2 Samuel 12:22

Holy David lost two sons. One was guilty of incest, the other of fratricide. To have had them caused him shame; to have lost them brought him grief. He also lost a third, a child whom he loved. He wept over him while he was still alive, but he did not long for him after he died. For so we read that when the boy fell sick, David besought the Lord for him and fasted and lay upon sackcloth, and, although the elders approached him and tried to make him get up from the ground, he resolved neither to rise nor to eat. After he learned that the boy was dead, however, he arose from the ground, bathed upon the spot, anointed himself, changed clothing, worshiped the Lord and took food. Since this seemed strange to his servants, he answered that while the child was still alive, he had rightly fasted and wept, because he justly thought that God might pity him and was certain that he who could restore the dead to life could surely preserve the life of one still living. But now that the child was dead, why should he fast, since he could not bring him back from death and restore him to life. "I shall go to him rather;" he said, "but he shall not return to me."What greater consolation to a mourner! What a true judgment from a wise man! What wonderful wisdom exhibited by a servant! [Thus] no one should protest that some misfortune has befallen him and complain that he has been afflicted contrary to his merit. For who are you to proclaim your merit beforehand? Why do you desire to anticipate your judge? Why do you snatch the verdict from the mouth of him who is going to pronounce it?

King David loved his child, and sat indeed in sackcloth and ashes, but he neither brought soothsayers, nor enchanters, (although there were such then, as Saul shows,) but he made supplication to God. So do thou likewise: as that just man did, so do thou also; the same words say thou, when thy child is dead, "I shall go to him, but he will not come to me." This is true wisdom, this is affection. However much thou mayst love thy child, thou wilt not love so much as he did then. For even though his child were born of adultery, yet that blessed man's love of the mother was at its height, and ye know that the offspring shares the love of the parents. And so great was his love toward it, that he even wished it to live, though it would be his own accuser, but still he gave thanks to God.

And he said, while the child was yet alive,....

When our relations and friends have fallen sick, the prayer of faith has prevailed much; while there is life there is hope, and, while there is hope, there is room for prayer.

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.