David, Who Despised Yahweh’s Word

1Yahweh sent Nathan to David. He came to him, and said to him, “There were two men in one city; the one rich, and the other poor. 2The rich man had very many flocks and herds, 3but the poor man had nothing, except one little ewe lamb, which he had bought and raised. It grew up together with him, and with his children. It ate of his own food, drank of his own cup, and lay in his bosom, and was like a daughter to him. 4A traveler came to the rich man, and he spared to take of his own flock and of his own herd, to prepare for the wayfaring man who had come to him, but took the poor man’s lamb, and prepared it for the man who had come to him.” 5David’s anger burned hot against the man, and he said to Nathan, “As Yahweh lives, the man who has done this deserves to die! 6He must restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity!” 7Nathan said to David, “You are the man. This is what Yahweh, the God of Israel, says: ‘I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you out of the hand of Saul. 8I gave you your master’s house, and your master’s wives into your bosom, and gave you the house of Israel and of Judah; and if that would have been too little, I would have added to you many more such things. 9Why have you despised Yahweh’s word, to do that which is evil in his sight? You have struck Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and have taken his wife to be your wife, and have slain him with the sword of the children of Ammon. 10Now therefore the sword will never depart from your house, because you have despised me, and have taken Uriah the Hittite’s wife to be your wife.’ 11“This is what Yahweh says: ‘Behold, I will raise up evil against you out of your own house; and I will take your wives before your eyes, and give them to your neighbor, and he will lie with your wives in the sight of this sun. 12For you did this secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel, and before the sun.’” 13David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against Yahweh.” Nathan said to David, “Yahweh also has put away your sin. You will not die. 14However, because by this deed you have given great occasion to Yahweh’s enemies to blaspheme, the child also who is born to you will surely die.” 15Nathan departed to his house. Yahweh struck the child that Uriah’s wife bore to David, and it was very sick.

David could send a letter ordering Joab to kill Uriah because the fear of God had gone out of his heart. Because he despised God, he could kill Uriah with the sword of the children of Ammon and commit the sin of taking his wife. All those years David had labored to become like God in his holiness, which made it hard to understand how he could do such an evil thing. Through the grace of almighty God he had seen countless miracles; even now, had he turned back and repented, he could have been forgiven. Yet to satisfy his greed he had used wicked Joab, and even the Ammonites, to kill a good man. However much God loved him, a sin like that could not escape a severe rebuke.

After Bathsheba became David’s wife, God called the prophet Nathan and commanded him to go to David and deliver the word God had given him. God did not rebuke David at once; he had Nathan bring him a parable instead. Perhaps that was one more chance for David. As soon as the command came, Nathan went straight to David and spoke.

In one city, he said, there lived a rich man and a poor man. The rich man had a great many flocks and herds, but the poor man had only one ewe lamb, and because it was all he had, he loved it like his own child. Since Israel’s law called for hospitality to strangers, the rich man had to feed a traveler who came to his house one day; yet he begrudged his own sheep and cattle. So he seized the lamb of the poor, powerless man and served it to his guest.

David heard Nathan this far and burned with anger. The rich man deserved to die, he ruled, and the lamb he had taken from the poor man must be repaid fourfold. He did not know that he himself was the rich man; he was only putting on a show of faith.

People are like this. They judge the conduct of others keenly, yet never notice that they are acting just as wickedly themselves. As though they had every right to point out other people’s faults, they judge with uncanny precision, but their own sin they cannot see. Blind to the beam of his own sin while he stared at the speck in another man’s eye, David swore by the name of God without a trace of guilt. Perhaps because killing Uriah and taking his wife had gone so smoothly, he seems to have forgotten the enormity of what he had done. But though people forget, God does not, and David’s sin therefore did not go away.

Unrepented sin remains. We must therefore repent and receive forgiveness through God’s mercy. God hates sin, and he could not leave David unrebuked. Yet David, wholly unaware of how fiercely God’s anger burned, told Nathan that the man who had taken the poor man’s ewe lamb must be put to death.

In the New Testament, when Zacchaeus met Jesus, he vowed to give half his goods to the poor and, if he had wrongfully taken anything from anyone, to restore it fourfold. Like Zacchaeus, we must understand how terrible sin is and strive to repent.

But even after Nathan had laid his sin before him, David did not grasp that this was God’s warning to him. Once a person drifts from God, even someone as wise as David becomes this foolish. Because God and the prophet Nathan loved and cherished David deeply, they hoped he would hear this word, see himself as a sinner, and repent. David heard Nathan out and still failed to recognize that the rich man who had done evil was himself. He even swore by the name of God that the man must die. At once Nathan cried out that David himself was the man, and he explained why God had blessed him until now. God had delivered him out of the hand of Saul in order to anoint him king over Israel, and because David had endured to the end and kept faith, God had driven back his enemies. That was how God accounted for his victories.

The next blessings God named were these: he had given David his master’s house, put his master’s wives into his bosom, and entrusted to him the house of Israel and of Judah; and if that had been too little, he would have added many more of the things David needed. He was explaining why he had rewarded the faith David had guarded so patiently all those years. God had blessed him for his faith—why, then, had he not stood firm to the end? Why had he despised a God so full of love and done evil? That was the cause of God’s anger. As I look at this scene, God’s heart, for all the anger he shows David, seems to me less like fury than like grieving pity. I sense this because I can feel God longing for the days when he and David worked through so many trials together, opening their hearts to each other, trusting and loving one another. Just as God wanted to be Israel’s true king through David’s faith, he must want even now to show the world through you that he alone is the true king. But when David began to sink into human desire and lust, God was rejected by David and by Israel.

If you keep God at a distance, Satan will begin to test you and shake your faith. He will make you take on the lust of the eyes and the pride of life that come from the world, throw you into spiritual confusion, and keep you from ever leaving the place of sin. We must never forget that the only cord binding us to God is the faith that receives Christ, because when we live that faith out with thanksgiving to Christ, full of the Holy Spirit, Satan has no room to slip in.

2 Samuel 12:9

9Why have you despised Yahweh’s word, to do that which is evil in his sight? You have struck Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and have taken his wife to be your wife, and have slain him with the sword of the children of Ammon.

How astonishing it is that a creature should despise God the Creator! To fill one’s faith with the lusts of the world, to kill a good man out of greed, to seize by worldly force a blessing someone else has received—these are the very deeds that surface when we despise God. As Nathan poured out God’s rebuke without holding back, we can imagine how afraid David must have been.

David must have prided himself on having lived by God’s will all along. His faith had been recognized to the point that he was made king over Israel; he had offered sacrifices to God with all his heart and loved his people. It likely never crossed his mind that the wicked man was himself. So when he heard that a rich man had used his power to take a poor man’s only ewe lamb, the rich man’s behavior made no sense to him. David could speak as he did because, blinded by lust, he had no idea that Satan was deceiving him.

We, too, sin because we cannot overcome our own lusts and greed. So we must always lean on the Holy Spirit and live ready to fend off Satan’s attacks. If we think that whatever happens is happening to someone else and has nothing to do with us, we will never grow. But if we hold people’s unreasonable decisions and actions up against ourselves, asking whether we do the same, and take it to heart, we can grow faster and live without regret. People make no progress precisely because they fail to do this.

David owned many sheep and cattle, yet he took Uriah’s ewe lamb, the one Uriah cherished like his own child—a thing that must never be done. When Nathan rebuked him, saying that the wicked man was none other than David, he was greatly shaken, and he must have been terrified of God.

People are always generous in judging themselves, and for that reason they have no eye to see clearly how faithless and wicked they are. Yet the moment they glimpse the slightest fault in someone else, they act just like David: out comes the measuring stick of justice and morality, and they behave as though they themselves were righteous. What a detestable, hypocritical character that is! So rather than judging and condemning the small sins of others, we must see our own small sins as large and repent; only then can we have a faith that is good.

God had always boasted of David as a man after his own heart. How grieved he must have been to watch David lie and murder in order to deceive him! Betrayal by someone you trusted cuts deeper, and in the same way David’s betrayal likely wounded God deeply. That is why God said he would judge David himself. God’s word that he himself will judge is a fearful word indeed, because it is no human plan; there is no escaping it. When God judges, as when he blesses, he works on a plane far above human thoughts and plans. He sees several steps beyond what we can imagine; we cannot see an inch ahead, but he begins and finishes his work from a direction entirely different from ours. So we must fall to our knees quickly, repent, and obey the word.

These are the hardships God gave David. First, he cursed David’s house so that the sword that had killed Uriah would never depart from it. Second, just as David had taken Uriah’s wife, a neighbor would take David’s wives and lie with them in broad daylight before the eyes of all; sadly, that neighbor was his own son Absalom. Third, because God had made a promise to David, he would not put him to death, but the son Bathsheba bore would die in his place. God kept every promise he had made him, leaving out not a single one.

David had committed murder and adultery, but because no one else found out, he probably thought it was the perfect crime. He had always confessed that God saw even his every breath, yet once Satan took hold of him, he breathed easy, sure that he had got away with it. But God, who sees even sins no bigger than the point of a needle, is the great King, all-knowing and all-powerful. When David was faithful and endured in faith, God gave him peace; from now on he would be put through the fire. It is astonishing enough that the one now under God’s rebuke is David; yet as I watched God refuse to forgive the sin of the David he had loved so much, I found myself thinking how fearsome God is. God did not hate David; he hated David’s sin, and he sent David hardship in order to forgive that sin.

Uriah cherished and loved his wife Bathsheba as his own life. Yet not only did he lose her to David, the rich man; he also had to suffer an unjust death. He died, of course, without even knowing this, but even had he known, he would have had no choice but to endure it. David could do whatever he wished; Uriah could not even protect his wife and had to give up his life as well. The one who watched all of this, missing nothing, was God.

That God knows everything about us is fearful, yet that he is watching is also something to be thankful for, because if you are upright, he will recover your lamb for you even if it is taken, and when you suffer wrong, he repays it. With a protector as mighty as God we have nothing to fear; but if we harbor evil as David did, even our small sins will meet their due. That is why Satan, who knows God’s good character, works so hard to pull God’s people far away from him.

Satan tempted David to take Bathsheba, drove him to kill Uriah, and stopped his spiritual eyes and ears so that he would bring her into the palace as his wife. Once we accept Satan’s temptation, we lose our spiritual discernment, and we cannot help but sin, forgetting even that God is watching. People did not take this terrible event, David’s loss of his son, as an occasion to repent. Instead they mocked David as no better than anyone else and laughed even at God. Such behavior shows that they were in Satan’s grip. Satan’s one aim is to use God’s people to drag God’s glory into the dust, so we must not live in a way that puts God to shame.

Adam and Eve had already heard every word from God and knew it; when Satan tempted them, they therefore had it in them to resist the temptation boldly. Yet they could not overcome human nature and followed what Satan said. We can well imagine how Satan must have mocked God at that moment.

The world judges God by watching how believers live out their faith. They have no right to judge God, of course, but since our lives can either honor God or put him to shame, we must take care.

The death of the son Bathsheba bore, the misfortune of the sword never leaving his house, the outrage of losing his wives to a neighbor—none of this was God’s doing; it was the work of David’s sin. Only when we know this can we see how terrible our own sin is and set the course of our lives. When the son that Bathsheba, Uriah’s wife, had borne fell ill, David fasted and lay on the ground all night, praying that God would spare him. He had already heard that God would bring the fruit of his sin to harvest; but he thought that if God saw him repenting as though his life depended on it, God might perhaps spare the child; in that hope he fasted seven days and clung to God. The elders of his house, pained to see him fast, tried to dissuade him; when he would not listen, they fasted with him to support him. Had David turned back sooner, it would never have come to this. On the seventh day the child died. David had pleaded so desperately while the child was alive that his servants feared he might collapse at the news, and they could not bring themselves to tell him. But when David heard that his son was dead, he got up at once, washed, anointed himself, and changed his clothes. Then he went into the house of Yahweh and worshiped God, and he returned to the palace and ate. Puzzled, his servants asked how he could weep so bitterly while the child was alive, yet eat as if nothing had happened now that he was dead. David answered that while the child lived, he had done all he could, thinking that perhaps Yahweh would be gracious to him and spare the child; but now the child had gone to the eternal kingdom from which he could not come back to him, and weeping would accomplish nothing. David understood clearly both this life and what comes after it.

We must understand that once our loved ones have left this world, no prayer we offer for them can have any effect at all. After our parents pass away, the dead can never return, however lavishly we spread the table for them. So we must treat them well while they are alive. While they are still with us, we need to share the gospel with them and give them the chance to go to heaven.

After the child who died, Solomon was not the next son born to David; Shimea, Shobab, and Nathan came first, and Solomon was the fourth. God sent Nathan to give Solomon a special name, Jedidiah, meaning “beloved of Yahweh.” Solomon’s life is a disappointment, yet it seems God loved him in order to fulfill the covenant he had made with David. Whatever Solomon was, God did his own work. When we see God doing his own work, we have no reason to be proud and no reason to despair; we need only lean on the Holy Spirit and walk in goodness, because God, who watches over us as the apple of his eye, governs our lives.

2 Samuel 12:28

28Now therefore gather the rest of the people together, and encamp against the city, and take it; lest I take the city, and it be called by my name.”

Before entering Rabbah of Ammon, Joab sent messengers to David to say that if he himself took the city, he feared the people would exalt Joab’s name; the king should come in person and capture it. So David went to Rabbah as Joab said and captured the city.

Looking at this event, one might think Joab respected David, but in fact it lays bare Joab’s wickedness and cunning. As commander of David’s army, Joab had won victories that until now had all exalted David’s name and made Israel strong. Yet suddenly he says he fears that his own name will be exalted. Because he had seen David’s wickedness after receiving the order to kill Uriah, he now orders the king around—come here, go there—and handles him with no respect. When a person of faith is caught in sin, they are mocked like this by the wicked. Respect and trust can collapse through a single sin, so we must always be on guard.

The world wants believers to sin. Worldly people offer them a drink and draw them toward immorality, half in doubt at first: would these people of faith really listen to me? But once a believer falls, from then on they mock that believer’s faith for failing and despise even the God who loves them. So my hope is that you will hold fast to your faith, never forgetting that every moment Satan is tempting you without rest. As Satan longed, when he tested Jesus, for him to slip just once, so today he wants God’s people to stumble. To be sure, he is no match for God, yet over the faith of God’s people Satan is locked in a tug-of-war with God.

I hope you will not forget that the choice between God, who wants to protect your life, and Satan, who wants to take it, is yours. May you never disappoint the God who is shielding you from Satan’s temptation, and may you drive Satan back firmly in the name of Jesus Christ.

If we love and revere God as Job did, we can overcome sin. And if by faith we can discern cunning men like Joab, we will come to see that Nathan’s words were aimed not at someone else but at us, as God’s own love.

May you always worship, love, and exalt God, and live with a mature faith that is quick to understand and quick to turn back.