2 Samuelchapter 12
31 verses · Samuel, Nathan and Gad, by tradition · 10th century BC · History
The rich man had exceeding many flocks and herds:
Introduction
Samuel, Nathan and Gad, by tradition, History, 2 Samuel Overview.
This chapter brings the prophet back to the king after the events of chapter 11. Its first hearers knew what the Law required for theft and for adultery. They also knew that a king was the highest judge in the land, and that a case could be brought to him by anyone. The chapter holds judgment and mercy together to its last verse. Listen for the story the prophet tells and for the moment the king passes sentence. Watch what David does while his child is ill and what he does after, and notice the second name given to his next son.
Context
- Who
- Israelites who knew what the Law required in a case of theft and in a case of adultery
- What
- Nathan's parable of the ewe lamb, the LORD's judgment on David, David's confession, the death of the child, the birth of Solomon and the fall of Rabbah.
- Where
- The throne room and the palace in Jerusalem, then the captured city of Rabbah in Ammon.
- When
- About 990 BC, within a year of the events of chapter 11; the chapter gives no date.
- Why
- To show that the LORD forgives the one who confesses and still lets the sin bear its fruit, and to name the son through whom the promise would pass.
Historical context
The chapter is Nathan's before it is David's. Nathan was a prophet attached to the court, the same man who had brought the covenant oracle in chapter 7, and he comes here with a legal complaint rather than a sermon.
Show the rest of the historical context, 5 more paragraphs
The setting moves three times in one chapter, from the throne room to the king's own house and then to the field before Rabbah, which had been under siege since chapter 10.
A first hearer knew that a prophet bringing a case of one man wronging another put the king in his role as supreme judge. David rules out loud before he knows he is the defendant, and the sentence he passes is the exact penalty the Law sets for a stolen and slaughtered sheep at Exodus 22:1.
The picture in the parable is realistic rather than sentimental. A poor family's single lamb really did live in the house, share the family's food and grow up as a pet. One animal could not be left in an open field, and there was nowhere else to keep it.
David's mourning runs backwards on purpose. Fasting and rough clothes belonged after a death, and he fasts while the child lives and washes, changes, worships and eats once the child has died. His own explanation at 12:22 and 12:23 is that prayer had a purpose while there was still something to ask for.
The crown taken at Rabbah weighed a talent of gold, which is far too heavy to wear for any time. Some read the Hebrew as the crown of Milcom, the Ammonite god, lifted from a statue. The captured population is set to labour with saws, iron picks and axes, which is what a victorious king in that world normally did with a beaten city.
Significance
The line they would not forget is the one that turns the sword back on the house that used it. Pardon came the moment David said he had sinned, and the consequences still ran through his family for the rest of the book.
Show the rest of the significance, 1 more paragraph
The next child of that marriage is Solomon, and the prophet brings a second name for him, Jedidiah, beloved of the LORD. Mercy and consequence run in the same chapter, and the hearers were meant to hold both.
This chapter in Jewish lifeWhat this chapter is in Jewish life and reading.
How it is read
The corpus for this chapter holds twenty-four commentary entries and forty rabbinic locators. Nine entries carry English text under a licence that permits quotation, and all nine are Rashi in the Metsudah translation, Lakewood, N.J., CC-BY, cited below by ref alone. Radak stands at nine further places, Metzudat David at five and Malbim at one, with no English version, so those fifteen are cited and never quoted.
The parable is read as a lesson about the inclination to do wrong, not only about a rich man and a poor man. Rashi follows the three words the parable uses for the visitor and reads them as three stages. They are a traveller passing through, then a guest who has settled, then the man who owns the house (Rashi on II Samuel 12:4:1). David passes sentence before he knows he is the subject. Rashi explains the death penalty David names by a saying from the Talmud, that one who steals from a poor man takes his life (Rashi on II Samuel 12:5:1). On the fourfold restitution David orders, Rashi says it came upon David himself in four children, and he names them: the child of this chapter, Amnon, Tamar and Absalom (Rashi on II Samuel 12:6:1). That reading ties the parable to the rest of the book, and it is the classical frame for the chapters that follow.
Two comments deal with the wording rather than the story. The prophet charges that the deed gave the enemies of the LORD cause to blaspheme. Rashi explains the wording as a way of speaking that avoids attaching the word to God directly, and he gives the Targum's rendering beside it (Rashi on II Samuel 12:14:1). The second name given to the son born at the end of the chapter he reads as beloved of God, taking the name apart into its two halves (Rashi on II Samuel 12:25:1). He also identifies the wives of the master in the prophet's speech with Michal, Saul's daughter (Rashi on II Samuel 12:8:1), which is consistent with the way he read her marriage in chapter 3.
What the rabbis say
Forty locators stand on this chapter in the corpus, twenty-seven from the Midrash and thirteen from the Talmud, every one of them a locator without text. The parable draws Bava Batra 15a:16, Ein Yaakov, Bava Batra 1:33 and Ein Yaakov, Megillah 1:24, and the traveller in it draws Bereshit Rabbah 22:6, Ein Yaakov, Sukkah 5:12 and Midrash Sekhel Tov, Bereshit 37:25:2. The sentence of a fourfold payment draws Midrash Tehillim 3:3, Ein Yaakov, Yoma 2:2 and Midrash Tannaim on Deuteronomy 3:23:4. The judgment that the sword would not depart draws Berakhot 7b:13, Berakhot 7b:14 and Bamidbar Rabbah 9:24. David's answer that he had sinned draws Aggadat Bereshit 11:1, Berakhot 56b:19 and Bamidbar Rabbah 4:20, and the blasphemy verse draws Midrash Tanchuma, Ha'Azinu 4:1. The fast for the child draws Sanhedrin 107a:10 and Aggadat Bereshit 77:2. The birth of the second son draws Avot DeRabbi Natan 14:6 and Jerusalem Talmud Berakhot 1:6:10, and his second name draws Avot DeRabbi Natan 39:4 and Avot DeRabbi Natan, Recension B 43:20. The crown taken at the Ammonite city draws Avodah Zarah 44a:14 and Avodah Zarah 44a:15.
Sources: Rashi, Rashi on II Samuel 12:4:1, 12:5:1, 12:6:1, 12:8:1, 12:14:1 and 12:25:1, The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J., CC-BY; Radak, Radak on II Samuel 12:1:1, 12:9:1, 12:13:1 and six further places, cited only, no English version in the corpus; Metzudat David, Metzudat David on II Samuel 12:3:1, 12:7:1, 12:10:1, 12:12:1 and 12:23:1, cited only; Malbim, Malbim on II Samuel 12:2:1, cited only; The Midrash and the Talmud on this chapter, Bava Batra 15a:16; Bereshit Rabbah 22:6; Midrash Tehillim 3:3; Berakhot 7b:13 and 7b:14; Berakhot 56b:19; Midrash Tanchuma, Ha'Azinu 4:1; Sanhedrin 107a:10; Avot DeRabbi Natan 14:6 and 39:4; Avodah Zarah 44a:14 and 44a:15, as the corpus records them.
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
Thou art the man: the parable of the ewe lamb
2 Samuel 12:1-3
There were two men in one city: Nathan comes to David as a judge is asked to judge, laying out a case rather than an accusation, and David never suspects that he sits as the accused. The poor man's one ewe lamb, fed from his own dish and carried in his bosom like a daughter, gives the rich man's crime its full weight before David hears a single name. Matthew Henry notes that Nathan does not shrink from a king's rank any more than Uriah's low rank shielded him from the king's hand. The parable's method, drawing a right verdict from the very mouth that will be condemned by it, sets the pattern for the chapter that follows.
2 Samuel 12:1
“Nathan came to David as if to ask his judicial decision on the case about to be submitted to him (compare 2Sa 14:2-11; 1Ki 20:35-41). The circumstances of the story are exquisitely contrived to heighten the pity of David for the oppressed, and his indignation against the oppressor 1Sa 25:13, 1Sa 25:22.”
1 more voice on this verseWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
2 Samuel 12:1
“But sometimes, when the powerful of this world are taken to task, they are first to be searched by certain similitudes, as on a matter not concerning them; and, when they have pronounced a right sentence as against another man, then in fitting ways they are to be smitten with regard to their own guilt; so that the mind puffed up with temporal power may in no wise lift itself up against the reprover, having by its own judgment trodden on the neck of pride, and may not try to defend itself, being bound by the sentence of its own…”
Gregory the Dialogist · written before 604 · The Book of Pastoral Rule, Part 3, Chapter 2patristic
John Gill reads the flocks and herds as David's many wives and concubines. David had six wives in Hebron by 3:2, and he took more in Jerusalem. Verse 8 adds the wives of Saul.
2 Samuel 12:2
“The rich man had exceeding many flocks and herds. In which the wealth of men lay in those times and countries; these in the parable signify David's wives and concubines, which were many; he had six wives in Hebron, and he took more wives and concubines out of Jerusalem, when he was come from Hebron, 2Sa 3:2; and besides his master's, or Saul's wives, given to him, 2Sa 12:8.”
John Gill reads the one ewe lamb as Uriah's one wife, younger than her husband. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown note that shepherd families raised pet lambs with their children and spoke to them with endearments. Adam Clarke calls it the family pet.
2 Samuel 12:3
“But the poor man had nothing, save one little ewe lamb,.... Uriah had but one wife, who was much younger than he, called a lamb, an ewe lamb, a little one.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Samuel 12:3
“And lay in his bosom - This can only mean that this lamb was what we call a pet or favourite in the family, else the circumstance would be very unnatural, and most likely would have prevented David from making the application which he did, as otherwise it would have appeared absurd. It is the only part of this parable which is at variance with nature and fact.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 Samuel 12:4-6
there came a traveller unto the rich man: A traveller arrives and the rich man spares his own flock to take the poor man's lamb instead, and David's anger is kindled before he sees that the story is his own. His sentence names both the Law's fourfold restitution for a stolen sheep, Exodus 22:1, and his own fitting portion of it, for he will lose four sons to the sword he has just called down on another man. The older writers count that fourfold word against David himself, the child of Bathsheba, then Amnon, Absalom and Adonijah, though the count is their reading of the text and not the text's own arithmetic. Adam Clarke reads David's own mouth as passing his own sentence, the Hebrew calling the man a son of death before the Lord God of Israel need say a word more.
2 Samuel 12:4
“Marriage is a remedy against fornication, but marrying many is not; for, when once the law of unity is transgressed, the indulged lust will hardly stint itself.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Jamieson, Fausset and Brown observe that David's pity and anger were awake while his conscience slept. John Wesley notes that the king most lenient with his own sin was most severe with others. He points ahead to the Ammonites of verse 31.
2 Samuel 12:5
“The man - shall surely die - Literally בן מות ben maveth, “he is a son of death,” a very bad man, and one who deserves to die. But the law did not sentence a sheep-stealer to death; let us hear it: If a man steal an ox or a sheep, he shall restore Five Oxen for an ox, and Four Sheep for a sheep, Exo 22:1; and hence David immediately says, He shall restore the lamb Fourfold.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
2 Samuel 12:5
“The sympathies of the king had been deeply enlisted, his indignation aroused, but his conscience was still asleep; and at the time when he was most fatally indulgent to his own sins, he was most ready to condemn the delinquencies and errors of others. HE APPLIES IT TO DAVID, WHO CONFESSES HIS SIN, AND IS PARDONED.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Barnes says four times over was the exact payment the Law set for a stolen sheep. The Septuagint reads seven times over, as at Proverbs 6:31. David adds that the rich man had shown no pity.
2 Samuel 12:6
“Fourfold - The exact number prescribed by the Law (see the marginal references), and acted upon by Zaccheus. The Septuagint has “sevenfold,” as in Pro 6:31.”
2 Samuel 12:7-9
Thou art the man: is Nathan's whole reply, and the phrase occurs nowhere else in Scripture, the parable's judge becoming the accused in three words. Nathan recites what the Lord had given David, the kingdom, the house of Israel and Judah, and more besides for the asking, before naming what David took that was never his to take. The charge is put in the sharpest terms the text allows, thou hast killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword and hast taken his wife, with the Ammonite blade named only as the instrument David chose. Jamieson Fausset and Brown read the rebuke as necessary precisely because David's public standing made a private sin into a public wound on the name of the Lord.
2 Samuel 12:7
“He was pardoned, so far as related to the restoration of the divine favor. But as from his high character for piety, and his eminent rank in society, his deplorable fall was calculated to do great injury to the cause of religion, it was necessary that God should testify His abhorrence of sin by leaving even His own servant to reap the bitter temporal fruits.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Barnes says the royal harem passed with the throne to the next king by Eastern custom. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown say God gave David all that had been Saul's. Clarke asks whether Saul's son-in-law could take Saul's wives.
2 Samuel 12:8
“Thy master’s wives into thy bosom - Perhaps this means no more than that he had given him absolute power over every thing possessed by Saul; and as it was the custom for the new king to succeed even to the wives and concubines, the whole harem of the deceased king, so it was in this case; and the possession of the wives was a sure proof that he had got all regal rights. But could David, as the son-in-law of Saul, take the wives of his father-in-law?”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Matthew Henry and John Wesley note that the Hebrew reads the word of the LORD. They take it as the promise of a house from God. Henry says a man who valued that promise would have kept his house clean of lust and blood.
2 Samuel 12:9
“Thou hast killed Uriah - Thou art the Murderer, as having planned his death; the sword of the Ammonites was Thy instrument only.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
2 Samuel 12:9
“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 Nathan, 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.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
2 Samuel 12:10-12
the sword shall never depart from thine house: sets a sentence that the next twelve chapters simply narrate rather than repeat, Amnon dying by his brother's hand, Absalom dying in rebellion, Adonijah dying under Solomon. Verse eleven names the shape it will take, evil raised up out of David's own house and his wives given to his neighbour in the sight of the sun, and 16:22 answers it exactly, Absalom with his father's concubines on the same roof where the whole affair of chapter eleven began. John Gill reads the doubled charge of verse ten, thou hast despised me and hast taken the wife of Uriah, as marking how heinous the offence stood even after the sentence was passed. The public reversal promised in verse twelve, before all Israel and before the sun, is the measure the private sin is held to.
2 Samuel 12:10
“Now therefore the sword shall never depart from thine house,.... During his life, and as appeared in the slaughter of his sons Ammon and Absalom before his death, and of Adonijah quickly after, and in his posterity through their wars with the children of Israel, and other nations: because thou hast despised me; his commandments, and that in effect was despising him the lawgiver: and hast taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be thy wife; which being repeated shows that it was very displeasing to God, and a very heinous crime in his sight.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Samuel 12:10
“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.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Barnes says the sentence answers both sins. The adultery was repaid by Absalom with the wives of David, and the murder by the sword among his own sons. Wesley says the other man would be one close to David, from his own house.
2 Samuel 12:11
“As face answers to face in a glass, so does the punishment often answer to the sin; here is blood for blood and uncleanness for uncleanness. And thus God would show how much he hates sin, even in his own people, and that, wherever he find it, he will not let it go unpunished.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
1 more voice on this verse
2 Samuel 12:11
“See the marginal references. In both the points of David’s crime the retribution was according to his sin. His adultery was punished by Absalom’s outrage, his murder by the bloodshed of domestic fights, which cost the lives of at least three of his favorite sons, Amnon, Absalom, and Adonijah.”
Matthew Henry says the punishment answers the sin as a face answers a face in a mirror. The act done in secret would be repaid before all Israel. Henry counts blood for blood and uncleanness for uncleanness.
The Lord also hath put away thy sin: David's confession is five words in the Hebrew and Nathan's answer is immediate, the Lord also hath put away thy sin, thou shalt not die. Psalm 51 sets itself in this chapter by its own title, though this database stores the Psalms without their Hebrew titles and the link cannot be shown from the floor by query, and the bench reads Psalm 32 beside it as the same confession in a different key. Matthew Henry notes that David's own line in the psalm, against thee, thee only, have I sinned, takes up the very charge Nathan has just laid, that the sin was first and finally against the Lord. Albert Barnes reads thou shalt not die as the death of the soul turned aside, not an exemption from every consequence that follows.
2 Samuel 12:13
Are you ashamed, sir, to do as David did—David, the king and the prophet, the ancestor of Christ according to the flesh? He was told of the rich man who had a great number of flocks and yet, when a guest arrived, took the poor man's one ewe lamb and killed it; and when he recognized that he was himself condemned by the story, he said, "I have sinned against the Lord." Therefore do not take it ill, sir, if what was said to King David is said to you, "You are the man."
Ambrose of Milan · written before 397 · LETTER 51.7patristic
2 more voices on this verse
2 Samuel 12:13
“It is probable that he said more to this purport; but this is enough to show that he was truly humbled by what Nathan said, and submitted to the conviction. He owns his guilt-- I have sinned, and aggravates it--It was against the Lord: on this string he harps in the psalm he penned on this occasion. 1 , Against thee, thee only, have I sinned.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
2 Samuel 12:13
“For a comment on David’s words, read Ps. 51; Psa 32:1-11. Thou shalt not die - Not spoken of the punishment of death as affixed to adultery by the Mosaic Law: the application of that law Lev 20:10; Deu 22:22; Joh 8:5 to an absolute Eastern monarch was out of the question. The death of the soul is meant (compare Eze 18:4, Eze 18:13, Eze 18:18).”
great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme: The ground given for the child's death is not the adultery or the murder alone but the occasion David's deed gave the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme, a public reproach on the name he was anointed to serve. Nathan had already pronounced pardon in the verse before, and this verse pronounces a consequence that the pardon does not erase. Matthew Henry reads the two verses together as proof that forgiveness and temporal chastening are not the same mercy, and that God may put away the guilt of sin while still letting its wages fall. The child's coming sickness, three verses ahead, is this sentence taking its course.
2 Samuel 12:14
“I would willingly hope that he did, and that Nathan 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 Nathan, absolution with certain limitations.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Seven days on the earth, and a father who rises and eats
2 Samuel 12:15-17
the Lord struck the child: in the next clause after Nathan departs, and the sickness that follows is the sentence of verse fourteen already at work. David fasts, lies all night on the earth, and refuses to be raised up by the elders of his own house, a mourning so total that his own household cannot reach him. John Wesley reads the intensity as proof the king was not grieving a possible loss so much as carrying the weight of his own sin before the God who had just named it. The scene stands beside the parable's ewe lamb that lay in the poor man's bosom, another life bound up in a father's love and now under sentence.
2 Samuel 12:15
“The diseases and death of infants that have not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, especially as they are sometimes sadly circumstanced, are sensible proofs of the original sin in which they are conceived.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Albert Barnes notes that the death of an infant in a royal harem usually weighed little on an Eastern king. David's grief marks his tender nature and his love for Bathsheba. Barnes reads the ground as the floor of his private chamber.
2 Samuel 12:16
“David - besought God for the child - How could he do so, after the solemn assurance that he had from God that the child should die? The justice of God absolutely required that the penalty of the law should be exacted; either the father or the son shall die. This could not be reversed.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
2 Samuel 12:16
“Nathan had told him that certainly the child should die; yet, while it is in the reach of prayer, he earnestly intercedes with God for it, chiefly (as we may suppose) that its soul might be safe and happy in another world, and that his sin might not come against the child, and that it might not fare the worse for that in the future state.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
John Wesley identifies the elders as the chief officers of the kingdom and the household. John Gill notes that these princes of the court usually sat at the king's table. That evening David refused to eat with them.
2 Samuel 12:17
“Elders - The chief officers of his kingdom and household. He would not - This excessive mourning did not proceed simply from the fear of the loss of the child; but from a deep sense of his sin, and the divine displeasure manifested herein.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
2 Samuel 12:18-19
on the seventh day, that the child died: The servants fear to tell David the child has died, reasoning that a man who would not be comforted while there was hope will do himself harm once hope is gone. David reads the answer in their whispering before anyone speaks it, and his question is as plain as Nathan's sentence had been, is the child dead. Matthew Henry notes the household's fear says as much about the seven days just past as anything recorded, for they had watched a king brought lower than any subject by grief for a son not yet named. The answer, he is dead, closes the sentence of verse fourteen exactly as it was spoken.
Henry says the child died on the seventh day, before he could be circumcised on the eighth. Henry holds that David still trusted the child was safe with God. He adds that weeping must never keep a man from worship.
2 Samuel 12:19
“He went to acknowledge the hand of God in the affliction, and to humble himself under it, and to submit to his holy will in it, to thank God that he himself was spared and his sin pardoned, and to pray that God would not proceed in his controversy with him, nor stir up all his wrath. Weeping must never hinder worshipping.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
2 Samuel 12:20-23
washed, and anointed himself, and changed his apparel: David rises, washes, changes his apparel and goes first to the house of the Lord to worship before he eats, reversing every sign of mourning the household had just watched him carry for seven days. His servants ask the plain question, and his answer turns on one line, I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me, spoken while fasting could still move God and set aside once it no longer could. Adam Clarke reads the line as at least the shape of a hope beyond this life, whether or not David meant to state the doctrine outright, and John Wesley reads it as David's own confidence that he would find his son in the state where the dead are kept. The worship before the meal is itself an answer to the household's confusion, for David has already made his case to God and now receives whatever God gives.
2 Samuel 12:20
“David arose from the earth, and washed - Bathing, anointing the body, and changing the apparel, are the first outward signs among the Hindoos of coming out of a state of mourning or sickness.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 more voices on this verse
2 Samuel 12:20
“And came - That is, to the tabernacle, to confess his sin before the Lord, to own his justice in this stroke, to deprecate his just displeasure, to acknowledge God's rich mercy, in sparing his own life; and to offer such sacrifices as were required in such cases.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
2 Samuel 12:20
Thus David wept for his son who was about to die; he did not grieve for him when dead. He wept that he might not be snatched from him, but he ceased to weep when he was snatched away, for he knew that he was with Christ. And that you may know what I declare is true, he wept for his incestuous son Amnon when he was killed, and he mourned for the parricide Absalom when he perished, saying, "My son Absalom, my son Absalom!"
Ambrose of Milan · written before 397 · CONSOLATION ON THE DEATH OF EMPEROR VALENTINIAN 47.48patristic
John Gill says the servants knew what David had done and asked only what it meant. They had expected his sorrow to grow once the child died.
2 Samuel 12:21
“Then said his servants unto him, what thing is this that thou hast done?.... Or what is the reason of such conduct and behaviour? they knew what was done, but they did not know the meaning of it, which is what they inquired after: thou didst fast and weep for the child, while it was alive; prayed with fasting and weeping for it, that it might live and not die: but when the child was dead thou didst rise and eat bread; and appeared cheerful; this seemed strange to them, when they expected his sorrow would be increased.”
Adam Clarke explains that Israel took the threatenings of God as conditional, so even after a plain sentence men sought a change of purpose. David hoped the life of the child might hang on some unspoken condition such as prayer and fasting. Matthew Henry says that while life lasts, prayer has room.
2 Samuel 12:22
“Who can tell - David, and indeed all others under the Mosaic dispensation, were so satisfied that all God’s threatenings and promises were conditional, that even in the most positive assertions relative to judgments, etc., they sought for a change of purpose. And notwithstanding the positive declaration of Nathan, relative to the death of the child, David sought for its life, not knowing but that might depend on some unexpressed condition, such as earnest prayer, fasting, humiliation, etc., and in these he continued while there was hope.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Ambrose of Milan held that David stopped weeping when the child died, knowing that he was with Christ. Ambrose sets beside it David's later grief for Amnon and Absalom.
2 Samuel 12:23
“I fast - Seeing fasting and prayer cannot now prevail with God for his life. I shall go to him - Into the state of the dead in which he is, and into heaven, where I doubt not I shall find him.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
2 more voices on this verse
2 Samuel 12:23
“I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me - It is not clear whether David by this expressed his faith in the immortality of the soul; going to him may only mean, I also shall die, and be gathered to my fathers, as he is. But whether David expressed this or not, we know that the thing is true; and it is one of the most solid grounds of consolation to surviving friends that they shall by and by be joined to them in a state of conscious existence.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 Samuel 12:23
“We shall be with them shortly, to part no more. Though David's marrying Bath-sheba had displeased the Lord, yet he was not therefore commanded to divorce her; so far from this that God gave him that son by her on whom the covenant of royalty should be entailed. Bath-sheba, no doubt, was greatly afflicted with the sense of her sin and the tokens of God's displeasure.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Solomon born, and named Jedidiah
2 Samuel 12:24-25
the Lord loved him: Bathsheba bears a son named Solomon, peaceable, and the Lord loved him, the grace side of the chapter standing beside its judgment. Nathan, the same prophet who had just pronounced the sentence, is sent to give the child a second name, Jedidiah, beloved of the Lord, which Adam Clarke calls the first instance in Scripture of a prophet naming another man's child. The two names carried by one boy hold both halves of the chapter, the household's peace after its sword and the love of God reaching the very union that began in sin. Jamieson Fausset and Brown read the Lord's love for Solomon as a mark of grace measured against the marriage's own beginning, not a verdict that erased it.
2 Samuel 12:24
“David comforted Bath-sheba - His extraordinary attachment to this beautiful woman was the cause of all his misfortunes. He called his name Solomon - This name seems to have been given prophetically, for שלמה sholomah signifies peaceable, and there was almost uninterrupted peace during his reign.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 more voices on this verse
2 Samuel 12:24
“And David comforted Bathsheba his wife,.... Which is the first time she is so called, Uriah being dead, and David having married her; which though at first displeasing to the Lord, because the circumstances attending it, was afterwards confirmed by him. Bathsheba no doubt was very much distressed, and greatly disconsolate, on account of the sin she had committed, and because of the wrath and displeasure of God, and because of the death of the child, which was a token of it; and she might have some scruples in her mind whether it was lawful to continue cohabiting with David.”
2 Samuel 12:24
“They called him Solomon--peaceful, because his birth was a token of God's being at peace with them, because of the prosperity which was entailed upon him, and because he was to be a type of Christ, the prince of peace.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Albert Barnes notes that Jedidiah shares its root, to love, with the name David. He compares God's naming of Abraham, Sarah and Israel. Adam Clarke observes that the name Solomon, given by the father, is the one that lasted.
2 Samuel 12:25
“Called - Jedidiah - ידידיה, literally, the beloved of the Lord. This is the first instance I remember of a minister of God being employed to give a name to the child of one of his servants. But it is strange that the name given by the father was that alone which prevailed.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Rabbah falls, and its crown is set on David's head
2 Samuel 12:26-28
took the royal city: While the household drama of the chapter's first half plays out, the siege of Rabbah has been running in the background since chapter eleven opened with kings going out to battle and David staying home. Joab takes the city of waters, the lower town built on its stream, and sends word to David rather than finishing the conquest himself. John Wesley and Matthew Henry both read Joab's restraint as deference to his king's honour, calling David to the field so that the victory is counted to his name and not to his general's. The request also quietly restores David to the field he had avoided at the start of chapter eleven, the very absence that opened the door to Bathsheba.
2 Samuel 12:26
“And took the royal city - How can this be, when Joab sent to David to come to take the city, in consequence of which David did come and take that city? The explanation seems to be this: Rabbah was composed of a city and citadel; the former, in which was the king’s residence, Joab had taken, and supposed he could soon render himself master of the latter, and therefore sends to David to come and take it, lest, he taking the whole, the city should be called after his name.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
2 Samuel 12:26
“Joab fought against Rabbah--The time during which this siege lasted, since the intercourse with Bath-sheba, and the birth of at least one child, if not two, occurred during the progress of it, probably extended over two years.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Clarke says the Hebrew can mean that Joab cut off the water supply of the city, as Josephus reports. Barnes places the upper city on a hill north of the stream. Without water, the citadel lay ready for David to capture.
2 Samuel 12:27
“The city of waters - The lower town of Rabbah (the modern Ammam), so called from a stream which rises within it and flows through it. The upper town with the citadel lay on a hill to the north of the stream, and was probably not tenable for any length of time after the supply of water was cut off.”
Jamieson, Fausset and Brown note that Eastern kings kept the honours of war for themselves. A city took the name of its conqueror, so the final assault had to be the king's own. A large force was raised for it.
2 Samuel 12:29-31
gathered all the people together: David gathers the people, comes to Rabbah, and finishes what Joab began, taking the Ammonite king's crown, a talent of gold set with precious stones, onto his own head. Matthew Henry notes the irony of a man under such recent conviction reaching for a crown's glory rather than laying it at God's feet, a small echo of the same appetite chapter eleven exposed. The chapter's last verse records David putting the Ammonites to hard labour with saws and axes and the brickkiln, and John Wesley reads the harshness as the mark of a heart not yet fully returned to its former mercy. The chapter that opened with a shepherd's ewe lamb closes with a king's captured crown, the household sentence of verse ten still running its course through the chapters ahead.
2 Samuel 12:29
“And David gathered all the people together,.... The soldiers that were with him, or near him; which was done partly to recruit Joab's troops, who, by the continuance of the siege, and the sallies of the enemy on them, might be greatly diminished; and partly to make conquests of other cities of the Ammonites, and to carry off the spoil of them: and went to Rabbah; which must be after the death of Uriah, and very probably during the time of Bathsheba's mourning for him: and fought against it, and took it; by assault.”
Albert Barnes notes that the word for their king is also the name of Malcam, the Ammonite god, and he takes the crown as the idol's. A talent of gold weighed over a hundred pounds. John Wesley and Adam Clarke read the talent as its value, and Jamieson, Fausset and Brown picture the crown hung above the throne.
2 Samuel 12:30
“The weight whereof was a talent of gold - If this talent was only seven pounds, as Whiston says, David might have carried it on his head with little difficulty; but this weight, according to common computation, would amount to more than one hundred pounds! If, however, משקלה mishkalah be taken for the value, not the weight then all is plain as the worth of the crown will be about £5075 15s. 7d. sterling.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 more voices on this verse
2 Samuel 12:30
“The weight - Or rather, the price whereof, &c. For the same words both in Hebrew, Greek and Latin, are used, to signify either weight, or price. And the addition of precious stones, which are never valued by the weight of gold, makes this signification most probable.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
2 Samuel 12:30
“Its great weight makes it probable that it was like many ancient crowns, not worn, but suspended over the head, or fixed on a canopy on the top of the throne. the precious stones--Hebrew, "stone"; was a round ball composed of pearls and other jewels, which was in the crown, and probably taken out of it to be inserted in David's own crown.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Clarke says 1 Chronicles 20:3 reads he sawed where this verse reads he put, the two Hebrew words a part of one letter apart. He takes both as forced work with saws, picks and axes. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown read it as torture, repaying Ammonite cruelty at 1 Samuel 11:2.
2 Samuel 12:31
“For the saw as an implement of torture compare Heb 11:37. Harrows of iron - Or rather thrashing-machines (Isa 28:27; Isa 41:15, etc.). Axes - The word so rendered occurs only here and in 1Ch 20:3. It evidently means some cutting instrument.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Samuel 12:31
“And therefore it is probable, David exercised this cruelty whilst his heart was hardened, and impenitent; and when he was bereaved of that good spirit of God, which would have taught him more mercy.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
How this psalm is built
The form: A prophetic confrontation built on a parable, closing with a pardon, a sentence, and the war the chapter's opening had suspended, as Samuel classes it.
A You struck down Uriah with the sword of the Ammonites
2 Samuel 12:9
B You took the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your own
2 Samuel 12:10
X You acted in secret; I will do this in broad daylight before all Israel
2 Samuel 12:12
B′ I will take your wives and give them to another before your eyes
2 Samuel 12:11
A′ The sword will never depart from your house
2 Samuel 12:10
The patterns in this chapter
| Device | What it does | Where to see it |
|---|---|---|
| The parable that takes its own verdict | Nathan comes to David as a judge is asked to judge, and lays out a case rather than an accusation. David passes sentence at 12:5 and 12:6 before he knows he is the subject, and Nathan's whole reply is four words at 12:7. Adam Clarke reads David's own mouth as passing his own sentence, since the Hebrew calls the man a son of death.Matthew Henry and Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710, and Commentary on the Bible, 1832, on 2 Samuel 12:1 to 12:6, as this site's published exposition notes on those verses report them. | 2 Samuel 12:1, 2 Samuel 12:5, 2 Samuel 12:6, 2 Samuel 12:7 |
| The lamb and the wife | Every part of the parable answers a part of chapter 11. A rich man with many flocks stands for a king with many wives, and the one ewe lamb that ate from the poor man's dish stands for Uriah's wife. The parable never names its terms, and David completes them himself.Matthew Henry and John Gill, Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710, and Exposition of the Old Testament, 1748 to 1763, on 2 Samuel 12:1 to 12:3, as this site's published exposition note on those verses reports them. | 2 Samuel 12:2, 2 Samuel 12:3, 2 Samuel 12:4, 2 Samuel 12:9 |
| In secret and before the sun | The sentence at 12:11 and 12:12 is built as a reversal. What David did in secret will be done to him in daylight, and what he did to another man's wife will be done to his own wives. The evil is raised up out of his own house. The narrative answers the sentence exactly at 16:22, on the roof where chapter 11 began.John Gill and Keil and Delitzsch, Exposition of the Old Testament, 1748 to 1763, and Biblical Commentary on the Books of Samuel, on 2 Samuel 12:10 to 12:12, as this site's published exposition note on those verses reports them. | 2 Samuel 12:11, 2 Samuel 12:12, 2 Samuel 16:22 |
| The two names of one son | The boy born at 12:24 is named Solomon, from the root for peace, and Nathan brings a second name at 12:25, Jedidiah, beloved of the LORD. Adam Clarke calls this the first instance in Scripture of a prophet naming another man's child. The two names carry the two halves of the chapter.Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible, 1832, on 2 Samuel 12:25, as this site's published exposition note on verses 24 and 25 reports him. | 2 Samuel 12:24, 2 Samuel 12:25 |
The debated concept: the fourfold restitution
14 more paragraphs on the patterns
David's sentence at 12:6 sets the restitution at four lambs. Albert Barnes identifies that as the exact number the Law prescribes, with Exodus 22:1 behind it and Zacchaeus at Luke 19:8 acting on it. Barnes also records that the Septuagint reads sevenfold here, as at Proverbs 6:31, so the figure is a textual question as well as a legal one.
The older writers read the four back on David himself and count the child of 12:18, then Amnon at 13:29, then Absalom at 18:14, then Adonijah at 1 Kings 2:25. This site's published exposition note on verses 4 to 6 states the count and states its limit in the same place, that it is their reading rather than the text's own arithmetic. This row carries it as a position with its holders and takes no verdict.
The debated concept: what David means at 12:23
David says he will go to the child and the child will not return to him. Adam Clarke holds that it is unclear whether David is stating faith in the immortality of the soul, since going to him may mean only that David will die and be gathered to his fathers. John Wesley reads the same clause as David's confidence that he will find his son in heaven.
The two readings are set out here with their holders under the estate's practice of naming positions. The text states the fact of the going and does not define the place.
The New Testament's use
The New Testament does not quote this chapter. It reaches the chapter twice by another road.
Matthew 1:6 carries Solomon in the genealogy of Jesus and names his mother as her of Uriah, so the line to Christ runs through the marriage this chapter ends with. Romans 3:4 quotes Psalm 51:4, and Psalm 51 is the psalm the church has always read beside this chapter. This site's published exposition note at 12:13 records that the psalm sets itself here by its Hebrew title. The database does not store those titles, so the link cannot be shown from the reader floor by query.
The historical value
The siege at the chapter's close is a real operation against a real capital. Rabbah stood on the upper Jabbok and its lower town held the water, which is why Joab's capture of the city of waters at 12:27 ends the siege in substance.
The parallel account stands at 1 Chronicles 20:1 to 20:3, and it carries the fall of Rabbah without the household narrative. A student comparing the two books should notice that Chronicles keeps the war and leaves out the sin.
The reading of 12:31
The Berean text says David put the people of the city to work with saws, iron picks and axes, and made them work at the brick kilns. The older commentators read the same verse more harshly. Albert Barnes takes the saw as an implement of torture and compares Hebrews 11:37, and John Wesley calls it cruelty exercised while David's heart was hardened.
The question is where the verbs and the tools point, and the answer decides whether the verse records forced labour or execution. The positions are set out here with their holders, and the row takes no verdict.
Keep studying
Studies5
Words12
Subjects1
Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The form and classifications
This site's published guide to 2 Samuel, src/components/book/guides/2-samuel/Book2SamuelGuide.tsx, act II, the beat at chapter 12 and This site's published theology of 2 Samuel.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes; Ambrose of Milan, Consolation on the Death of Emperor Valentinian; Jamieson Fausset and Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament; Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Books of Samuel and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.