by Bud Young

Created on: January 29, 2010

Judgment of Sin by Killing a Child
(2 Samuel 12)

2 Samuel 12 contains the story of Nathan the prophet confronting David the King. The confrontation pertained to David's sin of sending one of his most trusted soldiers, Uriah, to a certain death for the purpose of making Uriah's wife Bathsheba his wife. Starting in verse 9, the Bible states:

Why have you shown contempt for the word of the Lord by doing evil in my sight? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and you have taken his wife as your own! You have killed him with the sword of the Ammonites. 10. So now the sword will never depart from your house. For you have despised me by taking the wife of Uriah the Hittite as your own!’ 11. This is what the Lord says: ‘I am about to bring disaster on you from inside your own household! Right before your eyes I will take your wives and hand them over to your companion. He will have sexual relations with your wives in broad daylight! 12. Although you have acted in secret, I will do this thing before all Israel, and in broad daylight.’”

13. Then David exclaimed to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord!” Nathan replied to David, “Yes, and the Lord has forgiven your sin. You are not going to die. 14. Nonetheless, because you have treated the Lord with such contempt in this matter, the son who has been born to you will certainly die.”*

What David did was wrong on many levels. The Lord has designed the world so that our choices have consequences. People are not stupid, especially those who knew David best. I believe it was fairly obvious that David had a thing for Bathsheba. When David sent Uriah into an impossible situation, it would not have taken a large leap of logic to figure out what David did, especially, when he subsequently married Bathsheba. David set a bad example for his peers and his family. He set the example of: If you want something or someone it is OK to do what you got to do to get it or them. As a result, the choices of the people around David reflected his example.

Nathan's statement in verses 9-14 reflect the attitude of Israel of how God designed the world. If you sin, God forces bad things to judge your sin. Verses 11&12 state that God would send evil into David's household, He would force David's wives and his companions into sin in order to judge David's sin. Israel and Nathan's attitude goes against the importance of free will in God's economy. Nathan was a prophet, but, he was still a man. A man subject to the misconceptions of his time.

Another misconception, in verses 13-15, David repents, so God spared his life. According to Nathan, the Lord further judged David by killing David and Bathsheba's first child. Killing someone for another's mistake is injustice. We are all precious in his site. God does not kill to judge. His ways are much higher because of the way God designed the system in which we live. You reap what you sow. I believe God may have shown Nathan that the child was going to die. I also believe that Nathan, the man, made the connection between the child's death and judgment on David.

We must be careful how we approach what the Bible contains. I am also a man subject to the misconceptions of his time. Don't just take my word for it. Ask the Source.

*Scriptures copied from the Net Bible:  http://netbible.org.

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