However, being the king and chief judge has its perks. It is easy to be above the law. No one has judicial power over you. David sits on his royal throne untouched, that is, until God intervenes. The Lord sends Nathan the prophet to confront David.
Even though Nathan is a prophet of God, he must watch his steps before the king, especially one who has just murdered an innocent servant. Because of this, Nathan comes before David and simply tells a story. The story goes something like this: There was a rich man and a poor man. The rich man had a big house, lots of money, and lots of sheep and goats. The poor man had a little house and just one little lamb that he loved so dearly that it slept in his bed every night as a beloved pet. One day, the rich man had an out-of-town visitor, and he wanted to lay a big feast before him. But instead of using one of his own sheep, he went next door to the poor man’s house, took away the beloved pet lamb, and slaughtered it to feed to his guest. This vicious thief’s dinner roused David’s ire, and he cried out, “As the LORD lives, the man who has done this deserves to die!” (2 Sm 12:5). With powerful poetic irony, David thus calls down a curse upon himself. To add icing on the cake and seal David’s guilt, Nathan points his finger at David and says, “You are the man!” (2 Sm 12:7).
I can imagine David’s face turning white as a sheet as the full realization of what has just happened strikes him. “If Nathan knows, everyone knows. I just cursed the man in the name of the Lord, but I am the man!” The judgment has been pronounced. David realizes that his toxic sins would be justly punished by death. The prophet lists David’s sins in detail and announces his punishment, yet Nathan actually has some good news: “you shall not die.” But it is worth looking in detail at what the punishment will be:
“Now therefore the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised me, and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife. Thus says the LORD, ‘Behold, I will raise up evil against you out of your own house; and I will take your wives before your eyes, and give them to your neighbor, and he shall lie with your wives in the sight of this sun. For you did it secretly; but I will do this thing before all Israel, and before the sun.’” David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the LORD.” And Nathan said to David, “The LORD also has put away your sin; you shall not die. Nevertheless, because by this deed you have utterly scorned the LORD, the child that is born to you shall die.” (2 Sm 12:10-14)
In the drama of the story, David fasts and prays for the life of the baby born from the adulterous union, but it eventually dies of illness. After the baby’s death, David responds: “Why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he will not return to me” (2 Sm 12:23).
The Punishment of David
Interestingly, the Lord forgives David but still punishes him. Many preachers use a baseball analogy to explain this one. If you’re in the backyard and hit a ball through your neighbor’s window, the neighbor might forgive you, but someone still needs to pay for the window. Here, the same principle is in play. David has broken his covenant with the Lord, “despised” him by his sinful actions. His violation of Bathsheba, his murder of Uriah, and his duplicity all need to be addressed and punished even though the Lord “has put away” his sin. The Lord does not inflict the death penalty on David but does punish him. Now David’s punishment bears some parsing. To me, it looks as if we actually have three distinct punishments: (1) the “sword” will afflict his descendants; (2) his wives will be publicly ravished by his “neighbor”; (3) the baby Bathsheba bore him will die. The weird thing about these punishments from a modern perspective is that none of them afflict David as an individual. Nothing touches him bodily, so we might think: “That’s unfair! All these other people get punished for David’s personal sin. How about David? Why doesn’t he get sick and die?” However, this observation overlooks the interpersonal connectedness of the ancient world and of traditional cultures today.
In these cultures, children and descendants are of paramount importance. They are the future. To harm my children, to afflict them in any way does more damage to me than to harm my body. Even in modern cultures, to threaten someone’s children is to threaten him or her. One needs only to think of action movies in which a child is held for ransom or a spy’s children are kidnapped in order to force an adult to fork over cash or otherwise capitulate. But in David’s case, the Lord’s “sword” threat is especially ominous. Just a few chapters earlier, the Lord had promised that David’s descendants would have an everlasting throne, but now they will have an everlasting sword. This raises a question: Does God want David to be afflicted? I think the answer is no, but David and his descendants will be afflicted as the due punishment, the logical outworking, even the natural consequence of David’s sin. In the same way that a person’s vices—whether smoking, drinking, drug use, et cetera—can harm his or her children, David’s sins will harm his family tree in a grievous way. In fact, as we read through the rest of Samuel and Kings, we see that indeed the sword does not leave David’s royal heirs alone.
David’s punishment bears some parsing. To me, it looks like we actually have three distinct punishments: (1) the “sword” will afflict his descendants; (2) his wives will be publicly ravished by his “neighbor”; (3) the baby Bathsheba bore him will die.
David’s traditional ancient culture included a powerful honor/shame system. In such a culture, to be able to live with honor is more important than to live at all. If a rival publicly humiliates David by ravishing his wives on the palace rooftop, the shame would be unbearable. Indeed, later in his reign, David is forced to flee from Jerusalem when one of his sons usurps the throne. Absalom’s coup is supported by the majority of the people, and as part of his takeover, Absalom publicly goes into a tent to sleep with the ten concubines David had left in the palace when he fled (2 Sm 15:16 and 16:22). On the one hand, Absalom’s despicable act would be part of any throne takeover in a kingdom where the king kept a harem—the possession of the king’s wives and concubines would signify kingship, and the king’s marriages represented diplomatic alliances—so it is a specifically political act, a royal marriage to the former king’s consorts. Similarly, David had taken Saul’s wives when he became king (2 Sm 12:8). On the other hand, we can see in Absalom’s political act a fulfillment of Nathan’s prediction of divine punishment. Indeed, at the instigation of Bathsheba’s grandfather, Ahithophel, David’s courtesans are publicly ravished on the same roof from which he first lusted after Bathsheba.20 The repugnance and poetic justice of it are startling, but the punishment fits the crime. David stole Uriah’s wife, and now his concubines are stolen from him. While it is horrifying to our sensibilities, these women would have been subject to whichever claimant to the throne controlled the palace. For all they knew, Absalom would be their king and husband for the rest of their lives. The punishment, the embarrassment, and the shame fall on David. The women themselves are not punished, but transferred from one claimant to another, albeit unjustly.21 In fact, when David returns, he sets these concubines aside and does not have relations with them again (2 Sm 20:3).
Last, the baby who is the result of David’s union with Bathsheba is clearly not at fault. Yet his father’s sin brings death upon him. Here, our gut jumps up to say: “Hey! It’s not the baby’s fault. Why punish the baby?” But primarily, David is being punished for his sin. He will not get to enjoy this child, for the child is taken away. If death were the end of the story, this would have an unbearable finality to it, yet notice David’s words about the child: “I shall go to him, but he will not return to me” (2 Sm 12:23). David recognizes that in death he will meet his child. While the child suffers death as a result of his father’s sin, in the ultimate course of God’s justice and mercy, death is not the end.
David’s story teaches us a few things about God. God reigns not just as an executive, but as a judge. He sees all that we do and justly determines what we deserve. Sadly, the consequences of our sins and offenses against