “Many have supposed that David's sin was now actually pardoned, but
this is perfectly erroneous; David, as an adulterer, was condemned to death by the
law of God; and he had according to that law passed sentence of death upon himself.
God alone, whose law that was could revoke that sentence, or dispense with its
execution; therefore
athan, who had charged the guilt home upon his conscience,
is authorized to give him the assurance that he should not die a temporal death for it:
The Lord hath put away thy sin; thou shalt not die. This is all that is contained in the
assurance given by
athan: Thou shalt not die that temporal death; thou shalt be
preserved alive, that thou mayest have time to repent, turn to God, and find mercy.
If the fifty-first Psalm, as is generally supposed, was written on this occasion, then it
is evident (as the Psalm must have been written after this interview) that David had
not received pardon for his sin from God at the time he composed it; for in it he

28. confesses the crime in order to find mercy.
There is something very remarkable in the words of
athan: The Lord also hath
PUT AWAY thy sin; thou shalt not die; gam Yehovah heebir chattathecha lo thamuth,
Also Jehovah HATH CAUSED thy sin TO PASS OVER, or transferred thy sin; THOU
shalt not die. God has transferred the legal punishment of this sin to the child; HE
shall die, THOU shalt not die; and this is the very point on which the prophet gives
him the most direct information: The child that is born unto thee shall SURELY die;
moth yamuth, dying he shall die-he shall be in a dying state seven days, and then he
shall die. So God immediately struck the child, and it was very sick.
1C. Thomas Scott, “The dormant spark of divine grace in David’s heart now began
to rekindle, and before this plain and faithful statement of facts, in the name of God,
his evasions vanished, and his guilt appeared in all its magnitude. He therefore was
far from resenting the pointed rebuke of the prophet, or attempting any palliation
of his conduct; but, in deep humiliation of heart, he confessed, ‘I have sinned against
the Lord.’ The words are few; but the event proved them to have been the language
of genuine repentance, which regards sin as committed against the authority and
glory of the Lord, whether or not it have occasioned evil to any fellow-creature.”
1D. “Charles Spurgeon, the great English preacher of the last century, described the
terrible torment of a guilty conscience in these words: “Give me into the power of a
roaring lion, but never let me come under the power of an awakened, guilty
conscience. Shut me up in a dark dungeon, among all manner of loathsome
creatures--snakes and reptiles of all kinds--but, oh, give me not over to my own
thoughts when I am consciously guilty before God! The conscience can be
suppressed, but only for so long. Finally, it will speak, and its pronouncement will
be: Guilty! Thus, self-exposure, self-condemnation is first step toward healing. As
we reconnect with what is true in us, integrity rises through the muck and mire.
Breaking through the surface, it shouts the naked truth. It is only then that the soul
that has been fragmented starts to become whole again.”
1E. Spurgeon goes on to deal with the danger of abusing the quick forgiveness of
David's sin. He wrote, “One fears, however, lest, by the preaching up of the
abounding mercy of God in suddenly putting away great sin, any should be led to
think lightly of sin. It has been often raised as an objection to the full proclamation
of the grace of God that it tends to make men think that the escape from sin is very
easy, and, consequently, to cause them to imagine that sin itself is a less deadly thing
than it really is.
ow, I will not deny that Antinomianism is natural to the human
heart, and that, as there have been, in the past, men who have turned the grace of
God into licentiousness, so there will be, in the future, men who will make even out
of God’s mercy an argument in favor of their sin. Those who act, thus are among
the very worst of sinners, “whose damnation is just,” as Paul wrote concerning those
who said, “Let us do evil, that good may come.” I have read that a spider will
extract poison from, the flower from which the bee extracts honey; so, surely, from;
that very truth from which a renewed heart extracts reasons for holiness,

29. unregenerate men have been known to extract excuses for sin. If they do so, I can
only say that they are “without excuse.”
1F. “David then sees clearly, sort of. “I have sinned against the Lord.” But you
know, I’m not sure he sees that he has sinned against Uriah, Bathsheba, the dead
soldiers and their families, the people of Israel, and even the baby Bathsheba
carries. Sometimes, it’s the coward’s way to believe that the only victim of our sin is
God.” author unknown
1G. Maclaren is one of my favorite preachers, but like so many, he is superficial in
his dealing with David's confession. He wrote, “What a divine simplicity there is in
the words of our text: ‘David said unto
athan, I have sinned against the Lord.’
That is all. In the original, two words are enough to revolutionize the man’s whole
life, and to alter all his relations to the divine justice and the divine Friend. ‘I have
sinned against the Lord.’
ot an easy thing to say; and as the story shows us, a thing
that David took a long time to mount up to.”
ot an easy thing to say? God just told
him how awful he had been. How could it be hard to agree with God? I agree with
those authors who see the deep emotion and agonizing prayer of David for the dying
son to illustrate the true repentance of David. This statement here is just
acknowledging what God has said. It took time for it to sink in to David just how
foolish and sinful he had been. He wrote his Psalms about it later as he reflected on
his judgment, and grace, but to read into this statement the idea of full repentance,
as many do, is superficial.
aturally he felt terrible for his sins, for he is under the
immediate judgment of God, but it took some time for him to demonstrate true
repentance. He did get there as he wrote out the depth of his emotions in his Psalms.
1H. Pastor William Robison puts it perfectly, “A reflective poem he wrote, Psalm
51, may stand as the most impressive outcome of David's sordid affair. It is one
thing for a king to confess a moral lapse in private to a prophet and quite another
for him to compose a detailed account of that confession to be sung throughout the
land and ultimately around the world. This psalm exposes the true nature of sin as
a broken relationship with God. Against you, you only, have I sinned, David
cried out in verse 4. He saw that God wanted a broken spirit, a broken and
contrite heart-qualities, which David had, in abundance. Looking back on their
greatest king, Israel remembered David more for his devotion to God than for his
illustrious achievements. Lusty, vengeful King David had fully earned the
reputation of a man after God's own heart. He loved God with all his heart, and
what more could be said?
David's secret? The two scenes, one a buoyant high and the other a devastating low,
hint at an answer. Whether cart wheeling behind the ark or lying prostrate on the
ground for six straight nights in contrition, David's strongest instinct was to relate
his life to God. Ps 73:25-28, whom have I in heaven but You? And there is none
upon earth that I desire besides You. My flesh and my heart fail; but God is the
strength of my heart and my portion forever. For indeed, those who are far from
You shall perish; you have destroyed all those who desert You for harlotry. But it is

30. good for me to draw near to God; I have put my trust in the Lord GOD, that I may
declare all Your works. In comparison, nothing else mattered at all. As his poetry
makes clear, he led a God-saturated life. Psalm 63:1-2, O God, you are my God,
earnestly I seek you, he wrote once in a desiccated desert. My soul thirsts for you,
my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water.... Because
your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you.
1I. Dr.
eil Chadwick puts together an outline of Psalm 51 that reveals the reality of
David's repentance.
Within these two passages, II Samuel 12 and Psalm 51, there are several C words,
which relate to this subject of God's forgiveness. We'll look briefly at the list, and
then focus on one.
1) Compassion - Forgiveness is not earned, but granted because of God's great
love. (According to your great compassion. - 51:1)
2) Confession - There is a willingness to admit to, and take responsibility for the
sin. (Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight. -
51:4) If as the heading suggests this was a song to be sung as part of the Temple
worship, then this was not merely a private confession.
ote too that David
understood that all sin is an affront to God as well as an offense to man.
3) Conceived - We understand with David that we are born in sin. (Surely I was
sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me. - 51:5) This is one
place where we find the notion of original sin, which helps us understand that from
our human father, Adam, we have all inherited a basic inability to do what God
requires.
4) Condemnation - When David prayed, Save me from bloodguilt (51:14), he
wanted to be free from the perpetual guilt that would constantly be with him
because he shed another man's blood.
5) Contriteness - Actually this idea is conveyed by means of two synonymous
phrases, a poetic device to bring emphasis (broken spirit . . . contrite heart -
51:17)
Broken is the Hebrew word pronounced shaw-bar, and means to burst, or
break into pieces, to reduce into splinters. Contrite (daw-kaw) means to
collapse, or to beat out thin and is referred to in regard to what is bruised in a
mortar (See
umbers 11:8 - referring to how manna was prepared). According to
Samuel Chandler, in a moral sense, [contrite] signifies such a weight of sorrow as
must wholly crush the mind without some powerful and seasonable relief.
6) Contempt - The attitude of the unbeliever who becomes aware of the blatant
sin of the righteous man. (By doing this you have made the enemies of the LORD

31. show utter contempt. - II Samuel 12:14)
However, the word we want to dwell mostly on is another C word, Cleanse -
forgiveness results in cleansing. This word, or the idea it conveys, is found many
different times in this chapter 51, and being expressed by means of four different
words. To pursue this study go to http://joyfulministry.com/cleanse.htm
2. It seems that many died for a lot less folly than David, but God had a plan for
David. He was not worthy to live, but it was God's will to spare him for his purpose.
He was assured as soon as he was made to realize his sin that it would not be the end
of his life. Here we see judgment and grace side by side.
3. God let many things pass without the severe judgment that was deserved. That
was a part of the Old Testament plan where there was so much less light than what
is given in the
ew Testament. At Lystra, Barnabas and Paul acknowledged that in
“the generations gone by” God had “suffered all the nations to walk in their own
ways.” Currently, however, it is man’s obligation to turn from vain things to serve
the living God (Acts 14:15-16). At Athens, the inspired apostle announced: “The
times of ignorance therefore God overlooked; but now he commands men that they
should all everywhere repent . . .” (Acts 17:30). In Romans 3:25, it is argued that
due to God’s forbearance (anoche, “clemency, tolerance” – Danker, p. 86), sins
committed aforetime (in previous ages) were passed over. This, of course, does not
mean that Jehovah ignored those sins; rather, the “passing over” (paresis) means
“letting go unpunished” (Danker, p.776), and it is used of the “temporary
suspension of punishment which may at some later date be inflicted” (Sanday
Headlam, p. 90). The foregoing principle certainly was applicable in the David-
Bathsheba affair. They committed adultery. Had the law of Moses been strictly
executed, they both would have been put to death. “And the man that committeth
adultery with another man’s wife, even he that committeth adultery with his
neighbor’s wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death” (Lev.
20:10)
4. It seems that David is getting by with his sin as far as personal punishment, but
not so if Strauss is correct when he writes, He later wrote three psalms describing
those months out of fellowship with God: Psalms 32, 38 and 51. Listen to his
plaintive cry: “I am bent over and greatly bowed down; I go mourning all day long
… I am benumbed and badly crushed; I groan because of the agitation of my heart”
(Psa. 38:6, 8). David loved his Lord and tried to worship him, but he found a barrier
there; it was the barrier of his own sin. God seemed far away. “Do not forsake me,
O Lord; O my God, do not be far from me!” (Psa. 38:21). His friends sensed his
irritability and avoided him. “My loved ones and my friends stand aloof from my
plague; and my kinsmen stand afar off” (Psa. 38:11). David lived that way for
nearly a year. He had his precious Bathsheba, but he had no rest of soul.
5. If only David had arrived at the point that Chrysostom, the golden mouthed

32. preacher, had arrived at, so that the only thing that he feared was to sin against his
Lord. By giving up a swift passing pleasure, he could have avoided the worst pains
of his life. Pink wrote about Chrysostom in this way: “The emperor Arcadius and
his wife had a very bitter feeling towards Chrysostom, bishop of Constantinople.
One day, in a fit of anger, the emperor said to one of his courtiers, ‘I would I were
avenged of this bishop!’ Several then proposed how this should be done. ‘Banish
him and exile him to the desert,’ said one. ‘Put him in prison’, said another.
‘Confiscate his property’, said a third. ‘Let him die,’ said a fourth. Another
courtier, whose vices Chrysostom had reproved, said maliciously, ‘You all make a
great mistake. You will never punish him by such proposals. If banished the
kingdom, he will feel God as near to him in the desert as here. If you put him in
prison and load him with chains, he will still pray for the poor and praise God in the
prison. If you confiscate his property, you merely take away his goods from the
poor, not from him. If you condemn him to death, you open Heaven to him. Prince,
do you wish to be revenged on him? Force him to commit sin. I know him; this man
fears nothing in the world but sin.’ O that this were the only remark which our
fellows could pass on you and me, fellow-believer (From the Fellowship
magazine).”
6. Richard Strauss, “These were the words God wanted to hear. David’s spirit was
broken; his heart was contrite (cf. Psa. 51:17). And as a result, he heard the
sweetest, most beautiful, most reassuring and encouraging words known to man:
“The Lord also has taken away your sin” (2 Sam. 12:13). As David put it in the
Psalms, “I acknowledged my sin to Thee, and my iniquity I did not hide; I said, ‘I
will confess my transgressions to the Lord’; and thou didst forgive the guilt of my
sin” (Psa. 32:5).
7. Great Texts, “What is true Penitence ? There are four parts in a complete act of
penitence, and they are all necessary. First there is the seeing of the fact, next the
acknowledgment of the moral character of the fact, then the owning of
responsibility to God for the wrong-doing, and last the consciousness that the wrong
doing is a wrong-being, that the sins are sinfulness. It may come upon a man all in a
flash, as it did on David ; or it may grow hardly, fought against stoutly, conquering
step by step for itself, taking years, perhaps, to get entire possession of the nature.
But it must come, and it must all come, or the man s sins are not genuinely
confessed. When it has all come, a man need not question how it came slowly or
swiftly, calmly or violently; however it came, the confession is perfect, and in the
utterness of his humiliation there is nothing more that he can do.”
8. Pink, “Yes, good reason has each of us to fear sin, and to beg God that it may
please Him to work in our hearts a greater horror and hatred of it. Is not this one
reason why God permits some of the most eminent saints to lapse into outrageous
evils, and place such upon record in His Word: that we should be more distrustful
of ourselves, realizing that we are liable to the same disgracing of our profession;
yea, that we certainly shall fall into such unless upheld by the mighty hand of God.”

33. 9. “
othing is recorded in the historical account of Samuel about the deep exercises
of heart through which David now passed; nothing is said to indicate the reality and
depth of his repentance. For that we must turn elsewhere, notably to the penitential
Psalms. There the Holy Spirit has graciously given us a record of what David was
inspired to write thereon, for it is in the Psalms we find most fully delineated the
varied experiences of soul through which the believer passes. There we may find an
unerring description of every exercise of heart experienced by the saint in his
journey through this wilderness scene; which explains why this book of Scripture
has ever been a great favorite with God's people: therein they find their own inward
history accurately described.
The two principal Psalms which give us a view of the heart exercises through which
David now passed are the fifty-first and the thirty-second. Psalm 51 is evidently the
earlier one. In it we see the fallen saint struggling up out of the horrible pit and
miry clay. In the latter we behold him standing again on firm ground with a new
song in his mouth, even the blessedness of him whose sin is covered. But both of
them are evidently to be dated from the time when the sharp thrust of God’s lancet
in the band of
athan pierced David’s conscience, and when the healing balsam of
God’s assurance of forgiveness was laid by the prophet upon his heart. The
passionate cries of the sorely stricken soul (Ps. 51) are really the echo of the divine
promise―the efforts of David’s faith to grasp and appropriate the merciful gift of
pardon. It was the divine promise of forgiveness which was the basis and
encouragement of the prayer for forgiveness.” author unknown
10. “It is to be noted that the title affixed to Psalm 51 is A Psalm of David, when
athan the prophet came unto him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba. Beautifully
did Spurgeon point out in his introductory remarks, When the divine message had
aroused his dormant conscience and made him see the greatness of his guilt, he
wrote this Psalm. He had forgotten his psalmody while he was indulging his flesh,
but he returned to his harp when his spiritual nature was awakened, and he poured
out his song to the accompaniment of sighs and tears. Great as was David’s sin, yet
he repented, and was restored. The depths of his anguish and the reality of his
repentance are evident in every verse. In it we may behold the grief and the desires
of a contrite soul pouring out his heart before God, humbly and earnestly suing for
His mercy. Only the Day to come will reveal how many sin-tormented souls have
from this Psalm, all blotted with the tears in which David sobbed out his
repentance, found a path for backsliders in a great and howling desert.”
Against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in Thy sight (v. 4). In
these words David gives evidence of the sincerity of his contrition and proof that he
was a regenerate man. It is only those possessing a spiritual nature that will view sin
in the presence of God. The evil of all sin lies in its opposition to God, and a contrite
heart is filled with a sense of the wrong done unto Him. Evangelical repentance
mourns for sin because it has displeased a gracious God and dishonored a loving
Father. David, then, was not content with looking upon his evil in itself, or in
relation only to the people who had suffered by it. He had been guilty of crimes
against Bathsheba and Uriah, and even Joab whom he made his tool, as well as

34. against all his subjects; but dark as those crimes were, they assumed their true
character only when seen as committed against God.
11. Pink, “The two leading themes of the Scriptures are sin and grace: throughout
the Sacred Volume each of these is traced to its original source, each is delineated in
its true character, each is followed out in its consequences and ends, each is
illustrated and exemplified by numerous personal examples. Strange as it first
sounds, yet it is true that, upon these two, sin and grace, do turn all the transactions
between God and the souls of men. The force of what has just been said receives
clear and striking demonstration in the case of David. Sin in all its hideousness is
seen at work within him, plunging him into the mire; but grace is also discovered in
all its loveliness, delivering and cleansing him. The one serves as a dark background
from which the other may shine forth the more gloriously.
owhere do we behold so
unmistakably the fearful nature and horrible works of sin than in the man after
God’s own heart, so signally favored and so highly honored, yet failing so
ignominiously and sinking so low. Yet nowhere do we behold so vividly the amazing
grace of God as in working true repentance in this notorious transgressor,
pardoning his iniquity, and restoring him to communion.”
12. Robert Hamerton-Kelly, I have heard sermons that imply that if King David
sinned in this terrible way and more or less got away with it we might conclude that
the grace and mercy of God are easily available; we might ask for grace easily and
eagerly, with decent but not crippling remorse, and receive it without much stress.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the martyr of
azi times called this cheap grace. Heinrich
Heine, the German poet of the early 19th century had the poet’s insight into the
pathetic self-indulgence of cheap grace. He is reported to have said sardonically on
his deathbed that God would forgive him, because forgiveness is God’s main
business.
othing could be farther from the truth. Grace cannot be had at a
discount; it is the most precious and most costly thing in all reality. Every sin is a sin
against the majesty of God and every sin brings death to the soul, which is an
unimaginable torment, but especially sin committed with the knowledge that it is a
sin, that it contravenes the law and will of God. This is called sin with a high
hand, in the KJV, and it incurs even more emphatically the penalty of eternal
death. David sinned with the highest of hands! He was God’s chosen and anointed
king, the one whom God had brought through great struggles to rule and guide his
chosen people. He defied the divine will to God’s face. Grace for such sin is costly in
the extreme. It cost the life of the Son of God.”
13. Keil, “David himself had deserved to die as an adulterer and murderer. The
Lord remitted the punishment of death, not so much because of his heartfelt
repentance, as from His own fatherly grace and compassion, and because of the
promise that He had given to David (2Sa_7:11-12), - a promise which rested upon
the assumption that David would not altogether fall away from a state of grace, or
commit a mortal sin, but that even in the worst cases he would turn to the Lord

35. again and seek forgiveness. The Lord therefore punished him for this sin with the
judgments announced in 2Sa_12:10-12, as about to break upon him and his house.
But as his sin had given occasion to the enemies of the Lord - i.e., not only to the
heathen, but also to the unbelieving among the Israelites themselves - to blaspheme
or ridicule his religion and that of all other believers also, the child that was
begotten in adultery and had just been born should die; in order, on the one hand,
that the father should atone for his adultery in the death of the son, and, on the
other hand, that the visible occasion for any further blasphemy should be taken
away: so that David was not only to feel the pain of punishment in the death of his
son, but was also to discern in it a distinct token of the grace of God.”
14 But because by doing this you have made the enemies
of the LORD show utter contempt, the son born to you
will die.
1. The first penalty David was to pay for his sin was the loss of his child, and this
was a heavy loss. David pleaded for his life, but that prayer was not answered, for
God had already determined that David would not get joy from his sin with
Bathsheba.
1B. Gill, “Howbeit, because by this deed…
This complicated wickedness, adultery with Bathsheba, and the murder of her
husband, and occasioning the death of others:
thou hast given great reason to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme;
to insult over Israel, and the God of Israel, and to magnify their own idols on
account of the advantage they got when Uriah and other Israelites were slain; and to
speak ill of God as a respecter of persons, who had cast off Saul and his family from
the kingdom, and yet established David in it, guilty of crimes the other was not; and
of the word, ways, and worship of God, and of the true religion, as all hypocrisy and
deceit, when men that made such pretensions to it were guilty of such atrocious
crimes; wherefore to let such see and know that the Lord did not approve of and
countenance such actions, but abhorred and resented them:
the child also [that is] born unto thee shall surely die;
which would be a visible testimony of God's displeasure at his sin, to all men that
should hear of it, and know it; and being taken away in such a manner would be a
great affliction to him, and the more as his affections were much towards the child,
as appears by what follows; or otherwise the removal of it might have been
considered as a mercy, since its life would have kept up the remembrance of the sin,
and have been a standing reproach to him.”
2. Strauss, Did you notice why God took the baby, however? That point needs to be

36. reemphasized. It was because by David’s deed he had “given occasion to the enemies
of the Lord to blaspheme.”
ow we understand one important reason for divine
discipline. It is administered so the enemies of God will know that He is infinitely
holy and righteous, that He will deal with sin even in His children. Were He to wink
at it with a “Boys will be boys” attitude, he would become the laughingstock of the
unbelieving world. David had to bear the consequences of his sin, and so must we.
That burden can be heavy, but the time to think about that is before we yield.”
3. The Sermon
otebook, “Of all the horrible things that came out of David’s sin
with Bathsheba, perhaps the worst is the fact that it dishonored the name of the
Lord among the unbelievers who were watching. If God allowed David to get away
with this sin, then those who did not know the Lord would conclude that God was
soft on sin and unfair in His judgment of sin. In other words, they would say things
about the Lord that were untrue and be guilty of blasphemy. In fact, David’s sin
boils down to a personal rejection of God, His Law and His way. David was guilty of
blasphemy on a personal level. God would not stand for that. David must be judged!
One of the worst outcomes when any believer sins is the ammunition it gives to
unbelievers. When a believer openly sins, God’s reputation is tarnished and His
name is blasphemed. Our first thought ought to always be for God to be glorified, 1
Cor. 10:31. When we sin, we are seeking to glorify self! In other words, we put
ourselves in the place of God. That is treason; that is blasphemy; and that is opening
the door for the judgment of God to fall in our lives. Our lives are to draw men to
Jesus, Matt. 5:16; and not push them farther away. When we are guilty of low living
that hinders the cause of Christ and that brings dishonor to the name of the Lord,
we can expect nothing less than His chastisement!
4. Steve Zeisler, “Because of David's sin, his innocent son will die. As I mentioned in
the last message, I am convinced that the death of this first son as a repercussion of
David's rebellion is a foreshadowing of the later and greater son of David, the
Messiah, our Lord Jesus himself. David's innocent son at this time died for David's
sins, and later, in a more profound and humanity-saving way, David's innocent son
Jesus also died for David's sins, and the sins of every one of us. This is a reminder
that our sins deserve death. It is right that death should be the result of rebellious,
hard-hearted, sinful choices.”
5. Here is a list of lessons that can be taken from this whole affair and its
consequences.
1.
o one, however chosen, blessed, and used of God, is immune to an extramarital
affair.
2. Anyone, regardless of how many victories he has won, can fall disastrously.
3. The act of infidelity is the result of uncontrolled desires, thoughts, and fantasies.

37. 4. Your body is your servant or it becomes your master.
5. A Christian who falls will excuse, rationalize, and conceal, the same as anyone
else.
6. Sin can be enjoyable but it can never be successfully covered.
7. One night of passion can spark years of family pain.
8. Failure is neither fatal nor final.
Source unknown
15 After
athan had gone home, the LORD struck the
child that Uriah's wife had borne to David, and he
became ill.
1. Ordinarily God is in the healing ministry, but there are times when he has to be
the agent of illness in bringing judgment on sinful behavior. God was not going to
allow David's adultery to lead to a son that David could be proud of the rest of his
life. God had to take this child from him so that he could never have a positive
thought about his foolish choice to defy the will of God. Had this child lived, David
could say for the rest of his life that there was some good came out of his affair.
2. Constable's notes, “Why did God take the life of this child since its parents
sinned? That the child should be punished for what David did seems wrong. We
need to remind ourselves, however, that even today innocent children suffer from
the things their parents do. The more pointed question deals with whether God
should be credited with the cause of the suffering. I once sat at the funeral of a child
who had been accidentally killed by a drunk man riding through the community on
a motorcycle. In the funeral message the minister tried to convince those of us
present that God had a purpose in the child's death as though it were something
God had planned. I was revolted by what he said because he took an evil event and
made God the cause. In understanding
athan's interpretation of the child's illness
we need to separate the physical cause and the religious interpretation or
application. Whatever the child's illness, both
athan and David saw it as connected
with David's sin and raised no questions about it as we do.
When David slept with the woman and created new life, the woman did not belong
to him but to Uriah. The child cannot belong to David. He cannot enrich himself
through his sin, and in a sense, justice is done to Uriah.”
3. William Taylor, “THE penal consequences of David's sin took the form of family
trials and national troubles, and were of such a nature as to wring his heart with the
severest anguish, not only by their own bitterness, but also, and perhaps especially,
by the vividness with which they brought back upon his conscience remembrance of
his own iniquity. To-night we shall restrict ourselves to the first of his domestic

38. sorrows, and seek to draw from its consideration such lessons as shall prove both
wholesome and instructive. After his pointed and impressive exhortation to the king,
and his parting words of tender consolation, conveying in them the assurance of the
Divine forgiveness,
athan withdrew from the palace. He had perforated a difficult
and delicate duty with signal wisdom ; he had succeeded in arousing the conscience
of David without forfeiting his friendship ; he had been able, in a spirit of love to the
monarch, to preserve his fidelity to the monarch's God ; and now, with a heart
heaving with an emotion that resembled the after-swell which a storm always leaves
behind, he retired, we may believe, to pray to his heavenly Master for the poor
spirit-stricken penitent whom he had left in such dis- tress. To the same God, we
may be sure, David himself repaired ; and perhaps it was just then, in the first
access of his deep self-abasement and shame, that he wrote that Psalm which has
come weeping down through the centuries, and been in them all the liturgy of
repenting sinners.”
16 David pleaded with God for the child. He fasted and
went into his house and spent the nights lying on the
ground.
1. David knew it was because of his sin that this child was dying, but he still pleaded
with God for mercy on the child. David felt terrible that this child would have to die
because of his sin. He wanted desperately to escape this judgment, but it was not to
be, for there is a limit to God's mercy when we violate his commands, and do great
evil as David did. Prayer, no matter how long and sincere, will not be able to change
God's will every time. Sometimes, as here, God will not listen to our pleas for mercy,
but let his judgment continue. There is no greater example of prayer and fasting
than what we see here, but it was for no value, for God had determined that David
would not reap any reward from his folly.
2222.... Brian Morgan, David's reaction to the sickness of his son is very different from
his reaction to the news of the death of Uriah. Then, David showed no mourning, no
emotion, no care. He came up with just a glib piece of theology, which he tossed to
Joab like stale piece of beef jerky. But now, when his son is sick, his entire being is
engaged. He is on his face, in tears, entreating God with as much as a man can give
to God--prayers, accompanied by fasting. Instead of lying with a woman he is lying
on the ground, grasping the earth, trying to take hold of heaven.
The true David is back, with remarkable pathos and freedom. This is the David we
know from the Psalms, praying to God, beseeching God, wrestling with God,
worshiping God. This is the David who won't be swayed either by ease or by
majority opinion; the David who has penetrating insight into the heart of all
matters; the David who is humbled by his own mortality. The death of this son is

39. absolutely essential to David's restoration. This death becomes the trigger for the
recognition of things for which David had never mourned: a dead friend, a violated
woman, an illegitimate birth, a compromised nation. In the act of mourning his soul
is reconstructed bit by bit, and he becomes the man of tenacious face that he was in
his youth. In the end, it is the heart of God that he reacquires, the God who wept as
his own pleas were refused when he beseeched David to spare Uriah in subtle but
powerful ways.
ow David weeps as he beseeches God for a life he loves. David
could not be healed without deep personal mourning, and neither can we.”
3. W. Taylor, “He besought God for the child. Here is a great boldness of faith and
of request, which startles us almost by its importunity. Had not
athan said the
child should surely die ? yet here David pleads for his life, saying, Who can tell
whether God will be gracious to me, that the child may live ? Why is this ? Was it
because David did not believe
athan's words ?
o, but because he had unbounded
faith in the efficacy of prayer; and though in the present instance the specific object
which he asked was denied him, we must not suppose that it was so because his
prayer was displeasing to God ; for just a similar prayer offered by Hezekiah, after
his death was solemnly foretold by Isaiah, was the means of lengthening out his days
by fifteen years. So, too, after Jonah's unqualified proclamation of
ineveh's
destruction, the inhabitants rose and be-took themselves to prayer, saying, just like
David here, Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his
fierce anger, that we perish not ? and their cry was heard. Hence we dare not say
that David was wrong in making this request. And we can only marvel at the faith
and child-like regard for God which the making of it evinced.”
17 The elders of his household stood beside him to get
him up from the ground, but he refused, and he would
not eat any food with them.
1. Pink, “It is touching to see this seasoned warrior so affected by the sufferings of
his little one―proof of a broken heart and a contrite spirit, for the penitent are
pitiful. It is true that the prophet had said, The child also that is born unto thee
shall surely die (v. 14), yet David seems to have cherished the hope that this threat
was but a conditional one, as in the case of Hezekiah: his words while the child was
yet alive I fasted and wept: for I said, Who can tell whether God will be gracious to
me, that the child may live? (v. 22) strongly appear to bear this out. In his fasting
and lying all night upon the ground David humbled himself before the Lord, and
evidenced both the sincerity of his repentance and the earnestness of his
supplication.”

40. 2. W. Taylor, “Each pleading look of the upturned eye goes like a dart to the
mother's heart, while the convulsive start or tremor sends a thrill of anguish
through the father's frame. But over and above these natural and ordinary causes of
sorrow for an infant's sufferings, there were in David's case certain peculiar
ingredients of bitterness.
athan had specially connected all the pangs of his child
with his own sin. It is a mystery that any infant, innocent as it is of actual
transgression, should suffer at all ; and sometimes the dark shadow which that
mystery projects may increase the sadness of the afflicted parent. But in David's
case, whatever mystery there might be about the question why the child was made
to suffer for his guilt, there was none about the fact.
athan had made that perfectly
plain to him. Hence every quiver of pain the infant gave would be a new needle-point
thrust into his own conscience, stinging him with sharpest remorse. For seven
days this illness lasted, and David betook himself to his old solace : he prayed to God
yea, he fasted, and went in, and lay all night upon the earth. We like to read
these words, for they tell us that David, though an erring son of God, was yet a son.
A godless man would have been driven farther from Jehovah by these troubles, and
might have been led to make proclamation of his utter atheism ; but David went to
God. The more heavily he felt the rod, the nearer he crept to him who used it. He
fled from God to God. He hid himself from God in God. This shows that his sin was
out of the usual course of his nature.”
18 On the seventh day the child died. David's servants
were afraid to tell him that the child was dead, for they
thought, While the child was still living, we spoke to
David but he would not listen to us. How can we tell him
the child is dead? He may do something desperate.
1. So deep were David's emotions as he fought for this child's life that the servants
feared David would go into a rage and kill himself or others in uncontrolled anger.
It was a scary time for all of the household, for it was the most intense time they had
ever experienced.
o man ever prayed more fervently than David. All he wanted in
life for these past seven days was the healing of his son. It is the most desperate
prayer ever prayed that went unanswered. You can count on it that everyone in
David's household was also praying with him, and with Bathsheba as well. We do
not see her deep emotions portrayed, but we can imagine her pleading to God.
o
child ever had more prayer uttered on their behalf, and it would seem likely that
God would make an exception and spare the child, but it was not to be so. Most of
us would give in and let the child live, but God knew that David needed this loss in
order to fully grasp the nature of his folly. I think that all of David's writings in the
Psalms about his sin and God's mercy came after this event. He had suffered no loss
for his sin until this loss of the child, and it would be this loss that propelled him to a

41. true sorrow and repentance for his sin.
1B. Gill, “how will he then vex himself if we tell him that the child is dead?
or should we acquaint him with it, he will do mischief F23 to himself, to his body;
he will tear his flesh to pieces, and cut and kill himself; this they were afraid of,
observing the distress and agony he was in while it was living, and therefore they
concluded these would increase upon hearing of its death.”
2. Pink deals with the paradox of God's forgiveness and yet his judgment in spite of
it. It sounds like a contradiction to be forgiven and judged at the same time, but it is
a clear part of God's revelation. If forgiveness means that there will be no
consequences for sin, then it makes sense to go ahead and sin. Why resist temptation
if you can just be forgiven and suffer no penalty? God is not so blind to how people
would take advantage of such a plan, and that is why there has to be penalties even
after forgiveness.
3. Pink wrote, “Though God forgives His people their sins, yet He frequently gives
them plain proof of His holy abhorrence of the same, and causes them to taste
something of the bitter fruits which they bring forth. Another scripture which
brings out this dual truth is, Thou wast a God that forgavest them, though Thou
tookest vengeance of their inventions (Ps. 99:8). What could possibly be plainer
than this: God pardoning His people, yet also manifesting His sore displeasure
against their transgressions. A striking case in point―obviously included in Psalm
99:6-8―is recorded in Exodus 32. There we see Israel worshiping the golden calf in
the lascivious manner of the heathen. In response to the intercession of Moses, they
were forgiven: The Lord repented of the evil which He thought to do unto His
people (v. 14).
evertheless, God took vengeance of their inventions, And the
Lord plagued the people, because they made the calf, which Aaron made (v. 35).
Another example is seen in the case of the unbelief of Moses and Aaron at Meribah:
though God pardoned the guilt of their anger as to eternal death, yet He took
vengeance by not suffering them to conduct Israel into the promised land: see
umbers 20:12, 24. And so it is still, as many a Christian discovers from sorrowful
experience when God takes him to task for his sinful inventions and visits upon
him His governmental displeasure. Yet this in nowise clashes with the fact that He
hath not dealt with us after our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities.
There is mercy in our chastenings, and no matter how heavily the rod may smite, we
have good cause to say, And after all that is come upon us for our evil deeds, and
for our great trespass, seeing that Thou our God hast punished us less than our
iniquities deserve (Ezra 9:13).
19 David noticed that his servants were whispering

42. among themselves and he realized the child was dead.
Is the child dead? he asked.
Yes, they replied, he is dead.
1. See Appendix A for my message on A Believer's response to death.
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.
1. Gill, “went into the tabernacle he had built for the ark of God, and then in prayer
submitted himself to the will of God, and acknowledged his justice in what he had
done; gave thanks to God that he had brought him to a sense of his sin, and
repentance for it, and had applied his pardoning grace to him, and given him
satisfaction as to the eternal welfare and happiness of the child, as appears from
( 2 Samuel 12:23 ).
21 His servants asked him, Why are you acting this
way? While the child was alive, you fasted and wept,
but now that the child is dead, you get up and eat!
1. Keil, “O. v. Gerlach has the following admirable remarks: “In the case of a man
whose penitence was so earnest and so deep, the prayer for the preservation of his
child must have sprung from some other source than excessive love of any created
object. His great desire was to avert the stroke, as a sign of the wrath of God, in the
hope that he might be able to discern, in the preservation of the child, a proof of
divine favour consequent upon the restoration of his fellowship with God. But when
the child was dead, he humbled himself under the mighty hand of God, and rested
satisfied with His grace, without giving himself up to fruitless pain.” This state of
mind is fully explained in Ps 51, though his servants could not comprehend it.”

43. 22 He answered, While the child was still alive, I fasted
and wept. I thought, 'Who knows? The LORD may be
gracious to me and let the child live.'
1. Clarke, “David, and indeed all others under the Mosaic dispensation, were so
satisfied that all God's threatenings and promises were conditional, that even in the
most positive assertions relative to judgments, purpose. And notwithstanding the
positive declaration of
athan, relative to the death of the child, David sought for its
life, not knowing but that might depend on some unexpressed condition, such as
earnest prayer, fasting, humiliation, continued while there was hope. When the child
died, he ceased to grieve, as he now saw that this must be fruitless. This appears to
be the sole reason of David's importunity.”
2. The reason we pray is because we do not know for sure what the will of God is,
and how he may change that will in his mercy. It is the unknown that drives us to
pray, for there is always hope in God that things can change in a way that is better
from our point of view. Prayer does change God, for he have Hezekiah 15 more
years because of his earnest prayer for life after God said he was to die. The people
of
inevah prayed for mercy and God, who said they were to be destroyed, changed
his mind and spared them. We never know how God may deal with us, and so we
pray and seek his benefit even when it seems it is not deserved.
23 But now that he is dead, why should I fast? Can I
bring him back again? I will go to him, but he will not
return to me.
1. W. Taylor, “ Here was true resignation. Here was strong faith. Here was a holy
and a glorious hope alike for the living and the dead and in the assurance of future
and eternal reunion before the throne he was comforted. For when the royal
mourner says, I shall go to him, we must not so empty his words of all meaning
as to suppose that he refers simply to the grave. What comfort was there in the mere
idea of having his body laid beside the dust of his infant ? That was not a going to
him in any sense that could give the least satisfaction to his afflicted heart. Hence
his language implies far more than that, and intimates that he had a firm conviction
of his child's continued existence and present happiness ; while at the same time he
cherished for himself the hope of entering in due season into the enjoyment of
similar felicity. David's resignation, therefore, was not a mere stoical submission to
the inevitable, still less was it a stolid insensibility ; but it was the result of his
persuasion of the happiness of his departed child, and of his humble hope of joining

44. him therein. Like Paul Gerhardt, the prince of German hymnologists, he might have
sung :
Oh that I could but watch afar,
And hearken but a while
To that sweet song that hath no jar,
And see his heavenly smile,
As he doth praise the holy God
Who made him pure for that abode ;
In tears of joy full well I know
This burdened heart would overflow !
And I should say, Stay there, my son,
My wild laments are o'er ;
Oh well for thee that thou hast won :
I call thee back no more !
But come, thou fiery chariot, come,
And bear me swiftly to that home
Where he with many a loved one dwells,
And evermore of gladness tells.
Then be it as my Father wills,
I will not weep for thee :
Thou livest, joy thy spirit fills,
Pure sunshine thou dost see
The sunshine of eternal rest :
Abide, my son, where thou art blest :
I with our friends will onward fare,
And, when God wills, shall find thee there.
2. There are two interpretations of this verse, and I prefer the second.
“Ryrie: While the verse may lend support to the view that infants who die are taken to heaven, the
emphasis here is not on existence after death, but on the inevitability ofdeath. The child could not
return to life, but David would someday join his son in
death.
Deffinbaugh : I simply do not find this explanation to be an adequate explanation for
David's comfort and conduct. I believe that David is looking beyond the grave, to his
reunion with this child at the resurrection.” I agree, and I have put my study of the
salvation of infants in Appendix B for anyone who is interested in pursuing this.
Deffinbaugh quotes Spurgeon and other Calvinist authors below to support his
view.
2B. Spurgeon was very strong in his language defending the Calvinist view of the
salvation of infants. He wrote, “
ow, let every mother and father here present know
assuredly that it is well with the child, if God hath taken it away from you in its
infant days. You never heard its declaration of faith - it was not capable of such a

45. thing; it was not baptized into the Lord Jesus Christ, not buried with him in
baptism; it was not capable of giving that “answer of a good conscience towards
God,” nevertheless, you may rest assured that it is well with the child, well in a
higher and a better sense than it is well with yourselves; well without limitation, well
without exception, well infinitely, “well” eternally. Perhaps you will say, “What
reasons have we for believing that it is well with the child?” Before I enter upon that
I would make one observation. It has been wickedly, lyingly, and slanderously said
of Calvinism, that we believe that some little children perish. Those who make the
accusation know that their charge is false. I cannot even dare to hope, though I
would wish to do so, that they ignorantly misrepresent us. They wickedly repeat
what has been denied a thousand times, what they know is not true. In Calvin's
advice to Knox, he interprets the second commandment, “showing mercy unto
thousands of them that love me,” as referring to generations, and hence he seems to
teach that infants who have had pious ancestors, no matter how remotely, dying as
infants are saved. This would certainly take in the whole race. As for modern
Calvinists, I know of no exception, but we all hope and believe that all persons dying
in infancy are elect. Dr. Gill, who has been looked upon in late times as being a very
standard of Calvinism, not to say of ultra-Calvinism, himself never hints for a
moment the supposition that any infant has perished, but affirms of it that it is a
dark and mysterious subject, but that it is his belief, and he thinks he has Scripture
to warrant it, that they who have fallen asleep in infancy have not perished, but
have been numbered with the chosen of God, and so have entered into eternal rest.
We have never taught the contrary, and when the charge is brought, I repudiate it
and say, “You may have said so, we never did, and you know we never did. If you
dare to repeat the slander again, let the lie stand in scarlet on your very cheek if you
be capable of a blush.” We have never dreamed of such a thing. With very few and
rare exceptions, so rare that I never heard of them except from the lips of
slanderers, we have never imagined that infants dying as infants have perished, but
we have believed that they enter into the paradise of God.”
2C. “Finally, let us hear from Loraine Boettner, who cites the position of a number
of other theologians:
Most Calvinistic theologians have held that those who die in infancy are saved. The
Scriptures seem to teach plainly enough that the children of believers are saved; but
they are silent or practically so in regard to those of the heathens. The Westminster
Confession does not pass judgment on the children of heathens who die before
coming to years of accountability. Where the Scriptures are silent, the Confession,
too, preserves silence. Our outstanding theologians, however, mindful of the fact
that God's “tender mercies are over all His works,” and depending on His mercy
widened as broadly as possible, have entertained a charitable hope that since these
infants have never committed any actual sin themselves, their inherited sin would be
pardoned and they would be saved on wholly evangelical principles.
Such, for instance, was the position held by Charles Hodge, W. G. T. Shedd, and B.
B. Warfield. Concerning those who die in infancy, Dr. Warfield says: “Their destiny
is determined irrespective of their choice, by an unconditional decree of God,

46. suspended for its execution on no act of their own; and their salvation is wrought by
an unconditional application of the grace of Christ to their souls, through the
immediate and irresistible operation of the Holy Spirit prior to and apart from any
action of their own proper wills . . . And if death in infancy does depend on God's
providence, it is assuredly God in His providence who selects this vast multitude to
be made participants of His unconditional salvation . . . This is but to say that they
are unconditionally predestinated to salvation from the foundation of the world.”
3. Taylor goes on to argue for the eternal salvation of infants. He wrote, “Even in
the comparative darkness of the Jewish dispensation, the Psalmist had the fullest
persuasion of the eternal welfare of his baby-boy ; and, under the Gospel economy,
there are many things revealed which tend to make the doctrine of infant salvation
perfectly indubitable.
ot to refer to the fact that, as they have committed no actual
transgressions, little children do not personally deserve condemnation, and may,
therefore, presumably be regarded as included in the provisions of the covenant of
grace, there are certain things which to my mind place the doctrine to which I refer
beyond all question.
In the first place, there seems to me a moral impossibility involved in the very
thought of infants being consigned to perdition. For what are the elements in the
punishment of the lost ? So far as we know, they are these two, memory and
conscience. But in an infant conscience is virtually non-existent. Moral agency and
responsibility have not yet been developed, and so there can be no such thing to it as
remorse. Again : memory has nothing of guilt in an infant's life to recall, and so it
seems to me to be utterly impossible to connect retribution of any sort in the Other
world with those who have been taken from the present in the stage of infancy.
But, in the second place, there are positive indications that infants are included in
the work of Christ. I grant at once that there is no one passage which in so many
words makes the assertion that all who die in infancy are eternally saved ; but then
we may not wonder at the absence of such a declaration, since it would have been
liable to great abuse; and we do not need to regret that we have it not, because
there are many passages which very clearly imply it. Thus Jesus said of infants, Of
such is the kingdom of heaven. This does not mean only, as some would have us to
believe, that the kingdom of heaven consists of persons resembling little children.
The word translated of such has evidently a definite reference to children
themselves, and has elsewhere been employed in that way by the Saviour himself.
Thus, when he says, The hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshipers shall
worship the Father in spirit and in truth : for the Father seeketh such to worship
him, he clearly means, the Father seeketh these to worship him.
I might quote others to the like effect, but that will suffice to show that the phrase
Of such is the kingdom of heaven, is equivalent to Of these is the kingdom of
heaven. This view of the matter is confirmed by the fact that the Savior gives these
words as a reason for his taking up little children into his arms; for if the ground of

47. his procedure were simply that the adult subjects of the kingdom of heaven are
child-like, the same sort of reason might have led him to take up lambs in his arms
and to bless them ; inasmuch as the adult members of his kingdom should resemble
lambs in some respects just as really as they should resemble children in others.
Some, however, would interpret the words on which I am now commenting by these
others, uttered by Jesus on another occasion : Verily I say unto you, whoso-ever
shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter
therein; as if that expression implied with a child-like disposition ; but that is
not the construction of the words. Let the ellipsis be supplied, and then it will be
seen that even this expression bears out our view, for it reads thus : Whosoever
shall not receive the kingdom of heaven as a little child receives it ; and this
confirms our interpretation of the other passage. But some may allege that the
phrase the kingdom of heaven does not refer to future glory, but to Christ's
kingdom upon earth ; and to these we reply : True, it does refer to Christ's kingdom
upon earth, but it does so only because that is a province of the one great kingdom
which, having Him as its head, stretches into eternity. That it refers to the kingdom
on earth, is our warrant for receiving little children into the Church below ; and
that it refers to the kingdom in heaven for the kingdoms are but one is the ground of
our hope in the salvation of little children eternally.
Let us, therefore, take to ourselves, without let or abatement of any sort, the rich
consolation which this doctrine affords. Let the bereaved parents among us dry our
tears. As the good Archbishop Leighton has it, Our children have but gone an
hour or two sooner to bed, as children used to do, and we are undressing to follow,
and the more we put off the love of this present world, and all things superfluous
beforehand, we shall have the less to do when we lie down. Let us consider to
whom they have gone. They have been taken to the arms of Jesus, and to the bright
glory of the heavenly state.
othing now can mar their felicity, or dim the lustre of
their joy, or damp the ardor of their song ; and could they speak to us from their
abode of bliss, they would say to us, Weep not for us, but weep for yourselves,
that you are not here to share our happiness.
4. The truth of infant salvation has been so important to the Christians of the past
who lost so many more infants than is the case in our modern day. “Susannah
Wesley bore 19 children in 19 years, but 9 of them died in infancy. Thomas Boston
lost six of his children in infancy. And their lot was typical of parents in most of
human history. Many of these great men of the church, in the midst of their anguish
at the death of their little children, spoke and wrote very poignantly and beautifully
of their confidence in the salvation of their children.” author unknown
5. Another unknown author has compiled this list of presidents of the United States
who lost children at different ages, and you can imagine how important it was to
each of them to believe they would have the chance to see those children again.
PRESIDE
TS WHO LOST CHILDRE

48. John Adams: daughter, Susanna, age 2; Elizabeth, stillborn daughter; adult son,
Charles, an alcoholic who died of cirrhosis at age 30.
Thomas Jefferson: Jane, one and a half years old; stillborn son; Lucy (I), 5 months
old; Lucy (II), 2 years old; Mary, who died as an adult from complications from
childbirth.
James Monroe: son, age 2.
John Q. Adams: adult son, of suicide; one year old daughter.
Martin Van Buren: adult son.
William Harry Harrison: 5 adult children, one child, age two (6 children total)
John Tyler: had 15 children in all (!), and lost three, two adults and one infant.
Zachary Taylor: 3 daughters: one 21, one 3, one 1.
Millard Fillmore: 22 year old daughter
Franklin Pierce: lost all three of his children -- one infant, one four year old, and his
eleven-year-old son who was hit by a train.
In 1834, Franklin married Jane Means Appleton of Amherst,
ew Hampshire. They
would have three children together, which led to much heartache. Their first child,
Franklin, Jr., was born in 1836, but lived only three days. Their second child, Frank
Robert, called Franky, was born three years later in 1839, died at the age of 4 in
1843 of typhus. Their last child, Benjamin, called Bennie, was born in 1841, and
died in 1853 before their eyes in a train accident.
Abraham Lincoln: three year old Edward, eleven-year-old Willie (while in office).
Andrew Johnson: two adult sons: one from a horse accident, and one from suicide.
Rutherford Hayes: 3 sons under the age of two
James Garfield: 3 year old daughter, 2 year old son.
Chester Arthur: 2 year old son
Grover Cleveland: twelve-year old Ruth, while in the white House.
President McKinley: lost both of his children: three year old Kate and infant Ida.
Theodore Roosevelt: twenty-year old son died during WWI.

49. Calvin Coolidge: sixteen-year-old son, while in the White House.
Franklin D. Roosevelt: infant son
Dwight Eisenhower: three-year-old son
John F. Kennedy: stillborn daughter; Patrick, two days old (while in office, and four
months before the assassination of JFK)
Ronald Reagan: daughter, one day old
George H. W. Bush: three year old daughter
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;
1.Gill, “Which is the first time she is so called, Uriah being dead, and David having
married her; which though at first displeasing to the Lord, because the
circumstances attending it, was afterwards confirmed by him. Bathsheba no doubt
was very much distressed, and greatly disconsolate, on account of the sin she had
committed, and because of the wrath and displeasure of God, and because of the
death of the child, which was a token of it; and she might have some scruples in her
mind whether it was lawful to continue cohabiting with David.
ow David
comforted her, by telling her that God had pardoned that iniquity they had been
guilty of, and that he would give them another son, who should succeed him in the
throne, and build an house for his name:”
1B. Keil, “David then comforted his wife Bathsheba, and lived with her again; and
she bare a son, whom he called Solomon, the man of peace (cf. 1Ch_22:9). David
gave the child this name, because he regarded his birth as a pledge that he should
now become a partaker again of peace with God, and not from any reference to the
fact that the war with the Ammonites was over, and peace prevailed when he was
born; although in all probability Solomon was not born till after the capture of
Rabbah and the termination of the Ammonitish war. His birth is mentioned here
simply because of its connection with what immediately precedes.”
2. Pink, “And David comforted Bathsheba his wife, and went in unto her, and lay
with her: and she bare a son, and he called his name Solomon: and the Lord loved
him (v. 24). Having meekly bowed before God’s rod, humbled himself beneath His

50. mighty hand, and publicly owned Him in worship, David now received a token of
God’s favor: Behold, a son shall be born to thee, who shall be a man of rest; and I
will give him rest from all his enemies round about: for his name shall be Solomon,
and I will give peace and quietness unto Israel in his days (1 Chron. 22:9). The
birth and name given to Solomon was an evidence that God was reconciled to David,
as it was also an earnest of the tranquility which would obtain in Israel during his
reign. Solomon was also named Jedidiah which signifies beloved of the
Lord―signal demonstration of the sovereignty of divine grace!”
3. Brian Morgan, David settles accounts with any illusions he might have had for
healing. Weeping is of no further use, so he turns to comfort his wife. This is the
final step to healing--being able to give to someone else. She is called Bathsheba
instead of the painful 'wife of Uriah.'...For the first time she is no longer being used
but is treated by David as a person...The intercourse which he henceforth has with
her is legitimate.[7] God personally names the baby, the beloved of Yahweh.
And the baby is not only a legitimate child, but one who is loved. This child is
Solomon (Peace) the one who will carry the David story into Kings, the son of the
Messianic seed. What an incredible turn of events! David's past is restored, his
present invaded by love, and his future would surpass his dreams. Only God could
do such a thing to reverse David's this thing. Brueggemann comments that God
has an amazing capacity to work more life at the border of death, to act in
promise- keeping ways just when the promise seems exhausted.
25 and because the LORD loved him, he sent word
through
athan the prophet to name him Jedidiah. [2]
1. Jedidiah means loved by the LORD .
2. Robert Roe: Why do you think God gave Solomon a second name? David has
been a murderer, an adulterer, a coveter, a deceiver, you name it, and when he has a
second son, God deliberately sends
athan to tell him Jehovah sent me because he
wants a second name given to that child 'The beloved of Jehovah.' What does that
indicate to David? Acceptance! The issue is closed as far as God is concerned. The
consequences will go on. He has promised that, but as far as God is concerned the
issue is closed. David has been disciplined. David has accepted the discipline, and
God has said,The issue is closed. It is reassurance to David that he is totally clean,
totally available,totally usable. . .
The tragedy is what became of Solomon. He had 700 first class wives, 300
concubines, a life that was far away from Jehovah, and he died a tyrant. Peaceful
Solomon, the man who was beloved of Jehovah died a tyrant and away from

51. Jehovah. Where were those seed sown in the life of Solomon and by whom were they
sown? David, a man after God's own heart. Don't ever mess with God. David was
totally forgiven. David was totally cleansed. David was totally restored, and he was
God's man again. But he had sown some seeds, and they were going to produce. The
seeds were wild oats, and they were going to produce wild oats. Be not deceived,
God is not mocked. Whatsoever a man sows he shall also reap. David sowed to the
flesh and of the flesh reaped corruption. If you sow to the Spirit, you reap of the
Spirit life everlasting. It was true of David 3,000 years ago, and it is true of us right
down here today.”
3. Clarke, “This is the first instance I remember of a minister of God being
employed to give a name to the child of one of his servants. But it is strange that the
name given by the father was that alone which prevailed.”
26 Meanwhile Joab fought against Rabbah of the
Ammonites and captured the royal citadel.
1. Constable, “In spite of David's rebellion God granted his army victory over the
Ammonites. David's military leaders evidently executed the defeated warriors (1
Chron. 20:3) and forced many of the people to do labor of various kinds to support
Israel (v. 31).”
2. Jamison, “The time during which this siege lasted, since the intercourse with
Bath-sheba, and the birth of at least one child, if not two, occurred during the
progress of it, probably extended over two years.”
27 Joab then sent messengers to David, saying, I have
fought against Rabbah and taken its water supply.
1. In the midst of so much bad news, David now gets the good news that his army
has won a major battle. God has not punished his people because of his sin, but is
still guiding them to victory.
2. Jamison, “Rabbah, like Aroer, was divided into two parts--one the lower town,
insulated by the winding course of the Jabbok, which flowed almost round it, and
the upper and stronger town, called the royal city. The first was taken by Joab, but
the honor of capturing so strongly a fortified place as the other was an honor
reserved for the king himself.

52. 3. Gill, “Adrichomius says F24 the river Jabbok flowed round about it: or it
abounded with fountains of water, from whence the other part of the city, or what
was properly the city Rabbah, was supplied with water; and which communication
being cut off, it could not hold out long, which Joab being sensible of, therefore sent
for David. Junius and Tremellius render the words, I have intercepted the water
from the city; with which the account of Josephus F25 agrees, who says, that he cut
off the water from them, and precluded other supplies, so that they were in great
distress for want of food and drink; and in like manner it was taken by Antiochus
some hundreds of years later; for that; historian says F26 the siege by him lasted
long, and they could not prevail, because of the multitude of men it, until one of the
prisoners showed them a subterraneous passage, through which they came and
fetched water; which they stopped up with stones and such like things, and then
through want of water yielded.”
28
ow muster the rest of the troops and besiege the
city and capture it. Otherwise I will take the city, and it
will be named after me.
1. Joab is saying that if you do not come and finish this battle, I will do it and take
the credit so that it will be my name on the gate. It will be called city of Joab. So if
you want it to be your victory get your troops here and get it done.
2. Jamison, “The circumstance of a city receiving a new name after some great
person, as Alexandria, Constantinople, Hyderabad, is of frequent occurrence in the
ancient and modern history of the East.”
29 So David mustered the entire army and went to
Rabbah, and attacked and captured it.
1. David was back in the battle with all his troops, and God blest him in spite of all
the damage he had done to his personal life. God would still allow him to be a
successful leader so that his self esteem would not be entirely destroyed.
30 He took the crown from the head of their king [3] -its
weight was a talent [4] of gold, and it was set with
precious stones-and it was placed on David's head. He
took a great quantity of plunder from the city

53. 1. It was a full and total victory and all of the spoils enriched David and his people.
He got himself a new and costly crown that he could wear as a symbol of God's
blessing still resting on him in spite of all the judgment. David was back as a leader
and a warrior.
2. Clarke, “If this talent was only seven pounds, as Whiston says, David might have
carried it on his head with little difficulty; but this weight, according to common
computation, would amount to more than one hundred pounds! If, however,
mishkalah be taken for the value, not the weight then all is plain as the worth of the
crown will be about oe5075 15s. 7d. sterling.
ow this seems to be the true sense,
because of the added words with the precious stones; i.e., the gold of the crown, and
the jewels with which it was adorned, were equal in value to a talent of gold.”
3. Gill, “and it was [set] on David's head; to show that the kingdom was translated to
him, or was become subject to him; as Alexander, on the conquest of Darius, put the
Persian diadem on his own head F11, in token of that monarchy being translated to
him: though, after all, the phrase, from off, may be rendered from above or
over F12 his head, and so it was set above or over the head of David, being
supported by some means or other, that its weight did not bear thereon however,
Paschalius, who wrote a learned work, De Coronis, must be mistaken when be
says F13 this seems to be the first use of a crown in the kingdom of Judah, there
being no mention of a crown before, either of Saul or David, only of anointing; since
express mention is made of Saul's crown, (2 Samuel 1:10) ; though his observation
may be just, that this crown, allowed to be worn by David, was a pledge of the
renewal of his royal dignity, and of his acceptance with God upon his repentance for
his above sins:᪽
31 and brought out the people who were there,
consigning them to labor with saws and with iron picks
and axes, and he made them work at brickmaking. [5]
He did this to all the Ammonite towns. Then David and
his entire army returned to Jerusalem.
1. This horrible chapter of judgment ends with a victory march of David and his
army back into Jerusalem with great riches and greater power. This is a picture of
hope for those who disgrace their faith by disobeying God. The worst sinner can
repent and be restored to a place of usefulness in God's kingdom. David is the
perfect example, and he gives hope to all who fall. God's grace is always greater
than our sin, but the whole story also makes it clear that is the ultimate in folly to

54. ever chose to fall and suffer all that David did. Hope of restoration ought not to be a
reason to test the patience of God by breaking any of his commandments. The price
is always way too high.
1B. The KJV led many commentators to think that David used saws, iron picks and
axes to cut the people up in unbelievable cruelty, and other to pass through a kiln to
be burned to death in terrible torture. Thank God for newer translations that avoid
such atrocious acts of brutality. He just put them to work as slaves, which was the
common practice after taking people in battle. Rather than kill them, they were put
to work for the good of the victors. Henry reading the old version was appalled at
the scene, and he wrote, “He seems to have been too harsh with his prisoners of war,
2 Samuel 12:31 . Taking the city by storm, after it had obstinately held out against a
long and expensive siege, if he had put all whom he found in arms to the sword in
the heat of battle, it would have been severe enough; but to kill them afterward in
cold blood, and by cruel tortures, with saws and harrows, tearing them to pieces,
did not become him who, when he entered upon the government, promised to sing of
mercy as well as judgment, Psalms 101:1. Had he made examples of those only who
had abused his ambassadors, or advised or assisted in it, that being a violation of the
law of nations, it might have been looked upon as a piece of necessary justice for
terror to other nations; but to be thus severe with all the cities of the children of
Ammon (that is, the garrisons or soldiers of the cities) was extremely rigorous, and a
sign that David's heart was not yet made soft by repentance, else the bowels of his
compassion would not have been thus shut up--a sign that he had not yet found
mercy, else he would have been more ready to show mercy.”
1B. Keil is convinced that the cruel form of torture is the valid interpretation. He
wrote, “. So far as the circumstances themselves are concerned, the cruelties
inflicted upon the prisoners are not to be softened down, as Daaz and others
propose, by an arbitrary perversion of the words into a mere sentence to hard
labour, such as sawing wood, burning bricks, etc. At the same time, the words of the
text do not affirm that all the inhabitants of Rabbah were put to death in this cruel
manner. בָּהּ אֲשֶׁר הָעָם (without כּלֹ ) refers no doubt simply to the fighting men that
were taken prisoners, or at the most to the male population of the acropolis of
Rabbah, who probably consisted of fighting men only. In doing this, David merely
retaliated upon the Ammonites the cruelties with which they had treated their foes;
since according to Amo_1:13 they ripped up women who were with child, and
according to 1Sa_11:2 their king
ahash would only make peace with the
inhabitants of Jabesh upon the condition that the right eye of every one of them
should be put out. It is sufficiently evident from this, that the Ammonites had aimed
at the most shameful extermination of the Israelites. “Thus did he unto all the cities
of the Ammonites,” i.e., to all the fortified cities that resisted the Israelites. After the
close of this war, David returned to Jerusalem with all the men of war. The war with
the Syrians and Ammonites, including as it did the Edomitish war as well, was the
fiercest in which David was ever engaged, and was also the last great war of his life.”
2. Deffinbaugh, “I have actually had people ask me what the penalty for a certain

55. sin would be, planning to do it and then be forgiven. There are those who toy with
sin, thinking that if they sin, they may suffer some consequences, but that God is
obliged to forgive them, and thus their eternal future is certain and secure, no
matter what they do, even if intentionally. I know of one situation in which a church
leader left his wife and ran off with the wife of another, planning to later repent,
and then expecting to be welcomed back into the fellowship of that church. This is
presumptuous sin, sin of the most serious and dangerous kind..........I have never met
a Christian who chose to sin, and after it was all over felt that it was worth the price.
David's sin and its consequences should not encourage us to sin, but should motivate
us to avoid sin at all costs. The negative consequences of sin far outweigh the
momentary pleasures of sin. Sin is never worth the price, even for those whose sin is
forgiven.”
3. F. B. Meyer, “VICTORY might seem to have been for ever forfeited after so great
a fall. We could not have been surprised had we been told that from this time
onward the course of David's conquests had stayed. And yet this thought would be a
misconception of God's dealings with the penitent. Where there is true contrition,
confession, and faith, He not only forgives, but restores; He not only restores to the
enjoyment of his favour, but reinstates in opportunities of usefulness. So Jesus not
only met the apostle who had denied Him, and put him back into the old position of
happy fellowship, but gave him a commission to feed his sheep and lambs.
We have sometimes met backsliders who have doubted the possibility of their
forgiveness; or, if they have realized this, they have never dared to hope that they
could ever be what they had been. And so long as faith refuses to believe in the
perfect work of God's love, it must inevitably take a back seat. Let us seek for such
an entire faith in God's forgiving and restoring love as to dare to believe that we are
put again into the old place, and allowed to anticipate the same victories as
aforetime.....When Joab sent tidings that Rabbah was about to fall, David was
permitted the honour of its final capture, though it had been associated so closely
with Uriah's death. Where sin abounds grace superabounds, and reigns through
righteousness. Dare to believe this.”
4. Steve Zeisler ends his message on David this way: “Let me make a couple of
observations in conclusion. First, the record suggests that David was never again a
great king. He had been a remarkable ruler and a brilliant general, but he declined
in stature from this time forward.
On the other hand, he grew and deepened as a man of God. Most of the psalms
people have loved in every generation for three thousand years were written as
David reflected on what he had learned throughout his life. David was restored as
an intimate of God. He was once again the sweet singer of Israel. He could lead
others in genuine worship and offer hope to the failed and broken.
History does not remember David as a failure.
either Jews nor Christians, when
they tell David's story, turn primarily to this account. It was not the center of
David's life story. He was a man whose life is summarized more by his psalms than

56. by his failures, a man who wrestled with God, a man who loved God. He is, by any
standard, one of the greatest and most influential figures in human history.”
Footnotes
5 12:14 Masoretic Text; an ancient Hebrew scribal tradition this you have shown
utter contempt for the LORD
12:25 Jedidiah means loved by the LORD .
12:30 Or of Milcom (that is, Molech)
12:30 That is, about 75 pounds (about 34 kilograms)
12:31 The meaning of the Hebrew for this clause is uncertain.
APPE
DIX A
A BELIEVER'S RESPO
SE TO DEATH based on II Sam. 12:15-23
By Pastor Glenn Pease
A young Harvard professor sat in a room once occupied by George Washington.
He was exceedingly lonely and dejected. He wondered if that great man ever felt as
he did then. He had lost his wife 3 years before, and had not yet been able to escape
from the grip of grief. His life seemed to be an empty dream, and though he was
also a poet he no longer had any heart for poetry. As he sat there looking out of the
window he realized he had to stop nursing his despondency and get up and get
going.
Almost as if he was inspired his poetic began to pour forth lines that lifted him,
and have since lifted millions.
o poem ever became so famous so fast. It was
taught in schools, discussed in pulpits, and on platforms all over the world. It was
translated into many languages. At one time a poll revealed it to be the favorite
poem of this nation, and even now it is heard quite often. I want to share just a
portion of Longfellow's poem, The Psalm Of Life.
Tell me not, in mournful numbers, Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is not dead that slumbers, And things are not what they seem.
Life is real! Life is earnest! And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest, Was not spoken of the soul.
ot enjoyment, and not sorrow, Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each tomorrow Finds us further than today.
Trust no future, howe'er pleasant! Let the dead past bury its dead!
Act, -act in the living present! Heart within, and God o'erhead!
Lives of great men all remind us We can make our lives sublime

57. And, departing, leave behind us Footprints on the sands of time;
Footprints, that perhaps another, Sailing o'er life's solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother, Seeing, shall take heart again.
Let us then be up and doing, With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing, Learn to labor and to wait.
We want to look back to a great man who left behind footprints in the sands of
time. They were footprints that have done just what Longfellow predicted they
could. They have caused many a forlorn and shipwrecked brother to take heart
again. The way David responded to the death of his loved one has encouraged and
helped many to escape the sinking ship of despair, and to stand on the solid rock of
hope and victory. All of us will one day face the sorrow of losing a loved one, and
many of you have already done so. Since the experience of death is continuous and
inevitable, it is important that we be prepared at all times to respond to it with
attitudes that are fitting for those who know the conqueror of death, and who is the
Lord of life.
The mind and the will must be prepared before hand, and so I trust that our
examination of David's attitude toward death will make a conscious impact on each
of our lives. And prepare us to be fully Christian in the day of crisis. There are
three attitudes that David exhibits, or three footprints he has left in the sand along
the shore of the sea of tragedy. They are footprints that each of us will want to
follow when we come to that same place. David has been involved in one sin after
another that has brought him to an hour of judgment. God has determined that the
child born to Bathsheba, as David's wife, but conceived out of wedlock, shall die.
The child becomes very sick, and David faces the death of one he love dearly. The
first attitude we see him exhibit is-
I. PERSISTE
CE.
David had faith that God is able to deliver, and he was determined to fight to the
end. He was told point blank that the child would die, but he did not give up in
despair. He went to his knees in prayer. He prayed and fasted in the hope that God
would spare the child. In verse 22 he says he had hope right to the end. As long as
the child was alive the only proper attitude he could have was that of persistent trust
and faith that God could prevent the death of the child. David did not pray and fast
in fear, but in faith. David's attitude was, where there is life there is hope, and those
who know the author of life need never despair as long as there is life.
It is not Christian to give up in the face of any amount of negative evidence.
Henry Amiel said, It is dangerous to abandon one's self to the luxury of grief; it
deprives one of the courage, and even the wish for recovery. Whether it be
yourself or a loved on approaching the gate of death, you are to face it in faith
believing that recovery is possible. In other words, when the Christian dies, or a
loved one, it should be, not because he has given up hope, or has ceased to pray.
The Christian is to enter death victoriously, and not in defeat. Therefore, our first

58. attitude when we confronted with the possibility of death is to be persistence in faith
that goes on trusting God, and never gives up the fight. Martin Tupper wrote,
ever give up! If adversity presses,
Providence wisely has mingled the cup,
And the best counsel, in all your distresses,
Is the stout watchword of
ever give up!
Many of you have heard the story of Captain Eddie Rickenbacker whose plane
was forced down in the Pacific on a war mission. He and his men drifted in a raft
for 8 days without food or water in the scorching tropic sun. They were burned,
parched, hungry, and exhausted. They were discouraged to the point of despair,
and had given up hope. All, that is, except Eddie. He had faced death before, and
now that he faced it again he did so in faith and hope. He was relying upon God to
bring them through. He never ceased to pray and believe that they would be
rescued.
One of the men had a Bible, and he started an evening and morning prayer
meeting and Bible reading. On the 8th day it looked bad. Some were sick from
drinking sea water, and some were showing signs of delirium. But Rickenbacker
continued to pray and believe, for his attitude was like that of David-where there is
life, there is hope. Death was staring them in the face, but it had not yet conquered.
After prayer meeting on the 8th day a seagull came out of nowhere and landed on
Rickenbacker's head. He gently reached up and caught him. Each man had a bite
of food. They ate even the small bones. Then they used the innards for bait, and
they caught a mackerel and a speckled sea bass. They were only 6 to 8 inches, but
no fisherman has ever been happier with a catch as they were. That night a rain
storm supplied them with drinking water.
These answers to prayer so changed their attitudes that though they had to drift
for nearly 2 more weeks before being found, they all had developed faith. They
were now willing to persist, and not give up. They were almost dead when they were
found, but almost does not count in death, and their faith made them victors. When
Rickenbacker was asked how they did it, his simple answer was-
we prayed. David prayed too with death staring him in the face, but his prayer
was not granted. The point we are seeking to understand is not that you will never
die, or that loved ones never will, if you persist in faith and prayer, but that the
attitude of persistence is the only attitude a believer can consistently have. Every
believer in God must face the fact of death with faith rather than fear, just as David
did. When he discovered that his prayer was to no avail, and the child died
anyway, we see his second attitude.
II. ACCEPTA
CE.
The servants of David were fearful that when he found out the child was dead he
might go hysterical and do himself harm, and possibly even take his own life. This

59. is a common reaction to the loss of one who is greatly loved. The loved one who is
left longs to join them in death. David surprised them, however, for he was only
fasting and weeping in prayer because he knew there was hope. When he heard the
child was dead, and hope was gone for keeping the child with him, he left off from
his prayer and fasting. He washing himself, changed his clothes, and went to
church. Then he went home to eat a hardy meal.
Ordinarily it was after the death of a person that people mourned and wept, but
not for David. When death had come he thought it would be out of place to be
fasting and weeping then. He accepted the fact that there is no more that can be
done, and one just as well get back into the normal pattern of life. Who can doubt
that David's attitude of acceptance is the most reasonable, and most helpful, in
going through the crisis of losing a loved one?
William James, the famous psychologist, said, Acceptance of what has
happened is the first step to overcoming the consequences of any misfortune. It is
not fatalism to accept the past. A fatalist would never have had the first attitude of
persistence. He would be without hope, and would bow to the inevitable tragedy
even before it was a reality. A Christian is never a fatalist. He never gives up hope
for the future in any situation when he is trusting God as he ought. But when the
event is over, and death has come, it is not fatalism to accept it. It is only common
sense. It is irrational to do anything else. You cannot fight what is done, and you
cannot prevent the past.
Those who go on in grief, and carry the burden of the past for too long are not
being sensible. Like David, we must recognize that what is done is to be accepted,
and then get on with the gift of life that God has given and not taken yet. Even a
wise pagan can see the folly of excessive grief. Xenophon, the Greek, put it as well
as any when he said, Excess of grief for the deceased is madness; for it is an injury
to the living, and the dead know it not. When a loss is certain, and it cannot be
regained, why add to the loss by losing more of life than is necessary. David's
attitude and actions are to characterize believers.
They must accept the past, and get busy on the future.
Dr. James Gordon Gilkey, pastor of the South Congregational Church in
Springfield, Mass., has stated this truth in such a clear way. He wrote, Misfortune
cannot be conquered by furious and continuous resentment. It can be conquered
only by quiet acquiescence. We win victory over bereavement only when we face
our loss, accept our loss, and then make our way through and beyond our loss. You
ask how we make our way through it and beyond it? We do so by deliberately
reentering the world of daily activity-the busy world of problems, duties,
friendships, opportunities, and satisfactions. And immolated, resentful, self-pitying
life is a doomed life. Only the life which deliberately picks up and starts again is
victorious.
Alfred Tennyson said, I must lose myself in action lest I wither in despair.

60. The Word of God, and the best of men's wisdom agree that David's attitude of
persistence before death, and acceptance after death are high and worthy attitudes
befitting a child of God. A woman who lost her daughter in an accident left the
hospital and drove blindly away from the city. Late that night she came to a motel
and got a room. She paced the floor in agony of spirit. On the desk was a Gideon
Bible. Something compelled her to open it, and she began reading the Psalms. It
got late, but she couldn't stop, and so on into the night she read until she came to the
last verse which said, Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Praise ye the
Lord.
Later she gave her testimony and said, That reading of the Psalms did
something very wonderful to me. All of life was there; joy and sorrow, happiness
and heartbreak. I found my answers deep and satisfying. My heart was comforted.
When I started reading I wanted to die; when I finished, I wanted to live. The
Scripture is like a massive dose of antibiotic for the wounded heart and mind. The
faster we come to acceptance, the sooner we can enter again into a life that would
please the one we lost.
orman Vincent Peale went so far as to say, I really believe
myself that when the person left behind grieves excessively it may even trouble and
disturb the dear one who has passed into the spiritual life. David becomes our
example of swift acceptance. David has one other attitude which he expresses in
verse 23, I shall go to him, but he will not return to me. We have here the attitude
of-
III. ASSURA
CE.
David accepted the past, but that did not mean he accepted it as final. Death had
won the battle, and David accepts the defeat, but he also has the assurance that
when the war is over, he will be reunited with his child. Death is not the end says
David. His child is only a prisoner of war, and is only taken from him temporarily.
William Penn wrote, The truest end of life is to know that life never ends...death is
no more than a turning of us over from time to eternity.
David recognized that his child just changed his sphere of his existence.
So great is the desire of the human heart to believe in life beyond death that even
Robert Ingersall, the famous American agnostic, once stood at the grave of a
friend's child and said, If somewhere else there is another dawn; if somewhere else
your child lives again, surely its life will be as good as ours. So be comforted. Take
up your daily lives; help each other, and hope that someday you will know and love
again the child you loved here.
God has given us visual aids in His creation to help us gain assurance that death
does not have the final word. Cecil B. DeMille, the famous motion picture producer,
use to like to get off by himself to think out a problem. On one such occasion he
went out in a lake in a canoe. He just drifted until he came to rest in a place where
the water was only inches deep. Looking down he saw at the bottom was covered
with water beetles. As he watched, one of them come to the surface, and slowly

61. crawled up the side of the canoe. When it reached the ridge it died.
DeMille went back to thinking of his problem. Sometime later he looked at the
beetle again. In the hot sun the shell had become dry and brittle. As he watched,
the shell split open, and from it there slowly emerged a dragonfly, which finally took
to the air, and flew away with beautiful colors flashing in the sunlight. It flew over
the water several times, but the water beetles below could not comprehend its new
existence. They lived in their limited sphere while this winged cousin had gained the
freedom of soaring between earth and sky. Later when DeMille shared this
experience he concluded with a very penetrating question. Would the Great
Creator of the universe do that for a water beetle, and not for a human being? He
didn't think so, and neither should we.
David did not need to speak with so many ifs. He used none, in fact, but declares
in an attitude of perfect assurance that he will be with his child beyond the grave.
Death only shifted the object of his faith. Before death he had faith that the child
would not die. After death he had faith that he would be with him in eternity.
David may not have been conscious of it, but his 3 attitudes in the facing of death of
a child have been of great value to millions who have followed in his footsteps in the
sands of time. Leigh Hunt said, Whenever evil befalls us, we ought to ask
ourselves, after the first suffering, how can we turn it into good? So shall we take
occasion, from one bitter root, to raise perhaps many flowers.
David's misfortune, because of his God honoring response, has resulted in much
comfort in getting the flowers of faith to bloom in the hearts of the bereaved. We
have a Gospel of salvation in Christ that far surpasses anything David had. God
forbid that as believers in the Christ who conquered death, that we fail to exhibit
the attitudes of persistence, acceptance, and assurance in the experience of death.
APPE
DIX B
ARE ALL WHO DIE I
I
FA
CY SAVED? Based on Jonah 4:11
By Pastor Glenn Pease
While visiting in the hospital I met a woman who was anxious to talk about the
salvation of infants who die without baptism. She had good reason to be searching
for information to give her hope. 18 years ago she lost a baby girl who had not been
baptized. Her pastor came to call on her, and she asked him about the state of her
child. He told her the child was lost because she had failed to have it baptized. This
pastor no doubt really believed it, but he was a victim of a perverted interpretation
of Calvinism which Calvin himself repudiated. He was a Presbyterian but
apparently was uninformed, for Presbyterians have a system that offers the greatest

62. hope. His neglect of his theology led to this woman, and who knows how many
others, to live in agony of soul and guilt for years. For 15 years this woman grieved
because she failed to get water put on her babies head.
Friends finally persuaded her to go hear a Baptist evangelist who spoke on this
issue. He assured her that her baby was saved. She was happy when I was able to
give her some Biblical illustrations of salvation without baptism such as David's
baby by Bathsheba who died on the 7th day. David accepted it and said in II Sam.
12:23, I will go to him, but he will not return to me. The attitude of David
indicates his hope of seeing that child again. Another illustration is the thief on the
cross who was saved without baptism.
But what has this got to do with Jonah? This last verse in Jonah has played an
important role in the history of the doctrine of infant salvation. It is the only
passage we have where God reveals His attitude of love toward heathen children.
These who could not tell their right from their left hand were innocent helpless
children, but who would grow up to be bloody warriors. Yet God had compassion
on them. Many have taken this to prove that God loves all who will die in infancy,
and will save all such, even of the heathen. The big question has been how He will
do it.
Calvin and Servetus agreed that all infants would be saved just like those of
ineveh. Servetus said it was because God was just and would not damn an
innocent baby. Calvin said this was heresy for it denied original sin. He said they
can only be saved by God's grace. Servetus was prosecuted before the assembly
where he was condemned as a heretic and burned at the stake. In theology it is not
enough to be right, you must be right in the way you arrive at your conclusion, or
you are still wrong. It cost Servetus his life because he arrived by the wrong road.
I agree with Calvin that grace alone is the basis for infant salvation, but it is a poor
exhibition of grace on the part of men to kill their opponents who disagree on how
to get to the same conclusion.
On no issue has man proven his folly more than on this issue of infant salvation.
On numerous occasions men have implied that it is up to them and not God to
decide the matter. Some have decided to damn them, and others have decided to
save them. At one council, after long debate, they voted that all who die in infancy
will be saved. One man on the council, who saw the folly of voting on this as
business, brought his point home by standing and moving that this be made
retroactive to take in all those who died before the vote was cast.
The intricate arguments of theologians on this matter are not without great
value, however, for they can lay a solid foundation for our belief. In the hour of
crisis one cannot quote Calvin or anyone else's theology, but can only assure the
grieving of God's love and mercy. But unless that consolation has a sure foundation
in Scripture and theology, it is nothing more than deception, and so it is worth the
time to go deeper into this matter to prepare ourselves as messengers of comfort.

63. We want to look at this matter from three points of view.
The historical; the Biblical, and the practical. The historical is first, not because it is
more important, but because we want to see the problem before we look at the
answer.
I. HISTORICAL.
The earliest reference to infant salvation goes back to the second century where
the attitude is optimistic. Aristides speaking of death and the Christian reaction
says of the child, If it chance to die in infancy they praise God mightily, as for one
who has passed through the world without sins. This began to be doubted,
however, as the church took on more and more the concept of good works and
merit. How can a baby merit anything was the question, and so Gregory
azianzen
said they could,
either be glorified nor punished. A middle state began to
develop early between heaven and hell. Some spoke of annihilation, and others said
infants were not yet human. By the fourth century Augustine was defending the
Catholic position that all infants not baptized were lost, but would suffer only mild
punishment.
All who are baptized would certainly be saved, for baptism cleansed from
original sin. We see then how baptism came to be such an important doctrine in the
Catholic church.
ot to have a child baptized was a sin and a crime since a child
would go to hell if it died unbaptized. If we believed that, we would baptized infants
as well. Catholic theologians did not like the conclusions their theology led to, but
what could they do? All are sinful they said, and none can be saved except by
Christ, and the grace of Christ must be applied to infants as well as others.
Therefore, baptism is a means of grace whereby an infant is saved. This is where we
disagree. All we need to see is how the grace of Christ applies to infants without
baptism.
Theologians back then tried to modify the results of their conclusions. They said
martyrdom of a child was equal to baptism of blood, so if a child was not baptized
but was martyred it would be saved. They said if parents wanted the child to be
baptized, but could not do it for some good reason, it would be called the baptism of
desire, and the child would be saved. For those who couldn't get in by these means
but must be lost, the middle age scholars softened infant damnation by saying they
would just lose the beatific vision of God, but suffer no positive pain. This gained
Papal authority in 1200 A. D. Catholics have developed the idea since then that
heathen infants, since they have no chance to be baptized, are saved anyway. It is
only Christian parents who refuse to have a child baptized who will cause that child
to be lost.
The Lutheran doctrine was set down too soon to gain the full benefit of
Protestant thought. They held on to the necessity of baptism for salvation. Luther
had comfort to offer to Christian parents, however. He said, The holy and
merciful God will think kindly of them. What he will do with them He has revealed

64. to no one, that baptism may not be despised. Luther argued that there was a basis
for hope. Like all men who give thought to the matter, he could not tolerate the
thought that infants would go to hell.
If Jewish babies who died before circumcision on the 8th day were saved, why
could not Christian babies be saved if they died before baptism? Lutheran's did not
extend hope to heathen infants, however. Luther only said he expected only mild
punishment. The Lutheran position was cautious and just left all to the mercy of
God. They did not want to state that heathen infants would be saved, for this would
destroy their doctrine of the necessity of their baptism for infants.
If a heathen baby would be saved without it, certainly a baby from Christian
parents would be saved. They wanted to believe that all infants would be saved, but
their theology made them hesitate to declare it.
The church of England said baptism was a necessity or the child would be lost.
They offered no hope for the unbaptized. It was the only Protestant church that
offered no hope at all. But some of the major individuals in the church, such as
John
ewton and Augustus Toplady wrote that they believed all infants would be
saved, even heathen infants.
Presbyterians like Zwingli and Calvin finally got around to challenging the idea
of baptism as a means of regeneration. They said salvation was not by any external
rights, but was by the internal work of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit made John
the Baptist leap in his mother's womb before he was born, and so we know the Holy
Spirit can work in an infant. They escaped the problem all others had before them.
They were able to say that an infant could be saved by grace alone, and not by any
external needs. As in Adam all die so in Christ are all made alive. A child born
with original sin from Adam is lost, but Christ died for the penalty of original sin,
and so now by his grace none parish because of Adam's sin, but only those are lost
due to their own sin.
Zwingli was most outspoken and clear on this. Calvin was somewhat
contradictory, and this lead to Calvinists following two different lines. Some took
his hard doctrine of predestination and read into it that some infants are
predestined to hell. Calvin did not believe that himself, but some took his doctrine
to that conclusion. So we have Calvinists who say some infants are lost, and others
who say they are definitely saved.
All Methodist believe that infants will be saved by virtue of their Arminian
theology. The Methodist Episcopal Church Discipline says, We hold that all
children, by virtue of the unconditional benefits of the atonement, are members of
the kingdom of God, and therefore are entitled to baptism. There are two kinds of
Arminians just as there are two kinds of Calvinists. Some say a child is innocent
and is saved because God is just. John Wesley said they are guilty and lost because
of original sin, but they are saved by God's grace, which is identical to the Calvinist
position. We see then that Calvin was an Arminian in the sense that he believed the

65. atonement of Christ was universal in that it covered all infants who die. Wesley was
a Calvinist in the sense that he saw the Sovereign grace of God alone as the cause of
their salvation.
Where does that put Baptists? They have always been divided between
Calvinism and Arminianism, but since both agree that all who die in infancy are
saved, Baptists have always agreed on this point. Baptism is not necessary for
salvation for Baptists. It is by grace alone, and so Baptists see no need or value in
the baptism of infants. Our theology does compel us to say, however, there can be
no inherent wrong in the baptism of a dying infant, since we agree it is saved.
Calvin said to the ana-baptists of his day, On what ground do you object to the
baptism of an admittedly saved person? He has a point, but not of much weight
since he agrees it is not necessary for salvation. Why add confusion by needless
ceremony that gives people a misimpression?
II. BIBLICAL
The Biblical basis for the belief that all infants who die are saved is the
atonement of Christ which releases all from the penalty of original sin so that none
parish for Adam's sin, but only for their own personal transgressions. This
foundation is insufficient in itself, but some specific references to Christ's attitude
add to the assurance.
In Matt. 18:1-14 we see Jesus calling a little child and saying that child is the
greatest in the kingdom of heaven, and that we must be converted and be as the
child to enter the kingdom of heaven. In verse 14 he says, Even so it is not the will
of your Father which is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish. The
reference is not to infants but small children who are old enough to believe in Jesus,
but by inference we can say God is not willing that infant perish either. In Matt.
19:13-14 the disciples rebuked those who brought little children to Jesus, and He
said, Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me, for of such is the
kingdom of heaven. Jesus always put a high value on the child, and these
references make it inconceivable to imagine Him condemning a child to hell, or even
to some neutral limbo. There are other similar references, but these are sufficient
for us to see the attitude of Christ. Then we have the reference in II Sam. 12:23
where David just lost his newborn baby. He was so disappointed that God had not
spared the child, but he says, I will go to him, but he will not return to me. The
implication is that David believed that he would be with this child in eternity.
We must admit that there is no direct statement anywhere as to the fate of
infants. That which is stated, however, so clearly reveals God's attitude that there is
no reason to doubt His mercy, and there is not way to give meaning to Christ's
dying for all if His atonement does not cover the original sin of all infants. If the
evidence seems small for our belief, it ought to be noted that the evidence for any
alternative does not exist at all. There is no reason to doubt, for how can we know
that Christ prayed on the cross, Father forgive them for they know not what they

66. do, and still think He would condemn infants who know nothing of good or evil?
III. PRACTICAL
This doctrine makes for real optimism about the final number of the saved. It
will be far greater than those who are lost, for the number of infants who have died
may even exceed all who have ever lived. John
ewton who wrote Amazing Grace
said, I cannot be sorry for the death of infants. How many storms do they escape!
or can I doubt, in my private judgment, that they are included in the election of
grace. Perhaps those who die in infancy are the exceeding great multitude of all
people, nations, and languages mentioned in Rev. 7:9. This makes sense, for babies
die in all nations and languages. This would also mean that the babies that Herod
killed in trying to kill Jesus will one day be able to see the Savior who died for them,
and for whom they died.
This doctrine turns what is apparent tragedy into blessing since none are so
assured of seeing their children in heaven as those who have lost a child in infancy.
This modifies the whole picture of the mass slaughter of children in the Old
Testament. The judgment and tragedy were for adults, but no injustice was done to
the infants, for they will be saved. Adults would have corrupted them and they
would have been lost, but they died in infancy and thereby escape the judgment of
God.
Baptists have been traducianists which means they believe the soul, like the body,
is passed on to each infant from the parents. That is why all are depraved and born
sinful. This means that even a miscarriage represents and eternal soul, and so all
such will also be a part of the eternal kingdom. This means even the folly and evil of
abortion does not destroy a soul, even though it takes a life. If all infants are saved,
then all aborted fetuses will be a part of the multitude in heaven. This doctrine is a
great comfort to all who have lost a child. It is our obligation to give this hope to all
who have suffered such a loss.