27595210 ii-samuel-12-commentary

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

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

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

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

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

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,

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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).”

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.

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,

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

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.

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.

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

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,

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

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

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

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.”

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

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