We skip over some of the highs and lows of David’s regal manner to look at something that reveals a lot about how the Covenant worked.
David should have gone to the field with his army. If the battle didn’t justify a full mobilization, it still needed his direct attention. It certainly would have kept him out of trouble. Instead, he stayed at home and fretted over things to the point he couldn’t sleep at night. So up in the cool night breeze of his palace rooftop, he spotted a woman enjoying the same thing for her bath.
Let’s not get tripped up in whether she meant to tempt anyone. David was the one who made the move, when he should have stopped watching her. No, she put up no resistance. We aren’t told about the possible intrigues, only that David is the one who sinned by his initiative, when he should have been somewhere else. He is the shepherd of his nation, and should have been, at most, amused if this was her attempt to get his attention when her husband was away. In ancient Hebrew culture, it was expected that women were the weak ones, which is why they were typically not allowed to socially mix with men outside the family. What woman didn’t desire a romp with this charismatic King?
Good men of God don’t succumb to groupies, even if they are the hottest babes ever seen. Good men are supposed to protect women from themselves.
So David took her to bed and made her pregnant. And this really complicated things, so David cooked up a scheme with his cousin Joab to get Uriah to come home and sleep with his own wife to cover it up. Uriah was too much a soldier to do that, so David conspired with Joab again to have Uriah killed in battle. Then he jumped at the chance to pull Bathsheba as the widow of a war hero into his harem. Now it was all legal. Except it wasn’t. David knew it and God knew it.
Our focus text begins with Nathan the prophet using a parable to catch David off-guard. The parable was about David’s abuse of his position and attempts to cover up his skirt-chasing. God was watching. The Lord would have been quite generous if David didn’t have enough of all the good things in life, but David had to poach on what little God had granted some other man. This was one of the Ten Commandments: Do not covet your neighbor’s wife.
A major source of sin is envy over what God grants to someone else, as if He slighted you. God isn’t supposed to treat any two of us alike, because we aren’t alike. His plans for us are sacred and often secret, if only to keep us from jumping the gun and spoiling things. We must learn to be patient in faith that He will get us where we need to be when the time comes for something important to His glory. Let the Lord supply what He will, when He will, while you bless His name and give thanks.
So Nathan pronounced a curse from God: David would never cease to be a man of war. Indeed, his own household would fight internally. David would be publicly shamed, his harem publicly defiled, because of his secret sins compounded.
David was at least man enough to confess he had sinned and deserved the Lord’s wrath. His choice of words signaled a readiness to die for it. However, Nathan assured him that was not in God’s plans. Still, there was one critical failure that was not previously mentioned in Scripture: “by this deed you have given great occasion to the enemies of the LORD to blaspheme.” In other words, this sin had diminished God’s reputation, when David’s sole reason for living was to bring Him glory. Jehovah’s most famous servant betrayed Him to help the enemy. This vile tale would go viral among Israel’s adversaries.
No, it was the child who would die for David’s sin, because it was conceived in sin.
During the week or so after birth, the child was gravely ill and David fasted in sackcloth and ashes. When it died, his servants despaired of telling him, lest he do even worse. Still, David caught on, and asked them bluntly. Yes, the baby had died.
That was it, then. David went back to his regular royal duties and his servants were shocked that he stopped mourning. If David mourned so while the child lived, why did he not mourn the death? When they asked for how this made any sense, he told them: As long as the infant was alive, there was some chance by faith that David could persuade God to relent. That’s a fair representation of God’s mercy. But once the child was dead, David’s faith didn’t extend to raising him back to life. He noted gravely that he would go to the boy someday, but that the boy could never come to him.
So David did what little he could to comfort his new wife, and made her pregnant again. This time the Lord showed His approval and sent the same prophet to announce His divine nickname for the boy was Jedidiah — Hebrew for “beloved by Jehovah.” We know him by the name Solomon.
