Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of 2 Samuel 12:4
And there came a traveler unto the rich man, and he spared to take of his own flock and of his own herd, to dress for the wayfaring man that was come unto him; but took the poor man’s lamb, and dressed it for the man that was come to him.
4. “The apologue of the rich man and the ewe lamb ventures to disregard all particulars, and is content to aim at awakening the general sense of outraged justice. It fastens on the essential guilt of David’s sin; not its sensuality or its impurity, so much as its meanness and selfishness A true description of a real incident, if like in its general character however unlike to our own case in all the surrounding particulars, strikes home with greater force than the sternest personal invective.” Stanley’s Lect. II. 90.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
A traveller: this some make to be the devil, whom David gratified by his sin; but it rather seems added for the decency of the parable.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
And there came a traveller unto the rich man,…. By which some understand Satan, who came to David, and stirred up his lust by the temptations that offered; who is a walker, as the word used signifies, that goes about seeking whom he may devour, and is with good men only as a wayfaring man, who does not abide with them; and whose temptations, when they succeed with such, are as meat and drink to him, very entertaining but the Jews generally understand it of the evil imagination or concupiscence in man, the lustful appetite in David, that wandered after another man’s wife, and wanted to be satiated with her:
and he spared to take of his own flock, and of his own herd, to dress for the wayfaring man that came unto him; when his heart was inflamed with lust at the sight of Bathsheba, he did not go as he might, and take one of his wives and concubines, whereby he might have satisfied and repressed his lust:
but took the poor man’s lamb, and dressed it for the man that came to him; sent for Bathsheba and lay with her, for the gratification of his lust, she being a young beautiful woman, and more agreeable to his lustful appetite. The Jews, in their Talmud r, observe a gradation in these words that the evil imagination is represented first as a traveller that passes by a man, and lodges not with him; then as a wayfaring man or host, that passes in and lodges with him; and at last as a man, as the master of the house that rules over him, and therefore called the man that came to him.
r T. Bab. Succah, fol. 52. 2. Jarchi, Kimchi, & Abarbinel in loc.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
BENEVOLENT AT A POOR BROTHERS EXPENSE
2Sa 12:4
THE Old Testament does not deal so largely in parables as its complementary volumethe New. Even those that are found in the Old Testament seem inferior to the wonderful word-paintings that Christ has hung in the gallery of every Scripture-filled mind. But the Scripture from which we bring this text is the exception to this Old Testament rule. Dr. Joseph Parker voices a feeling that many have experienced when reading this chapter, by saying, This parable of Nathans stands up before us, a thing unrivalled in beauty, complete as a dew-drop, fragrant as a flower, yetfor the figure may be changed even without violencea picture painted in the sky. If there is anything superior to it, our only desire is to know where it is and to look upon it. In many of its features it reminds one of the parables of Christ. Like some of them it presents contrasted conditions of domestic life. Like many of them it appeals to ones sympathy for the poor and the oppressed. Like all of them, its moral teachingthe main point of its creationis not in dispute. David did not see himself in the parable, but he saw every purpose it had, and was ready to pronounce judgment against the man who had so behaved.
MODERN DAVIDS
The parable has a very present application. The modern city is literally full of men who are doing over this misdeed of David. They are rich, and assume to be hospitable, and benevolent, butif we would not drag skeletons from perfumed closets we had better not ask, At whose expense is their liberality practiced?
There are among us many who senselessly defame the rich. The fact that a man has been hardworking and frugal enough to lay up something is a poor occasion to count him a sinner above his fellows. But there are also among us some who deem the rich the undisputed lords of earthmen whose money-genius makes the criticism of their conduct a scandal to him who utters it. The first are predisposed to anarchy, the last to plutocracy, and between them there is but little choice. The sane thing, and the thing warranted by Scripture, is that of setting up a common standard of honesty, integrity, character, and asking the rich and the poor to stand side by side under that! That was Nathans idea, and that is His idea who is no respecter of persons.
But to turn from the consideration of the parable as a whole to the study of specific suggestions, we are impressed that this is a lesson we should learn, and one upon which we should insist with emphasis; namely,
His method of money-getting is one measure of the man. You have no right to condemn David because he is rich. But you have a perfect right, yea, a solemn obligation to ask how he got his riches. You cant know a man to trust or love him until you have that question answered.
By it you can determine his thoughthis mind. It is quite impossible for a man to amass great fortunes without great mental excitement and strain. But some men keep so close to God that the mind is not money warped; while others keep so close to mammon that the mind becomes a metallifacture, and nothing enters it but that which can be worked to the advantage of a bank account.
Mr. Darwin tells us that in his early life he was passionately fond of poetry, music and art. But he gave himself so assiduously to scientific research that he dried up the fountains of the old affection, and so art affected him with ennui, music with displeasure and poetry with disgust. So, if a man applies himself so assiduously to getting gold that all ethical and moral faculties are neglected in him, they will die out of the mind, and the reports of the pork-market will be poetry to him; the figures on silver bills the only masterpieces of art, while no other music starts a throb in his soul, save the clinking of gold and silver as it falls into his chest.
A mans method of money-getting also interprets his heart. The emotions of human life are born of unseen motives, and become the visible indicators of the invisible springs of the soul. You cant tell what a man thinks in his heart except as you study his outward acts, and as he thinketh in his heart, so is he. The man whose mind is constantly engaged with the problems of amassing fortunes, is sure to get money on the heart as well as on the brain. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. I heard Dr. Phillip Moxom, before he went adrift, stand before a great anniversary gathering in Boston and plead the cause of Spanish missions; and, when about to finish his impassioned address, he said, Brethren, if, when I am dead, you open my heart, you will find in it the likeness of Spain. I have carried that country in my heart so long, that I know the impression is permanent. It was a better speech, and nobler, than any man of money greed can make. Common honesty would compel him to say, If, when I am dead, you open my heart, look to its center, and on the inside fore lobe see the American Eagle, on the other the Goddess of Liberty and about them both the circle of current coin; I have given them so constant a place in my affections that I know the impression is permanent.
A mans method of money-getting may seal the doom of the immortal spirit. To get money honestly is a virtue. To get it dishonestly is a vice, and as sure as the honest man has some hope of Heaven, so the man who makes gold his god, and sacrifices his own flesh to it, has a good prospect of hell. To get rich by robbing the poor is to sell the soul. You remember what James said of such millionaires, or bond-holders,
Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you.
Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth eaten.
Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire (Jas 5:1-3).
We know of no worse calamity that could ever come to some men than to have the record of their financial transactions meet them at the judgment.
I saw, by the papers one day years ago, that many of the employees in the Philadelphia Mint came near losing their lives. Two millions of dollars, stored in Vault C. fell and it was with desperate struggles that men and women escaped being buried beneath the tons of gold and crushed to death. If Judas shall never get from beneath his thirty pieces of silver, what shall the soul do beneath millions that are the price of blood?
THE THING SUPPOSEDLY COVERED IS SURE TO COME ABROAD
Ones secret is not safe because the subject of his evil perishes without suspecting it. Uriah little knew that David was both robbing and murdering him, taking his life to get his most precious possession. He thought it all came in the natural course of warfare. So it often is in the marts of trade. A few years ago there were many small shops in our great city centers that brought their owners good returns. The small grocery, dry goods store, meat shop, sufficed to support families, and the houses were happy. By and by the battle of trade waxed hot, and one after another of these fell before the competing hosts. They never laid it to the charge of anyone. They died, little dreaming that they had been the victims of deeply laid schemes. Their houses were broken up, and the destitute daughters were kindly taken into the house of David, the very King who had ordered the battle, and planned the bankruptcy and commercial death of this unsuspecting man. Those shop girls do not now know that he who so kindly (?) employs them to his own advantage deliberately despoiled their house. But it is an open secret, notwithstanding.
It didnt get out through Davids trusted man. The tribe of Joab has increased. It is one of the most alarming symptoms of our modern trade systems that servants of money kings are willing to be silent about their masters sin. Here is a man who wishes to steal a million from Chicago in the shape of a franchise. His lawyers, professedly respectable men, are ready to serve him and be silent. His banker, a very Zimri Dwiggins for religion, takes a deposit and pays it out, on order, to aldermen and never opens his head about corruption. They smile and say, Oh, well, it isnt business to tell all you know! They forget that it is criminal business to be in the secret of crime and be silent about it. Here is a street car corporation that runs over a man and kills him. The brakeman and conductor are called. The Company asks how it happened. They say, The brakes were out of order when we brought the train out of the barn. Some member of the firm turns the key in the door and says, My God, man, dont say that! If that comes abroad they will sue us and receive a judgment against us. The motorman and conductor go before the coroners jury and are dummies. They dont know anything, except the fellow got on the track and was killed. Meanwhile a young mother cries for comfort that comes not, and young children go naked and hungry, while the Davids of Corporations wear purple, and the Joabs remain silent and keep their job. But just the same the thing is not covered! The secret is not buried when you cart the human carcass to the potters field and put a padlock on the lips of eye-witnesses.
God saw it and ordered it on record. David must meet it again. Some prophet thunders it at him. Some judgment strikes him, and as he sits in sackcloth waiting for its severity to pass, he remembers his sin and acknowledges it, or he remembers it and hides it more deeply still and dies with the deeper stain accusing him. It is all folly to suppose that because the wicked flourish as a green bay-tree God is not cognizant, or has lost His notes, of their misdeeds. Gods delays in executing judgment are not to be interpreted as His compromise with sin. The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some men count slackness; but is long suffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
You will remember that Beckford in Vathek, makes Solimanthe lost Prophet Spirit, to tell the Caliph how he came to be in the pit. He had been on a throne of earth, knew all honor and luxury, and engaged in much lust, and worshipped at altars of idols. After telling the glories of his station and the extravagance of his living, he said, For a while I enjoyed myself in the zenith of glory and pleasure; not only men, but supernatural existences were subject also to my will. I began to think, as these unhappy monarchs around had already thought, that the vengeance of Heaven was asleep, when at once the thunder burst my structures asunder and precipitated me hither. Till this cataract shall cease to flow I am in torments. An unrelenting fire preys on my heart! Having uttered this exclamation, Soliman raised his hands toward Heaven, in token of supplication, and the Caliph discerned through his bosom which was transparent as crystal, his heart enveloped in flames. Let us not complain against the apparent prosperity of wicked men. Let us pity them rather. Their secrets will be out soon enough. Soon enough will their judgment come, and when it is seen, it will seem sufficiently terrible. There are men in every great city today, whose financial success is the envy of many, who would seem subjects of the profoundest pity, if only one could see the flame that eats at their heart, and is replenished daily by all the demons at Mammons command.
But our text is an emphatic suggestion of another truth.
Benevolence practiced at a poor brothers cost goes unblessed. The world has many who are hospitable but unholy, benevolent, yet bloodstained.
Christian benevolence requires personal cleanliness. Davids charity, at the hour of our text, was worm-eaten and in decay. It is the sort that Satan deals in. I knew a man to so live that his name was a stench in all the church to which he belonged, and yet he gave to its finances with a liberal hand. I knew a company of young men to exploit their noble purposes by making up a purse to send to a health asylum a poor girl, whom they had so wrecked in body that she no longer satisfied their lecherous desires. Such charity invites Gods bitterest curse!
A dishonest man cannot be a benevolent man. You must be just before you can be generous! Some of our public benefactors will hunt Heaven in vain to find there any note of their munificence, but their record as good-givers will be read aloud in the light of the eternal fires.
I believe with the unfortunate George D. Herron that The philanthropy of selfishness and covetousness is the social anti-Christ. The adulation which the religious press lavishes upon the benevolences of Mammon, the adoration which it receives from the pulpit, converts the Church into an apostle of Atheism to the people. The priests who accompanied the pirate-ships of the 16th century, to say mass and pray for the dead pirates for a share of the spoils, were not a whit more superstitious or guilty of human blood, according to the light of their teaching, than Protestant leaders who flatter the ghastly philanthropy of men who have heaped their colossal fortunes upon the bodies of their brothers.
It may be natural enough for a minister to court men of wealth, thinking their favor means increased salary for himself, increased facilities for his work, increased offerings to every good cause. It is my hope that such prosperity may come to the frugal young men of my fold that one day they will be able to meet the larger demands of a many-sided Church of Christ. But, it is my prayer that we should remain poor together, and our progress be measured and slow, rather than prosper by the help of immoral and scheming hands. The Rams Horn once said as truthfully as tersely, No church is ever made a bit stronger by having an unrepentant sinner with a pocket full of money, walk up and join it.
SELF-OFFERED
The most Christian benevolence is that which offers Self in Sacrifice. Christs own example is warrant for that word. Dr. Northrup once said, When Christ wanted to redeem the world from sin, He didnt send a check on His Fathers bank. He came Himself. When Christ wanted to redeem us by an offering of blood, He didnt lay some weak angel on the altar of human need, and offer him against his will. He lay His own body and spirit there. That is the benevolence that is blessed. Our first duty to the wayfaring man who comes in unto us is not a stolen lamb, nor yet an honest offering from our own flocks. He needs more than that, and something better than that. Our kitchen charity never saves the tramp; our liberal offering of money does not assure the heathens salvation. You and I, as consecrated men and women, are what they want. Let us prove our kinship to Christ by offering ourselves in love. Lowell said, The only conclusive evidence of a mans sincerity is that he gives himself for a principle. Words, money, all things else, are comparatively easy to give away; but when a man makes a gift of his daily life and practice, it is plain that the truth whatever it may be, has taken possession of him.
If we but gave ourselves to Christ what we have would be His indeed, subject to His call, and money offerings would be easy. If only we would give ourselves to our fellows first, then what we win or own, they would share in love.
Fuente: The Bible of the Expositor and the Evangelist by Riley
4. Spared to take of his own David had Saul’s harem, and all the house of Israel, from which to take young virgins as wives, without interfering with Uriah’s possessions. Compare 2Sa 12:8.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
2Sa 12:4 And there came a traveller unto the rich man, and he spared to take of his own flock and of his own herd, to dress for the wayfaring man that was come unto him; but took the poor man’s lamb, and dressed it for the man that was come to him.
Ver. 4. And there came a traveller. ] This was the devil, say some, whom David feasted by abusing Bathsheba; and indeed he is a great traveller and trudge-over-the-world. Job 1:7 1Pe 5:8 Others – and better – understand it of fleshly lust, which beareth the name of the mother, called in general concupiscence or corruption; this to good David was but a stranger, and not a home dweller: and it must be our care, that though corruption enter, it may not be entertained – “How long shall thy vain thoughts lodge within thee?” Jer 4:14 – lest the traveller become the man of the house, lest the Lurdan (Lord-Dane) play rex in the soul.
And he spared to take of his own flock.
But took the poor man’s lamb.] So sweet are stolen waters, and so pleasant is bread of secrecies, or eaten in hugger-mugger. Pro 9:17
“ Quod licet ingratum est, quod non licet acrius urit:
Sic interdietis imminet roger aquis. ” – Ovid.
And dressed it for the man that was come to him. ] This was for lack of true charity, doubtless, which biddeth a man to make bold with his own, and not to meddle with others’ goods. Nevertheless that saying of Gul. Parisiensis hath a great deal of truth in it, Charitas est fur fidelissimus et innocentissimus: quia omnia bona proximoram sua facit, neque tamen illi adimit. Charity is a most faithful and most innocent thief: for why? it maketh all another man’s good its own, without taking anything away from him.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
a traveller: Gen 18:2-7, Jam 1:14
took the: 2Sa 11:3, 2Sa 11:4
Reciprocal: Pro 5:19 – be thou ravished always with her love
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
CHRISTIAN CHARITY
And there came a traveller unto the rich man, and he spared to take of his own flock and of his own herd, to dress for the wayfaring man that was come unto him.
2Sa 12:4
The mixture of gold and clay of which our nature is composed is nowhere so strikingly displayed as in the constant tendency of men to conceive lofty purposes, and then to attain them by mean and sordid methods. The high impulse and the low self-indulgent method are both real, and this confused and contradictory humanity of ours is able to attain them both. We are always building steps of straw to climb to heights of gold.
There is real charity in the impulse of the rich man in Samuel, there is essential meanness in his act. He really wanted to help the poor traveller who came to him, but he wanted to help him with another mans property, to feed him on a neighbours sheep. A great deal of our official charity comes very near the pattern of this ancient benefactor.
I. One of the truths about the advancing culture of a human nature is, that it is always deepening the idea of possession and making it more intimate.There are deepening degrees of ownership, and as each one of them becomes real to a man, the previous ownerships get a kind of unreality. With this deepening of the idea of property, the idea of charity must deepen also. No relief of need is satisfactory which stops short of at least the effort to inspire character, to make the poor man a sharer in what is at least the substance of the rich mans wealth. And at the bottom of this profounder conception of charity there must lie a deeper and more spiritual conception of property. The rich mans wealth, what is it? Not his money. It is something which came to him in the slow accumulation of his money. It is a character into which enter those qualities that make true and robust manliless in all the ages and throughout the world: independence, intelligence, and the love of struggle.
II. This makes charity a far more exacting thing than it could be without such an idea.It clothes it in self-sacrifice. It requires the entrance into it of a high motive.
III. The deeper conception of benefaction which will not rest satisfied with anything short of the imparting of character still does not do away with the inferior and more superficial ideas.It uses the lower forms of gift as means or types or pledges. The giving of money is ennobled by being made the type of a Diviner gift which lies beyond.
Bishop Phillips Brooks.
Illustrations
(1) Detestable as was the double guilt of this dark story, we must still remember that David was not an Alfred or a Saint Louis. He was an Eastern king, exposed to all the temptations of a king of Ammon or Damascus then, of a Sultan of Bagdad or Constantinople in modern times. What follows, however, could have been found nowhere in the ancient world but in the Jewish monarchy. A year had passed; the child of guilt was born in the royal house, and loved with all the passionate tenderness of Davids paternal heart. Suddenly the prophet Nathan appears before him. He comes as if to claim redress for a wrong in humble life. It was the true prophetic spirit that spoke through Nathans mouth. The apologue of the rich man and the ewe lamb has, besides its own intrinsic tenderness, a supernatural elevation, which is the best sign of true Revelation. It ventures to disregard all particulars, and is content to aim at awakening the general sense of outraged justice. It fastens on the essential guilt of Davids sinnot its sensuality or its impurity, so much as its meanness and selfishness. It rouses the kings conscience by that teaching described as specially characteristic of prophecy, making manifest his own sin in the indignation which he has expressed at the sin of another. Thou art the man is, or ought to be, the conclusion, expressed or unexpressed, of every practical sermon.
(2) Nathan puts his parable in such life-like form that the king has no suspicion of its real character. The rich robber that spared his own flocks and herds to feed the traveller, and stole the poor mans ewe lamb, is a real flesh-and-blood criminal to him. And the deed is so dastardly, its heartlessness is so atrocious, that it is not enough to enforce against such a wretch the ordinary law of fourfold restitution; in the exercise of his high prerogative the king pronounces a sentence of death upon the ruffian, and confirms it with the solemnity of an oathThe man that hath done this thing shall surely die. The flash of indignation is yet in his eye, the flush of resentment is still on his brow, when the prophet, with calm voice and piercing eye, utters the solemn words, Thou art the man! Thou, great king of Israel, the robber, the ruffian, condemned by thine own voice to the death of the worst malefactor.
(2) The man who sneers at David does not know his own heart, nor does he dream how a fierce, hot breath might consume to ashes his own boastful superiority! The true man will profit by Davids example, and double the guard over his own conduct; while he will be profoundly grateful that even for David was there forgiveness with God. It is the parable of the prodigal in real life. It will send no man into the slums, but it will encourage many a man to come back or to call a halt in his course. There are scars upon your soul, perhaps; there are secrets that haunt and curse you; there are memories that torment you; but the gate of return is open, and He who pardoned David has mercy for thousands, and will make you whiter than snow if you come to Him with a broken heart.
Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary
2Sa 12:4. There came a traveller unto the rich man This aptly signifies Davids roving affection, which he suffered to wander from his own home, and to covet another mans wife. The Jewish doctors say it represents the evil disposition or desire that is in us, which must be carefully watched and resisted when we feel its motions. But took the poor mans lamb Nathan, in this parable, omits touching the murder committed to cover the adultery, perhaps in order that David might not readily apprehend his meaning, and so be induced, unawares, to pronounce sentence of condemnation upon himself.