Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of 2 Samuel 12:13
And David said unto Nathan, I have sinned against the LORD. And Nathan said unto David, The LORD also hath put away thy sin; thou shalt not die.
13. I have sinned against the Lord] True confession needs but few words. Cp. Luk 18:13. There is no attempt to excuse or palliate the sin. Saul too could say “I have sinned” (1Sa 15:24; 1Sa 15:30), but he felt no real contrition, and his chief desire was to save his own reputation with the people: David is crushed by the sense of his guilt in the sight of God. Cp. Psa 32:5; Psa 51:4. Cp. August. c. Faustum, xxii. 67. “In simili voce quam sensus humanus audiebat, dissimile pectus erat quod divinus oculus discernebat.” “Though the words heard by the human ear were alike, the heart seen by the eye of God was unlike.”
See Keble’s poem for the Sixth Sunday after Trinity in the Christian Year.
thou shalt not die ] The sentence which he had pronounced on himself ( 2Sa 12:5) should not be executed, though he deserved to die as an adulterer and murderer (Lev 20:10; Lev 24:17). The punishment of death would certainly not have been inflicted on the king, who was supreme in the state, by any human authority: but God might Himself have inflicted it. The context shews that temporal death is primarily meant, and though we may now read in the words a reference to spiritual life and death, it may be doubted whether they could be so understood at the time.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
For a comment on Davids 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).
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
2Sa 12:13
And David said unto Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord.
The repentance of David
If we wish to draw any lessons from the repentance of any one, it is a great assistance to us to know something of the character of the man, something of the sin from which he repented, something of the mode by which he was roused to repentance, something of the nature of the repentance itself. All these we have given to us in the case of David.
I. His general character. It is a character difficult, perhaps, to understand, but its very difficulty makes it instructive. It is full of variety, full of impulse, full of genius; it is like the characters of our own later times–complicated, intricate, vast; it covers a great range of characters amongst ourselves; it is not like one class or character only, but like many; it is like you, it is like me; it is like this man and that man. He is the shepherd, and the student, and the poet, and the soldier, and the King. He is the adventurous wanderer, strong and muscular, his feet like steel. He is the silent observer of the heavens by night, the moon and the stars which God has ordained. He is the devoted friend, the first example of youthful friendship, loving Jonathan with a love passing the love of women. He is the generous enemy, sparing his rival. He is the father mourning with passionate grief the loss of his favourite child: O my son Absalom. Again and again we feel that he is one of us–that his feelings, his pleasures, his sympathies, are such as we outwardly love and admire, even if we do not enter into them. But yet more than this, it is exactly that mixture of good and evil which is in ourselves; not all good nor all evil, but a mixture of both–of a higher good, and of a deeper evil, yet still both together. But it is the other side of his character that we are now called to consider; and yet, It is only by considering both sides together that we call draw its true lesson flora either. It was to this tender, and brave, and loving character that the Prophet Nathan came, with the Story of the hard-hearted, mean-spirited man. Every just and generous feeling in Davids heart was roused by the story: its simple pathos, now worn through and through by much repetition, was then felt in all the freshness of its first utterance: his anger was kindled against the man. No lengthened comment can add anything to the startling effect of the disclosure of this sudden descent from all that was high and good to all that was base and miserable.
II. Davids repentance and our own.
1. Let us observe how the Scripture narrative deals with the case. It does not exaggerate–it does not extenuate. Davids goodness is not denied because of his sin, nor his sin because of his goodness. The fact that he was the man after Gods own heart is not thrust out of sight because he was the man of Nathans parable. The fact of his sin is not denied, lest it should give occasion to the enemies of God to blaspheme. This is the first lesson that we learn.
2. The sin of David, and his unconsciousness of his own sin, and so also his repentance through the disclosure to him of his own sin, are exactly what are most likely to take place in characters like his, like ours, made up of mixed forms of good and of evil. The hardened, depraved, worldly man is not ignorant of his sin–he knows it, he defends it, he is accustomed to it. But the good man, or the man who is half good and half bad–he overlooks his sin. His good deeds conceal his bad deeds, often even from others, more often still from himself. Even out of those very gifts which are most noble, most excellent in themselves, may come our chief temptations.
3. Let us observe both the exact point of Nathans warning, and the exact point of Davids repentance. It is most instructive to observe that Nathan in his parable calls attention, not to the sensuality and cruelty of Davids crime, but simply to its intense and brutal selfishness. It is remarkable that even deeper than Davids sense, when once aroused, of his injustice to man, was his sense of his guilt and shame before God:–Against Thee, Thee only have I sinned, and done this evil in Thy sight. Dark as is the shade of the dark sin done to man, a yet darker shade falls over it when viewed in the unchanging light of the All-Pure and the All-Merciful. This is perhaps especially the case with these grosser sins. David is driven by the very fervour of his penitence to speak of this one sin as he would have spoken of all sins. Every one of us is in danger of falling into sins of which we have no expectation beforehand, of which, like David, we are ignorant even after we have committed them. Whatever be our special failing–self-indulgence, vanity, untruth, uncharitableness–and however it be made known to us–by friends, by preachers, by reflection, by sorrow, by the death of our firstborn, by the ruin of our house–let Davids feeling respecting it be ours.
4. This leads us to see what is the door which God opens, in such cases as Davids, for repentance and restoration. There is the general lesson, taught by this, as by a thousand ether passages both of the Old and the New Testaments–that, as far as human eye can judge, no case is too late or too bad to return, if only the heart can be truly roused to a sense of its own guilt and of Gods holiness. Thou desirest no sacrifice;–consider the immense force of the words; how wise, how consoling, how vast in their reach of meaning–Thou desirest no sacrifice, else would I give it Thee; Thou delightest not in burnt-offerings. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise. So spoke David in the fulness of his penitence. So taught the Son of David in the fulness of His grace and truth. Two final lessons we may learn from Davids repentance. For others, it teaches us to regard with tenderness the faults, the sins, the crimes of those who, gifted with great and noble qualities, are, by that strange union of strength and weakness which we so often see, betrayed into acts which more ordinary, commonplace characters avoid or escape. And for ourselves, let us remember the still more important lesson that such a foundation of good as that which there was in Davids character is never thrown away. If it is not able to resist the trial altogether, it will at least be best able to recover from it. (A. P. Stanley, M. A.)
On repentance
I. As the sin had been public, so was his repentance, His penitent confession is recorded to the end of time, to be read by every child of God, and be made the vehicle of hearty confession by every penitent sinner until the day of judgment.
II. He puts utterly out of the account all his former faithful service; there is not so much as a hint of it; and if a person did not know how David had hitherto walked before the Lord, and been his faithful minister on many trying occasions in the Church of God, he could not have guessed it from any expression here. The truly contrite heart gives glory to God for all the good, and takes shame to itself for all the evil. Here is one of the difficult things in true repentance; how unwilling is the heart to lose sight of any thing which it can set against its sin! Even when it sees the vanity and sinfulness of doing this, it still clings to a lurking comfort in the thought of some merit; it is unwilling to forego every support of self-righteousness, to place itself at the bar of Gods judgment, and to be found speechless without one word of defence; yet so David did.
III. His repentance followed up by actions. See the utter resignation with which he submits to the first instalment of his punishment in the death of the child; see, again, how humbly he bears the curse of Shimei, when he cries out, Come out, come out, thou bloody man, and thou man of Belial; thus cruelly reminding him of the very sins which we have been considering. How utterly dead was the spirit of self-justification in the heart of the man who could speak and act thus!
IV. Repentance in its true nature is not the work of a certain number of days or years; it lasts through life. As David says, My sin is ever before me, and as David showed by his humbleness of heart to the end of his life.
V. The sight of his forgiveness. God, who seeth the heart of man, saw the real worth of Erase words, I have sinned against the Lord. He saw in them the deeds which followed them; He knew that they were not showy blossoms, that would soon drop off, without any setting of fruit, like flowers in an unsuitable climate; He saw in them the earnest of much and good fruit, as in a tree that is in its proper soil and genuine climate. The beginning and the end are at once in the sight of God, and He knew that the words came from a heart which would make them good by the help of His grace; and therefore He accepted Davids repentance, and commissioned the prophet Nathan to say unto him, The Lord also hath put away thy sin; thou shalt not die. (B. W. Evans, B. D.)
Davids fall and recovery
1. The history of this pious and sincere servant of God is like a broken hull deeply imbedded in the sand, and the ragged masts emerging from the waves to tell others of the danger and to warn them to steer away from the shoal on which this gallant ship was wrecked. Davids sad story has a voice to every open ear, Let him that thinketh he standeth, take heed lest he fall.
2. But this history illustrates Davids character, while it brings out in parallel the character of God. Did God who has so fully recorded the particulars of his servants crimes–did He wink at the crime? Did God dread the exposure of David, and care to hide the crime, because the criminal was one of His own family, and household? Let him who is disposed to sneer at Davids fall, and to think that God may be partial, study well and carefully the record of Davids punishment. But is that all that Davids sin and Davids fall should teach us and has taught us of judgment?
3. Does it tell us nothing of mercy? Does it bring out nothing further, both of Gods character, and the character of His true, though fallen child? I have sinned against the Lord: That one thought spreads its sorrowful influence over his whole soul. My base ingratitude against God, my foul dishonour done to God, the deep offence against his holiness, the sad requital of His unmerited goodness–that one thought like a dark veil, shuts out all others.
4. And does not Davids feeling as a child bring out and illustrate the feeling of God as a father? If he commit iniquity, I will punish his offences with the rod and his sin with scourges; nevertheless I will not take away my loving kindness from him, nor suffer my faithfulness to fail. When the child who has sinned comes back with a broken spirit, and melting heart, to his wronged and injured, but still loving father, will that father refuse the pardon which is now all in all to his repenting child? Will he turn away coldly from the returning prodigal, and not forgive the offence so deeply felt, so fully acknowledged, and so evidently repeated? And so the broken-hearted David has scarcely sobbed out, I have sinned against the Lord, when he who knew how true and deep that sorrow was that wrung his heart, replied by his prophet, The Lord also hath put away thy sin; thou shalt not die. (W. W. Champneys, M. A.)
Conviction of sin and recovery
The history of the past is the parable of the present. The shadows of the dead are the representatives of the living. Scripture history is a perpetual illustration of passing life. The sins of different ages may not be exactly the same, and yet the illustration may be very complete.
I. Men often correctly understand a message from the Lord without observing its personal application to themselves. David listens with interest and indignation to the words of the prophet. You do wonder, as you observe the appropriateness of the words, that he does not himself see the meaning of the parable. You feel in reading it as if it did not require any exposition. You understand Nathan as soon as you hear his tale. But David heard no interpreter, and in pronouncing judgment upon the unknown offender unconsciously condemned himself, the real culprit. Yet this is so like human nature that I feel the truthfulness of the account. Just like him many of you feel under a message from the Lord. You do not think of yourselves. How many times have some of you uttered your own condemnation, while you supposed you had been pronouncing righteous judgment upon others! To you he has opened his mouth in a parable, and uttered a dark saying; but only because you have not had the true interpretation. Yet often the interpreter was there, if you had consulted him.
II. The beginning of recovery from sins to produce in the heart of the sinner deep convictions of his own sinfulness. To send a messenger to David, though he brought from the Lord the most severe rebuke of the sin, was yet an auspicious omen and sign of mercy for the sinner. Notwithstanding the grievousness and aggravation of the sin, God had not utterly cast off His servant. In wrath He remembered mercy. Mercy he did obtain; but it is for you to observe the sorrowful way he had to travel in order to find mercy of the Lord. The words of Nathan were never forgotten. Let no man think he may sin with impunity. Let no backslider comfort himself with the thought that he will be restored in due time. Restored he may be; but he will retrace every step with many tears. He will be brought back with many stripes, and made to feel, in the sadness of his soul, the evil of his sin, that never, as long as he lives, he may think lightly of it any more.
III. For heinous sins a provision of mercy is made, but so made as will secure long and humbling recollections of the aggravated guilt. David was pardoned–freely pardoned–though his sin was very great upon him. Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound. (R. Halley, D. D.)
The Lord also hath put away thy sin; thou shalt not die.
God and the sinner
I. The Lord convincing the sinner. We Observe that the impression which pierced most deeply was this–he had sinned against his God.
II. God pardoning sin. This appears particularly deserving of notice, as Gods dealing with David may well be regarded as in the case of Paul, a pattern to those who should after believe upon him to life everlasting. It is plain that pardon was here bestowed as an act of Gods free and royal grace; it was extended according to his will, at his own time, and in his appointed way. The way in which the Lord here forgave his guilty servant may appear to mere human reason as by no means the wisest; but to such a thought we may well reply, the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. A deeper view would convince us that no other way could have so well displayed the attributes of Jehovah, or so secured the heartfelt humiliation and subsequent holiness of David. Again, this mode of forgiveness must have melted the soul of David into that union of self-loathing and gratitude, which constitutes genuine repentance, and gives hope and peace, without which there can be no willing obedience, while the memory of the past would ever keep alive self-distrust and watchfulness.
III. The lord chastens the restored penitent. Nathan had previously declared that the sword should not depart from his house, but that in domestic trouble his own sin should return upon him; and now he pronounced that, to mark the injury his fall had done to the cause of God, the child of his sinful affection should die. We are not to think from this that any guilt still remained charged upon him before the Lord–no, for his sin was put away–but for his own good and for our admonition, he underwent this painful discipline. Applications:
1. I think this subject speaks a word to the careless or hardened sinner. Are you trying to hope as far as you think about it, that God will pass over your sins? Beware, they must be absolutely pardoned here, or absolutely punished hereafter.
2. There is much also here for the Christian to ponder on–he will reflect with joy and great consolation upon this gracious proof of the infinite mercy of the Lord–to many a soul it has furnished a successful reply to the infected doubts of the tempter; but it unfolds an awful picture of the heart of man. While we learn here that the gifts and calling of God are without repentance, let us ever remember that our own strength is but weakness, and to trust in our own hearts foolishness; for that God alone is able to keep us from falling, and to present us faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy. (H. Townsend.)
The effect of pardon
1. We have two cases of sinners who have been entirely pardoned, and whose actions after the announcement of that pardon have been left on the record of Scripture–David and Mary Magdalene. Certain distinct features appear in their cases after forgiveness, which are separate from the features of their penitence; an intensity of love proportioned to the amount of remitted debt, a life of continual carefulness, and a pathway in which they trod more or less softly to the end el their days. And all this proceeding partly from the deepest gratitude, and partly from the encouragement afforded by knowing they were forgiven. We are all familiar with the glorious effects of the pronouncing of pardons in the case of earthly criminals and earthly punishments. These may as faint shadows symbolise to us the effect on our spiritual life of the pronounced pardon of sin.
2. Under the Jewish dispensation we frequently find that a certain bodily trial was annexed as a penalty to an act of rebellion against God; and when that act of rebellion was repented of the act was cancelled.
(1) Thus Zacharias offended against God by the expression of unbelief in the promise of the angel; the penalty of speechlessness was immediately annexed to his crime.
(2) The children of Israel rebelled against God by their constant desire to return to Egypt, their unwillingness to yield to the law of Sinai, which imposed a new curb on their stubborn dispositions, and a reluctance to go up and conquer the holy land, where the sons of Anak dwelt. The constant wandering in the wilderness was their punishment.
(3) It would be highly dangerous to us to attempt to apply this rule rigidly to our own case. We are seldom certain of the connection between the cause and effect in the case of our own troubles, and even, where we might be able, we should find it hard to say in what cases the removal of infirmity is equivalent to the statement of pardon. But to a certain degree we may apply this rule.
3. But there are other conditions which we may take, as in some degree equivalent to a pronounced pardon. When a sin has bound us in its chains, and we lamenting over its dominion use every effort to subdue it and at last succeed, and form the contrary habit, we may naturally hope that that sin is forgiven. When we remain tied and bound by the chain of our sins in spite of every effort to overcome them, we may take for granted that He, Whose grace is all-sufficient, refuses on account of some lurking impenitence to grant the pardon. There is some goodly Babylonish garment hidden in the heart, and till that is given up the dark citadel will not yield. The moment the surrender is entire, Gods hand will free the captive, and the stronger man will enter the strong mans house, take his spoils and the armour wherein he trusted. There are times when strong inward persuasions, feelings of inward joy, the witness of the Spirit may be indications of Gods forgiveness. When these feelings are permanent, real, and healthy, we may fairly argue that they can proceed from no other source than the blessed Spirit of God.
4. We must consider the result of pardon on the penitent.
(1) An intense, earnest, cheerful desire to follow God for the future would be the first impulse of the pardoned sinner. When the man of Gadara was released from Legion, his first impulse was to sit for ever at Jesus feet. When. Marys pardon had proceeded from the lips of Him Who never fails, wherever He was, there was she; at the cross, over against the sepulchre, and in the garden on Easter morning. When the blind man of Jericho received his sight from our Blessed Lord, his first impulse was to forsake every worldly consideration and follow Christ. The first impulse of the prodigal, under the hope of possible forgiveness from an offended father, was to work for the remainder of his life cheerfully as a hired servant. When David had been assured of the forgiveness of God for his sin, his first impulse was to take, with the utmost patience, his punishment, and to rise up cheerfully to go about his religious and his secular duties.
(2) Another result of the consciousness of forgiveness is the definiteness of a new beginning of a heavenly life. When a dreary past lies behind us, to which there is no definite end, a long waste of hazy night, an unascertained morning with no clear sunbeams to mark the border-land, we lack spirit and energy in our religious course. When the brilliance of that morning light wholly eclipses the night past we travel on like new beginners, briskly, and clearly and energetically.
(3) A third result which arises from the pardoned state is the power to cast off the chains of a now past captivity. The mere consciousness of a sin clinging to us, because unpardoned, gives a continual sense of inconsistency, a constant dread lest the labour we are spending should be in vain.
(4) The pardoned condition enables us to realise with a full and vivid power the objects both of faith and hope. These considerations with respect to the pardoned state should lead us to all the lawful investigation which we may follow of what are the trustworthy tokens of that condition; and while we should never rest satisfied for one moment with remaining on the border-land between doubtful and ascertained duty, we should surely also strive to ascertain as closely as we can the real nature and power of absolution-committed to the Church. (E. Monro.)
David forgiven; a source of comfort to sinners
I. Heavy afflictions are no signs of an unpardoned condition. There are times, perhaps, when we find it difficult to believe this truth. A light and short affliction seldom much depresses us, for we can easily reconcile it with a Fathers faithfulness; but when succeeds blow to blow, when our troubles are peculiar, and long-continued, and harrowing, our hearts begin to fail us. We are tempted to think that a gracious God never can love the creatures whom He so sorely wounds. We could not so afflict our children; we are ready to conclude, therefore, that were we the children of a Heavenly Father, He would not so afflict us: our once peaceful assurance of His pardoning mercy gives way, and is succeeded by perplexity and doubt. Turn to the experience of David. It tells us as plainly as the most comfortless affliction can tell us that a want of spiritual consolation under calamities is no evidence of an unpardoned state. It is true the Gospel teaches us to expect special consolations in special sufferings. It is true also that the hour of affliction has oftentimes proved the happiest, though at the time the afflicted Christian has thought himself utterly forsaken. The feelings of mankind under afflictions have been as various as their afflictions themselves. An accusing conscience is not the scourge of an angry God: it is not the mark of His wrath. But an accusing conscience is a mark of nothing but this, that we are sinners, and that sin is a more evil and bitter thing than we once thought it.
II. A painful sense of inward corruption is not inconsistent with pardoning mercy. If there is any one lust which, day by day and year after year, leads us captive; any ungodly practice in which we habitually indulge; if the sin which is our fear is at the same time our delight, ever committed with greediness, though sometimes repented of with anguish, the written testimony of God declares that we have no more reason to regard ourselves forgiven than a dying man has to think himself in health. But if sin is opposed, as well as felt; if through the Spirit the base passions of our nature are habitually overcome; if sin causes grief and abhorrence in our souls as well as terror; then, my brethren, we may be assured that God, who is ever waiting to be gracious, will accept of our imperfect services, He will hear our prayers and bless us for Christs sake. Lessons:
1. It points out to us the persons to whom the ministers of the Gospel are to speak peace.
2. The text holds out to the sinner the greatest encouragement not to despair, if he is truly sorry for his sins, and intends by Gods help to walk in newness of life. (A. J. Wolff, D. D.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 13. The Lord – hath put away thy sin] Many have supposed that David’s sin was now actually pardoned, but this is perfectly erroneous; David, as an adulterer, was condemned to death by the law of God; and he had according to that law passed sentence of death upon himself. God alone, whose law that was could revoke that sentence, or dispense with its execution; therefore Nathan, who had charged the guilt home upon his conscience, is authorized to give him the assurance that he should not die a temporal death for it: The Lord hath put away thy sin; thou shalt not die. This is all that is contained in the assurance given by Nathan: Thou shalt not die that temporal death; thou shalt be preserved alive, that thou mayest have time to repent, turn to God, and find mercy. If the fifty-first Psalm, as is generally supposed, was written on this occasion, then it is evident (as the Psalm must have been written after this interview) that David had not received pardon for his sin from God at the time he composed it; for in it he confesses the crime in order to find mercy.
There is something very remarkable in the words of Nathan: The Lord also hath PUT AWAY thy sin; thou shalt not die; gam Yehovah heebir chattathecha lo thamuth, Also Jehovah HATH CAUSED thy sin TO PASS OVER, or transferred thy sin; THOU shalt not die. God has transferred the legal punishment of this sin to the child; HE shall die, THOU shalt not die; and this is the very point on which the prophet gives him the most direct information: The child that is born unto thee shall SURELY die; moth yamuth, dying he shall die – he shall be in a dying state seven days, and then he shall die. So God immediately struck the child, and it was very sick.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
I have sinned against the Lord; I now freely confess that sin which I have hitherto so wickedly smothered; and I have deserved all these and far heavier judgments for it; and I am more troubled for my sin against my sovereign Lord and gracious God, than for the shame and punishment that follow it. How serious and pathetical this confession was, we may see, Psa 51.
The Lord also hath put away thy sin, i.e. so far as concerns thy own life and eternal salvation; both which were forfeited by this sin.
Thou shalt not die, as by thy own sentence, 2Sa 12:5, thou didst deserve, and as thou mightest expect to do by my immediate stroke; though possibly thou mightest elude the law before a human judicature, or there be no superior to execute the law upon thee.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
And David said unto Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord,…. Which confession, though short, was a full one, arising from a thorough conviction of the evil of the sin he had been guilty of, accompanied with real brokenness of heart, sincere humiliation, and a sorrow after a godly sort, as the fifty first psalm, that penitential psalm composed upon this occasion shows, Ps 51:1:
and Nathan said unto David; being fully satisfied with the sincerity and genuineness of his repentance, of which he gave proof by words and deeds, and being under the direction and impulse of the Spirit of God:
the Lord hath put away thy sin; would not charge it upon him, impute it to him, or punish him for it, but freely and fully forgive it, cast it behind his back, and into the depth of the sea; cause it to pass from him and never more bring it against him, and which is the Lord’s act, and his only, against whom sin is committed:
thou shall not die; though he should die a corporeal death, yet not by the immediate hand of God, or by the sword of justice as a malefactor, a murderer, and adulterer, as he, according to the law, deserved to die; nor should he die a spiritual death, though his grace had been so low, and his corruptions had risen so high; nor an eternal death, the second death, the lost wages of sin.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
(13) I have sinned.The same words were used by Saul (1Sa. 15:24; 1Sa. 15:30), but in a totally different spirit. Sauls confession was a concession to the prophet for the purpose of securing his support, and with no real penitence; David, in these few words, pours out before God the confession of a broken heart.
Thou shalt not die.David had committed two crimes for which the Law imposed the penalty of deathadultery (Lev. 20:10) and murder (Lev. 24:17). As an absolute monarch he had no reason to fear that the sentence would be put in force by any human authority; and the Divine word is to him of far more importance as an assurance of forgiveness than as a warding off of any possible earthly danger. The phrase is thus parallel to, and explanatory of, the previous clause, The Lord also hath put away thy sin.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
13. I have sinned against the Lord David’s heart is now laid open to his eyes, and he sees, and shudders at, his enormous crimes, and feels that death is his just desert. But for him there is yet a voice of mercy.
The Lord hath put away thy sin; thou shalt not die Amazing grace! Pardon seems to be in waiting for the sinner to confess and repent.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
2Sa 12:13. David saidI have sinned No sooner was the application of the parable made by Nathan, but David owns his offence; and the Psalms he penned on this occasion, shew the deep sense he had of the guilt he contracted, and will be a memorial of his repentance to all future ages. See especially the 51st Psalm. His unhesitating confession, I have sinned, short, but more expressive than all the parade of eloquence, darted, as God saw it was, from a contrite, softened, penetrated heart, averted the impending stroke; and God was gracious to heal his soul with those balmy words, the Lord also hath put away thy sin: thou shalt not die. Upon the whole, let David stand as a warning to mankind of the frailty of human nature, of the deceitfulness of sin, of the danger of giving way to criminal passions, and the first violations of conscience and duty. Thus will his fall be a means of their security; and they will learn not to insult his memory, but pity the man by whom they are warned and guarded against the like transgressions. Or, if like him they offend, they may hope from his example that they shall not die, if, as he did, they acknowledge their sin, and with a broken and contrite heart earnestly implore the divine forgiveness. O what a pregnant lesson to all ages, to keep a constant guard upon their hearts, and to tremble at the thoughts of the unseen, undefinable consequences of every vicious, and particularly every lustful act! Lust is a vice as infectious to the souls, as the disease with which Providence has armed it is to the bodies of men. No lewd person knows, or can guess, to how many souls the poison of lewdness may communicate itself. The hearts of thousands may be tainted by means of one single act. The moral infection of it may spread on through successive subjects, producing in its ravages not only habits of lewdness, but thefts, perjuries, adulteries, murderstill the day of doom arrive, to call the pale astonished wretch from the long train of sins which sprung from his lust, to that dreadful condemnation, which nothing could have eluded, but an humble, contrite, perpetual repentance. Happy was it for David that he took this only expedient to obtain from God, in Christ, “that his sins should be put away, and remembered no more!”
The Lord also hath put away thy sin; thou shalt not die That is, has put away the guilt and eternal punishment, together with the temporal punishment of death, due to this offence by the Mosaic law.
REFLECTIONS.If God were not to restore us in our vile and sinful departures from him, every iniquity would issue in apostacy; but he hateth putting away, therefore he delivers our souls, when we seem appointed unto death.
1. God sends Nathan the prophet to awaken David from his lethargy. David had not cast off the form of religion, though so degenerated from the power of it, but still retained and honoured the prophets and priests of the Lord, and continued a profession of godliness. Nathan instantly obeys the command, and, though prepared to reprove him sharply, yet introduces his message in such a way, as to insinuate deeper into David’s conscience, and leave him self-condemned. Note; A reproof wisely administered is doubly effectual.
2. Nathan appears a poor man’s advocate to the king against a rich oppressor, and, under this fictitious character, represents the circumstances of David’s guilt, and draws from him his own condemnation. He represents the case as lately happening between two men, (David and Uriah,) the one rich in flocks and herds, (for David had many wives,) the other possessing but one ewe lamb, (Bath-sheba,) which lay in his bosom, and was treated with the greatest tenderness. A traveller coming to the rich man, (Satan, who goeth to and fro in the earth to tempt, or his own inordinate concupiscence which craved indulgence,) he spared his own flocks and herds, (his own wives, and robbed the poor man of his lamb (even Uriah’s wife,) to dress for the traveller (his own corrupt lust and appetite). So tender a story awakened David’s anger; and, little suspecting how nearly he was concerned, he swears the offender shall die for his inhumanity, as well as his oppression. Note; (1.) Every wife has a title to her husband’s singular and endeared affection. (2.) Multiplying wives never cures concupiscence, but inflames it. He who is not satisfied with one, will never be satisfied with more. (3.) Those are often severest in their censures on others, who are themselves most deserving of that severity. (4.) They who pronounce sentence in anger, will, it is to be feared, exceed the boundaries of justice as well as mercy.
3. Nathan unmasks his battery against David’s conscience, and plainly charges him home with the very guilt that he had condemned. Thou art the man; thou hast not only robbed the poor man of his lamb, but of his life too. In the name of the God of Israel, that sacred name before which he used to tremble, Nathan upbraids him with his deep ingratitude: God had delivered him from Saul, had given him a kingdom, and his master’s wives into his bosom; filled his house with riches, and would have done for him more if that had not sufficed him. Most ungrateful, therefore, were these returns. He boldly charges his crimes upon him; high contempt of God, and the greater baseness and cruelty to man. He had despised God’s government by the most open violation of his commands; had taken the wife of Uriah to the bed of adultery, and had then murdered the husband, with the deepest treachery, by the sword of the uncircumcised, after plunging him into the guilt of drunkenness. Therefore he denounces the sentence of terrible, but most just judgment against him. The sword he had so wickedly used should smite his own house, and never depart from it; beginning in the slaughter of his son Amnon and Absalom, and, after long wars, completing the ruin of his kingdom. The adultery he had committed secretly, should be visited upon him in his own wives, prostituted in the sight of the sun; and this evil, for its greater aggravation, should arise out of his own house; a house that he would live to see defiled with murder, incest, rebellion, and full of misery and wretchedness. Note; (1.) We must deal plainly and freely with the sinner’s conscience. (2.) The root of all sin is unbelief of the divine threatenings, making men think lightly of the divine law. (3.) The poisoned chalice returns justly to the lips of him that mingled it. (4.) They must pay dear for their lusts who dare indulge them, either in present punishment, or shortly in eternal torment.
4. David, thunderstruck with the application, confounded with guilt, and self-condemned, confesses the charge, owns the heinousness of his guilt against God, and is ready to sink under despair on the black review. But God, though correcting him, will not give him over unto death. He revives his failing heart with hope: Thou shalt not die, as a murderer and adulterer deserves; thy sin is put away, is forgiven, so far as relates to eternal punishment. But let him not think all was over; no, dire marks of God’s displeasure he should receive, because God will vindicate his honour, which was by this wicked conduct blasphemed among the people; and, as a present striking instance of God’s anger, he denounces the death of the new-born babe: though he shall not die in his sin, he shall not enjoy the fruit of it. Note; (1.) The only way to avoid the judgments that we have provoked, is by returning to God, through Jesus Christ, with humble acknowledgment of our guilt. (2.) They shall not die eternally, whose iniquity God in his dear Son has put away and forgiven. (3.) Nothing causes more reproach on God and his cause, than these scandalous falls of professors. (4.) God will make those sins bitter to his people, in which they foolishly and wickedly sought enjoyment, and by dire experience cause them to feel how evil and bitter a thing it is to transgress against him.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
DISCOURSE: 317
DAVIDS HUMILIATION AND ACCEPTANCE
2Sa 12:13. And David said unto Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord. And Nathan said unto David, The Lord also hath put away thy sin; thou shalt not die.
IT is scarcely to be conceived to what a degree sin will blind the eyes, and harden the heart. We see indeed that the ungodly world will commit every species of iniquity without either shame or remorse: but who would imagine that a person enlightened, renewed, and sanctified by the Spirit of God, should in the space of a few days be reduced by sin to a state of utter obduracy? Yet such was the change which one single temptation speedily effected on him who was the man after Gods own heart. The circumstances of Davids crime are so well known, that they need not at present to be enlarged upon. But his long impenitence, his apparent forgetfulness of his horrid deeds, and his excessive severity against a man whose fault bore no proportion to his own, are less noticed; though they cannot fail to strike every one who reads the account of his conversation with Nathan. By an apposite and well-wrought parable, the Prophet Nathan had led David inadvertently to pass sentence against himself; and then availed himself of the opportunity to charge home upon him the crimes he had perpetrated. Then it was, and not till then, that David felt a just sense of his guilt: though nine months at least had elapsed since his criminal intercourse with Bathsheba, yet his conscience had slept, till it was now awakened to perform its office. On this occasion he confessed his sin to Nathan; and received from Nathan a consolatory assurance, that his iniquity, heinous as it was, was pardoned.
There are two points to which the text directs our attention;
I.
Davids humiliation
There does not at first sight appear any thing worthy of notice in Davids confession: but, if we examine it carefully, we shall find in it several things which indicated a deep and true repentance.
1.
He acknowledged his sin as an offence against God
[The evil of sin in this view is generally overlooked; and the quality of actions is appreciated and determined by their effects on society. Hence the offences which are committed solely against God, such as unbelief, impenitence, self-righteousness, and the like, are never condemned by the world, or even considered as blemishing the moral character at all; while such crimes as theft and perjury render a man universally execrated and abhorred. But it is from its relation to God that sin derives its principal malignity: its chief heinousness consists in its being a violation of Gods law, a contempt of his authority, and a practical denial of all his attributes. If any sin whatever could deserve to be marked with superior infamy on other considerations, it would surely be the crimes which David had committed: yet, in adverting to these very actions, David passes over their criminality in relation to man, and notices them only as offences against God [Note: See Psa 51:4. Josephs views of sin perfectly agreed with those of David. See Gen 39:9.]. This shews that he had just views of his conduct: and that the grounds of his humiliation were precisely such as the occasion required.]
2.
He made no attempt to extenuate his guilt
[Unhumbled persons uniformly endeavour to palliate their faults. Adam cast the blame of his transgression on Eve; and Eve transferred it to the serpent [Note: Gen 3:12-13.]. Saul, when reproved for sparing Agag and the chief of the spoil, shifted the blame from himself upon the people; and, as far as it still attached to him, excused himself as acting involuntarily, and as overawed by the people [Note: 1Sa 15:15; 1Sa 15:24.]. But Davids mouth was shut: he uttered not one single word in extenuation of his crimes: heavy as Nathans charge against him was, he fell under it. This was another excellent proof of his penitence and contrition: and it is certain, that wherever real humiliation is, the penitent will be more ready to aggravate his guilt, than to palliate and excuse it.]
3.
He manifested no displeasure against his reprover
[Men in general, and great men in particular, are very apt to take offence, when told of their faults. They think themselves at liberty to insult God as much as they please: but no one must take the liberty to maintain the cause of God in opposition to them. Some indeed have been found, in different ages, who have ventured to speak with faithfulness to monarchs: but they have always done it at the peril of their lives [Note: See 1Ki 13:4; 1Ki 21:20; 1Ki 22:8 and 2Ki 1:9 and 2Ch 16:10.], and not unfrequently have paid the penalty of death for their presumption [Note: 2Ch 24:21; 2Ch 25:16 and Mat 14:3-5; Mat 14:10.]. But in the present instance no displeasure at all was manifested: on the contrary, we have reason to think that Nathan was more endeared to David than ever by his fidelity, since David afterwards called one of his own children by the prophets name [Note: 2Sa 5:14.]; and shewed confidence in him to the latest hour of his life [Note: 1Ki 1:24; 1Ki 1:27; 1Ki 1:32-34.]. In this therefore we have a further evidence of the sincerity and depth of Davids repentance.]
4.
He was willing to take shame to himself even before men
[There is nothing which men will not do in order to conceal their guilt from men: they will add iniquity to iniquity, and perpetrate murder itself, in order to avoid the shame to which their crimes have exposed them. How keenly was Saul affected by Samuels refusal to honour him before the people! The dread of that public dishonour pained him more than all the denunciations of Gods wrath [Note: 1Sa 15:25-30.]. But the reproaches of men, however severe, were of no account in Davids eyes: that which pained him was, that he had given occasion for those reproaches, and that God would be dishonoured by them: and therefore, though he thereby published and perpetuated his own shame, he wrote some of his penitential Psalms, and set them to music for the use of penitents in that and all succeeding ages. Being vile in his own eyes, it was a matter of small concern to him that he was vile also in the eyes of others: he lothed and abhorred himself, and therefore submitted readily to be abhorred by others.]
The truth of his repentance being manifest, we proceed to notice,
II.
His acceptance consequent upon it
Very remarkable was the answer of the prophet to the royal penitent. We remark from it that Davids acceptance with God was,
1.
Immediate
[There was no interval of time between the confession of David and the reply of Nathan. The very instant that David repented, God forgave him. This is particularly noticed by David himself as a marvellous expression of Gods love and mercy; I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord; and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin [Note: Psa 32:5.]. We should have expected that God would suspend his forgiveness, till David should have evinced the truth of his repentance by a subsequent life of piety: but Gods ways and thoughts are not like ours; yea rather, they are as much above ours as the heavens are above the earth [Note: Isa 55:8-9.]. God acts in a way worthy of himself. His grace is his own, to dispose of according to his sovereign will; and he dispenses it to whomsoever, and in whatever way, he sees fit. He shews, if we may so speak, peculiar pleasure in manifesting his compassion towards repenting sinners. He represents himself as falling on the neck of the returning prodigal, and as interrupting his confessions by testimonies of his parental love and pardoning grace. Towards the dying thief also our incarnate God displayed the same readiness to forgive, in that he not only complied with his petition, but far exceeded, without one moments hesitation, his most enlarged desires [Note: Luk 23:42-43.].
Thus has he given us a practical comment on his own gracious declarations, and demonstrated, for our comfort, that he is slow to anger and ready to forgive.]
2.
Attested
[Nathan spake, not as a man who suggested only a surmise or doubtful opinion, but as a prophet who was inspired to declare what God had really done. God willed not that his repenting servant should be kept in suspense; and therefore ordered Nathan to communicate to him the joyful tidings, not that God would put away his sin, but that he had put it away, and that the penal consequences of his transgression should never come upon his soul. It is thus that God frequently acts towards his people: as he made known to David by his prophet, so he reveals to them by his Spirit, that their iniquities are forgiven, and their sins covered [Note: See Isa 6:7; Isa 38:17; Zec 3:4.]. He desires not the constrained service of a slave, but the willing and grateful obedience of a child. Though he cause grief, yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies [Note: Lam 3:32.]; and will cause his believing people to enjoy an assured sense of their acceptance with him [Note: Isa 12:1 and Rom 8:15-16.].]
3.
Complete
[The sins which David had committed were from that very moment blotted out as a morning cloud: neither his adultery nor his murder, nor one particle of guilt of any kind, was imputed to him. There were indeed some temporal judgments entailed upon him: the fruit of his adulterous commerce was blasted, and the child stricken with death. Davids own wives were all defiled publicly by his son Absalom: and the sword, according to Nathans prediction, never departed from his house. These things however were merely temporal, and were designed as much for the benefit of others as for his correction: they tended to impress on all a sense of the malignity of Davids crimes; and to shew that, however God might pity and forgive a sinner, he utterly and unchangeably abhorred sin. But, notwithstanding these remembrancers of his iniquity, his sin was cast, as it were, into the very depths of the sea; as ours also shall be, if we truly repent; nor will God ever remember them against us any more for ever [Note: Mic 7:18-19; Heb 8:12.].]
We may learn then from this subject,
1.
The benefit of a judicious and faithful Ministry
[The method which Nathan used in order to reach the conscience of David, was extremely judicious: and when he had succeeded in making a breach, then he commenced a direct attack, Thou art the man. Had he been less cautious, he had probably shut the ears of his royal master; and had he been satisfied with offering some oblique hints, he had failed to impress his callous mind. But by a happy union of wisdom and fidelity, he gained his point [Note: Pro 25:12.]. Well was it for David that he had such a prophet in his court; for, without his admonitions, he might probably have become more and more obdurate, till he had perished in his sin. Thus should all esteem themselves highly favoured of God, if they have a minister, who, while he fears not the faces of men, has a tender love for their souls. They should gladly listen to his admonitions, and thankfully receive his reproofs: they should make it a continual subject of their prayers, that his word may come with power to their souls, to awaken them to a sense of sin, and to bring them to the enjoyment of salvation.]
2.
The boundless extent of Gods mercy
[Who would have conceived it possible that such sins as Davids should be so soon forgiven? But, as Gods majesty is, so also is his mercy. He delighteth in mercy; and waits that he may be gracious unto us. His message to us is, Only acknowledge thy transgressions that thou hast sinned against the Lord thy God [Note: Jer 3:13.]. And for our encouragement he declares, If any say, I have sinned, and it profited me not; I will deliver him from going down into the pit, and his soul shall see the light [Note: Job 33:27-28.]. Let us then carry all our sins to him: whether they have been more or less heinous in the sight of men, let us not continue under the guilt of them, when they may be so speedily removed: let us remember, that, in and through Christ, God is reconciled to a guilty world; and that, while they who cover their sins shall not prosper, whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall find mercy [Note: Pro 28:13.].]
Fuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)
(13) And David said unto Nathan, I have sinned against the LORD. And Nathan said unto David, The LORD also hath put away thy sin; thou shalt not die.
Reader! observe how quick and immediate are the Lord’s pardons upon the sinner’s confession. One short verse contains both, Oh! taste and see how gracious the Lord is.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
2Sa 12:13 And David said unto Nathan, I have sinned against the LORD. And Nathan said unto David, The LORD also hath put away thy sin; thou shalt not die.
Ver. 13. I have sinned against the Lord. ] He saith not Perii, but Peccavi; not I am undone, but I have done amiss. A short word, but passionate. The greatest griefs are not always the most verbal. Saul confessed his sin more largely, but less effectually; because his confession of sin was not joined with confusion of sin, as Pro 28:13 . “I have sinned,” said he; “yet honour me before the people”: and he sped accordingly, a as shall be showed.
And Nathan said unto David, The Lord also hath put away thy sin.
Thou shalt not die.
a Serm. of Rep., p. 54.
b The Lord hath caused thy sin to pass over from thee to Christ. Isa 53:6 Rom 4:8
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
2 Samuel
DAVID AND NATHAN
2Sa 12:13
We ought to be very thankful that Scripture never conceals the faults of its noblest men. High among the highest of them stands the poet-king. Whoever, for nearly three thousand years, has wished to express the emotions of trust in God, longing after purity, aspiration, and rapture of devotion, has found that his words have been before him.
And this man sins; black, inexcusable, aggravated transgression. You know the shameful story; I need not tell it over again. The Bible gives it us in all its naked ugliness, and there are precious lessons to be got out of it; such, for instance, as that it is not innocence that makes men good. ‘ This is the man after God’s own heart!’ people sneer. Yes! Not because saints have a peculiar morality, and atone for adultery and murder by making or singing psalms, but because, having fallen into foul sin, he learned to abhor it, and with many tears, with unconquerable resolution, with deepened trust in God, set his face once more to press toward the mark. That is a lesson worth learning.
And, again, David was not a hypocrite because he thus fell. All sin is inconsistent with devotion; but, thank God, we cannot say how much or how dark the sin must be which is incompatible with devotion, nor how much evil there may still lurk and linger in a heart of which the main set and aspiration are towards purity and God.
And, again, the worst transgressions are not the passionate outbursts contradictory of the main direction of a life which sometimes come; but the habitual, though they be far smaller, evils which are honey-combing the moral nature. White ants will pick a carcase clean sooner than a lion. And many a man who calls himself a Christian, and thinks himself one, is in far more danger, from little pieces of chronic meanness in his daily life, or sharp practice in his business, than ever David was in his blackest evil.
But the main lesson of all is that great and blessed one of the possibility of any evil and sin like this black one, being annihilated and caused to pass away through repentance and confession. It is to that aspect of our text that I turn, and ask you to look with me at the three things that come out of it: David’s penitence; David’s pardon consequent upon his penitence; and David’s punishment, notwithstanding his penitence and pardon.
I. First, then, the penitence.
Remember the narrative. A year has passed since his transgression. What sort of a year has it been? One of the Psalms tells us, ‘When I kept silence my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long; for day and night Thy hand was heavy upon me; my moisture was turned into the drought of summer.’ There were long months of sullen silence, in which a clear apprehension and a torturing experience of divine disapprobation, like a serpent’s fang, struck poison into his veins. His very physical frame seems to have suffered. His heart was as dry as the parched grass upon the steppes. That was what he got by his sin. A moment of turbid animal delight, and long days of agony; dumb suffering in which the sense of evil had not yet broken him down into a rain of sweet tears, but lay, like a burning consciousness, within his heart.
And then came the prophet with his parable, so tender, so ingenious, so powerful. And the quick flash of generous indignation, which showed how noble the man was after all, with which he responded to the picture, unknowing that it was a picture of his own dastardly conduct, led on to the solemn words in which Nathan tore away the veil; and with a threefold lever, if I may so say, overthrew the toppling structure of his impenitence.
First of all, and most chiefly, he seeks to win him to repentance by a picture of God’s great love and goodness. ‘I have done this and that and the other thing for thee. What hast thou done for Me?’ Ah, that is the true beginning. You cannot frighten men into penitence, you may frighten them into remorse; and the remorse may or may not lead on to repentance. But bring to bear upon a man’s heart the thought of the infinite and perfect love of God, and that is the solvent of all his obstinate impenitence, and melts him to cry, ‘I have sinned.’ And along with that element there is the other, the plain striking away of all disguises from the ugly fact of the sin. The prophet gives it its hideous name, and that is one element in the process which leads to true repentance. For so strange and subtle are the veils which we cast over our own evils, that it comes sometimes to us with a shock and a start when some word, that we know to connote wickedness of the deepest dye, is applied to them. David had very likely so sophisticated his conscience that, though he had been writhing under the sense that he was a wrongdoer, it came to him with a kind of ugly surprise when the naked words ‘adultery’ and ‘murder’ were pressed up against his consciousness.
And the third element that brought him to his senses, and to his knees, was the threatening of punishment, which is salutary when it follows these other two, the revelation of a divine love and the unveiling of the essential nature of my own act; but which without these is but ‘the hangman’s whip’ to which only inferior natures will respond. And these three, the appeal to God’s love, the revelation of his own sin, the solemn warning of its consequences-these three brought to bear upon David’s heart, broke him down into a passion of penitence in which he has only the two words to say, ‘I have sinned against the Lord.’ That is all. That is enough.
And what is it? It is the recognition-which is essential to all real penitence-that I have not merely broken some impersonal law, or done something that hurts my fellows, but that I have broken the relations which I ought to sustain to a living, loving Person, who is God. We commit crimes against society, we commit faults against one another, we commit sins against God, and the very notion of sin involves, as its correlative, the thought of the divine Lawgiver.
So, dear brethren, penitence goes deeper than a recognition of demerit and unworthiness. It is more than an acknowledgment of imperfection and breach of morality. It is something different altogether from the acknowledgment that I have committed a fault against my fellow. David had done Bathsheba and Uriah, and in them his whole kingdom, foul wrong, but, as he says in Psa 51:1 – Psa 51:19 , ‘Against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned.’ His account with these is of a less grave character, but ‘against Thee I sinned.’
And in like manner, this penitence contains in it the recognition of transgression against a loving Friend and Father, which had been brought home to his mind by all the words of the rebuking prophet, who was a kind of incarnate conscience for him now. And it contains, still further, confession to God against whom he had sinned. The first impulse of a man when he dimly discerns how far he has departed from God’s law, is that which the old story represents was the first impulse of the first sinners-to hide himself in the trees of the garden. The second impulse is to go to Him against whom we have sinned, and who only therefore can deal with the sin in the way of forgiveness, and to pour it all out before Him. Once an Apostle, when he caught a partial glimpse of his own demerit and transgression, said to the Master with a natural impulse, ‘Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!’ But Peter had a deeper sense of his own sin, and a happier knowledge of what Christ could do for his sin, when his brother Apostle whispering to him in the boat, ‘It is the Lord,’ the traitor Apostle cast himself into the shallow water and floundered through it anyhow, to get as close as he could to the Master’s feet.
Do not go away from God because you feel that you have sinned against Him. Where should you go but to your mother’s bosom, and hide your face there, if you have committed faults against her? Where should you go but to God if against Him you have transgressed? Look, my brother, at your own character and conduct; measure the deficiencies and imperfections, the transgressions and faults; ay! perhaps with some of you, the crimes against men and society and human laws; but see beneath all these a deeper thought; and stifle not the words that would come to your lips as a relief, like a surgeon’s lancet struck into some foul gathering, ‘I have sinned against the Lord.’
II. And now, secondly, notice with me David’s pardon consequent upon his repentance.
Immediate forgiveness, that is the first lesson that I would press upon you. Dear brethren, it is an experience which you may each repeat in your own history at this moment. It needs but the confession in order that the forgiveness should come. At this end of the telephone whisper your confession, and before it has well passed your lips there comes back the voice sweet as that of angels, ‘The Lord hath forgiven thy sin.’ One word, one motion of a heart aware of, and hating, and desiring to escape from, its evil, brings with a rush the whole fulness of fatherly and forgiving love into any heart. And that one confession may be the turning-point of a man’s life, and may obliterate all the sinful past, and may bring him into loving, reconciled, harmonious relations with the Almighty Judge.
Learn, too, not only the immediacy of the answer and the simplicity of the means, but learn how thorough and complete God’s dealing with your sin may be. The original language of my text might be rendered, ‘The Lord hath caused thy sin to pass away’; the thought being substantially that of some impediment or veil between man and Him which, with a touch of His hand, He dissolves as it were into vapour, and so leaves all the sky clear for His warmth and sunshine to pour down upon the heart. We do not need to enter upon theological language in talking about this great gift of forgiveness. It means substantially that howsoever you and I have piled up mountain upon mountain, Alp upon Alp, of our evils and transgressions, all pass away and become non-existent. Another word of the Old Testament expresses the same idea when it speaks about sin being ‘covered.’ Another word expresses the same idea when it speaks about God as ‘casting’ men’s sins ‘into the depths of the sea’-all meaning this one thing, that they no longer stand as barriers between the free flow of His love and our poor hearts. He takes away the sense of guilt, touches the wounded conscience, and there is healing in His hand. As, according to the old belief, the sovereign, by laying his hand upon sufferers from ‘the King’s evil’ healed them and cleansed them, so the touch of His forgiving love takes away the sense of guilt and heals the spirit. He removes all the impediments between His love and us. His love can now come undisturbed. His deepest and solemnest judgments do not need to come; and no more does there stand frowning between us and Him the spectre of our past.
People tell us that forgiveness is impossible, ‘that whatsoever a man soweth, that must he also reap’; that law is law, and that the consequences cannot be averted. That is all quite true if there is not a God. It is not true if there is; and if there is no God, there is no sin. So if there is a God, there is forgiveness.
Consequences, as I shall have to show you in a moment, may still remain, but pardon may be ours all the same. When you forgive your child, does it mean that you do not thrash it, or does it mean that you take it to your heart? And when God pardons, does it mean that He waives His laws, or does it mean that He lets us come into the whole warmth and sunshine of His love? Will you go there?
Forgiveness was to Jews a thing difficult to apprehend. It was hard for them to understand the harmony of it with the rigid retribution on which their whole system of religion reposed. But you and I have come further into the light than Nathan and David had. And I have to preach a modification of the words of my text which is not a limitation of them, but the unveiling of their basis and the surest confirmation of them, when I say ‘In Him’-Jesus Christ-’we have redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness of sins.’
The New Testament teaches us that the Cross of Christ threw its power back upon former transgressions as well as forward upon future ones; and that in Him past ages, though they knew Him not, received remission. Christ is the Medium of the divine forgiveness; Christ’s Cross is the ground of the divine pardon; Christ’s sacrifice is the guarantee for us that the sin which He has borne He has borne away. ‘By His stripes we are healed.’ ‘Wherefore, men and brethren, be it known unto you, that through this Man is preached unto us the forgiveness of our sins.’
III. Third and lastly, look at the punishment which follows -shall I say notwithstanding or because of ?-the penitence and the pardon.
In David’s life there came the immediate retribution in kind, which was signalised as such by the divine message-the death of the child ‘who was conceived in sin and shapen in iniquity.’ But beyond that, look at David’s life after his great fall. There was no more brightness in it. His own sin and example of lust loosed the bonds of morality in his household, and his son followed his example and improved upon it. And from that came Absalom’s murder of his brother, and from that Absalom’s exile, and from that Absalom’s rebellion, and from that Absalom’s death, which nearly killed his poor old father. And for all the rest of his days his home was troubled, and his last years ended with the turmoil of a disputed succession before his eyes were closed, all traceable to this one foul crime.
Joab was the torment of David’s later days, and Joab’s power over him depended upon his having been the instrument of Uriah’s murder; and so the master of the king, whose bidding he had done. Ahithophel was the brain of Absalom’s conspiracy. His defection struck a sharp arrow into David’s heart-’mine own familiar friend in whom I trusted.’ He evidently hated the king with fierce hatred. He was Bathsheba’s grandfather; and we are not going wrong, I think, in tracing his passionate hatred, and the peculiar form of insult which he counselled Absalom to adopt, to the sense of foul wrong which had been done to his house by David’s crime.
And so all through his days this poor old king had to do what you and I have to do-to bear the temporal results of sin. ‘Be not deceived, God is not mocked; for whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap.’
So ‘of our pleasant vices the gods make whips to scourge us.’ And it is in mercy that we have to drink as we have brewed, that we have to lie upon the beds that we have made; that in regard to outward consequences, and in regard to our own hearts and inward history, we are the architects of our own fortunes, and cannot escape the penalties of our sins and of our faults. Better to have it so than be cursed with impunity!
Some of you young men are sowing diseases in your bones that will either make you invalids or will kill you before your time. All of us are bearing about with us, in some measure and sense, the issues, which are the punishments, of our evil. Let us thank Him and take up the praise of the old psalm, ‘Thou wast a God that forgivest them, though Thou tookest vengeance of their inventions.’ There is either merciful chastisement here, that we may be parted from our sins, or there is judgment hereafter.
O my brother! let me beseech you, do not commit the suicide of impenitence, but go to Christ, in whom all our sins are taken away, and lay your hands on the head of that great Sacrifice, and ‘the Lord shall cause to pass the iniquity of your sin.’
Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren
I have sinned. Psa 51 is the expansion of this.
sinned . . . sin. Hebrew. chata’. App-44.
hath put away. Divine forgiveness instantly follows the sinner’s confession (1Jn 1:9). Compare Job 42:6, Job 42:8, Job 42:10. Isa 6:5, Isa 6:6, “then flew”. Luk 15:18, Luk 15:20, “his father ran”, &c.
thou, &c. Some codices, with two early printed editions, read “and (or therefore) thou wilt not die”.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
sinned
Here read Psa 51:1-19.
Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes
David: 1Sa 15:20, 1Sa 15:24, 1Ki 13:4, 1Ki 21:20, 1Ki 22:8, 2Ki 1:9, 2Ch 16:10, 2Ch 24:20-22, 2Ch 25:16, Mat 14:3-5, Mat 14:10
I have sinned: 2Sa 24:10, 1Sa 15:24, 1Sa 15:25, 1Sa 15:30, Job 7:20, Job 33:27, Psa 32:3-5, Psa 51:4, Pro 25:12, Pro 28:13, Luk 15:21, Act 2:37, 1Jo 1:8-10
The Lord: Job 7:21, Psa 32:1, Psa 32:2, Psa 130:3, Psa 130:4, Isa 6:5-7, Isa 38:17, Isa 43:24, Isa 44:22, Lam 3:32, Mic 7:18, Mic 7:19, Zec 3:4, Heb 9:26, 1Jo 1:7, 1Jo 1:9, 1Jo 2:1, Rev 1:5
thou: Lev 20:10, Num 35:31-33, Psa 51:16, Act 13:38, Act 13:39, Rom 8:33, Rom 8:34
Reciprocal: Gen 39:9 – sin Gen 42:21 – they said Exo 21:12 – General Lev 13:23 – General Num 22:34 – I Have sinned Jdg 10:15 – We have sinned 1Ch 21:8 – I have sinned Psa 32:5 – acknowledged Psa 103:3 – forgiveth Jer 14:20 – for Hos 14:2 – away 2Co 7:10 – repentance Heb 10:28 – despised
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
2Sa 12:13. David said, I have sinned against the Lord Overwhelmed with shame, stung with remorse, and oppressed with a dreadful sense of the divine vengeance, impending, and ready to fall upon himself and his family, he could only give utterance to this short confession. How sincere and serious it was, what a deep sense he now had of his guilt, and from what a softened, penetrated, broken, and contrite heart, his acknowledgment proceeded, we may see in the psalms he penned on this occasion, especially the 1st. The Lord also hath put away thy sin That is, so far as concerns thy own life. Thou shalt not die As, according to thy own sentence, 2Sa 12:5, thou dost deserve, and mightest justly expect to do from Gods immediate stroke; though possibly thou mightest elude the law before a human judicature, or there should be no superior to execute the law upon thee. There is something unspeakably gracious in this sudden sentence of pardon, pronounced by the prophet in the instant of Davids confession of guilt and humiliation before God, even if we consider it as only implying exemption from the stroke of temporal death, and the granting him space for repentance, and for making his peace with God, with respect to his spiritual and immortal interests. And this seems to be the true light in which we ought to view it. If the psalm we have just mentioned was written after the event of Nathans coming to him, as the title of it signifies, and as is generally allowed, it is evident David did not yet consider himself as pardoned by God, or in a state of reconciliation with him. For, in that psalm we find not any thanksgivings for pardon actually obtained, but several most fervent supplications and entreaties for it as a blessing not yet granted. It may, therefore, be true enough, as Dr. Delaney supposes, that Davids pardon was not obtained by the instantaneous submission which he expressed, when he said, I have sinned; but that a long and bitter repentance preceded it; and yet that able divine may be mistaken, as it seems evident from the whole narrative he is, in supposing that repentance took place before Nathan was sent to him. The sacred historian gives no intimation of Davids being awakened to a proper sense of guilt, or of his being made truly penitent for it, till the application of Nathans parable. Then, and not before, it appears, he began to feel the compunction and distress expressed in that and the 32nd Psalm, during the continuance of which, day and night Gods hand was heavy upon him: his moisture was turned into the drought of summer, and his bones waxed old through his roaring all the day long. Some time after, but how long we are not told, he was made a partaker of the blessedness of the man whose transgression is forgiven, and whose sin is covered; and that on his own certain knowledge and experience: for he says, I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord, and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
12:13 And David said unto Nathan, I have sinned against the LORD. And Nathan said unto David, The LORD also hath {g} put away thy sin; thou shalt not die.
(g) For the Lord seeks the sinner to turn to him.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
CHAPTER XVI.
PENITENCE AND CHASTISEMENT.
2Sa 12:13-25.
WHEN Nathan ended his message, plainly and strongly though he had spoken, David indicated no irritation, made no complaint against the prophet, but simply and humbly confessed – “I have sinned.” It is so common for men to be offended when a servant of God remonstrates with them, and to impute their interference to an unworthy motive, and to the desire of someone to hurt and humiliate them, that it is refreshing to find a great king receiving the rebuke of the Lord’s servant in a spirit of profound humility and frank confession. Very different was the experience of John the Baptist when he remonstrated with Herod. Very different was the experience of the famous Chrysostom when he rebuked the emperor and empress for conduct unworthy of Christians. Very different has been the experience of many a faithful minister in a humbler sphere, when, constrained by a sense of duty, he has gone to some man of influence in his flock’ and spoken seriously to him of sins which bring a reproach on the name of Christ. Often it has cost the faithful man days and nights of pain; girding himself for the duty has been like preparing for martyrdom; and it has been really martyrdom when he has had to bear the long malignant enmity of the man whom he rebuked. However vile the conduct of David may have been, it is one thing in his favour that he receives his rebuke with perfect humility and submission; he makes no attempt to palliate his conduct either before God or man; but sums up his whole feeling in these expressive words, “I have sinned against the Lord.”
To this frank acknowledgment Nathan replied that the Lord had put away his sin, so that he would not undergo the punishment of death. It was his own judgment that the miscreant who had stolen the ewe lamb should die, and as that proved to be himself, it indicated the punishment that was due to him. That punishment, however, the Lord, in the exercise of His clemency, had been pleased to remit. But a palpable proof of His displeasure was to be given in another way – the child of Bathsheba was to die. It was to become, as it were, the scapegoat for its father. In those times father and child were counted so much one that the offence of the one was often visited on both. When Achan stole the spoil at Jericho, not only he himself, but his whole family, shared his sentence of death. In this case of David the father was to escape, but the child was to die. It may seem hard, and barely just. But death to the child, though in form a punishment, might prove to be great gain. It might mean transference to a higher and brighter state of existence. It might mean escape from a life full of sorrows and perils to the world where there is no more pain, nor sorrow, nor death, because the former things are passed away.
We cannot pass from the consideration of David’s great penitence for his sin without dwelling a little more on some of its features. It is in the fifty-first Psalm that the working of his soul is best unfolded to us. No doubt it has been strongly urged by certain modern critics that that psalm is not David’s at all; that it belongs to some other period, as the last verse but one indicates, when the walls of Jerusalem were in ruins;- most likely the period of the Captivity. But even if we should have to say of the last two verses that they must have been added at another time, we cannot but hold the psalm to be the outpouring of David’s soul, and not the expression of the penitence of the nation at large. If ever psalm was the expression of the feelings of an individual it is this one. And if ever psalm was appropriate to King David it is this one. For the one thing which is uppermost in the soul of the writer is his personal relation to God. The one thing that he values, and for which all other things are counted but dung, is friendly intercourse with God. This sin no doubt has had many other atrocious effects, but the terrible thing is that it has broken the link that bound him to God, it has cut off all the blessed things that come by that channel, it has made him an outcast from Him whose loving-kindness is better than life. Without God’s favour life is but misery. He can do no good to man; he can do no service to God. It is a rare thing even for good men to have such a profound sense of the blessedness of God’s favour. David was one of those who had it in the profoundest degree; and as the fifty-first Psalm is full of it, as it forms the very soul of its pleadings, we cannot doubt that it was a psalm of David.
The humiliation of the Psalmist before God is very profound, very thorough. His case is one for simple mercy; he has not the shadow of a plea in self-defense. His sin is in every aspect atrocious. It is the product of one so vile that he may be said to have been shapen in iniquity and conceived in sin. The aspect of it as sin against God is so overwhelming that it absorbs the other aspect – the sin against man. Not but that he has sinned against man too, but it is the sin against God that is so awful, so overwhelming.
Yet, if his sin abounds, the Psalmist feels that God’s grace abounds much more. He has the highest sense of the excellence and the multitude of God’s loving- kindnesses. Man can never make himself so odious as to be beyond the Divine compassion. He can never become so guilty as to be beyond the Divine forgiveness. “Blot out my transgressions,” sobs David, knowing that it can be done. “Purge me with hyssop,” he cries, “and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than the snow. Create in me a clean heart, and renew a right spirit within me.”
But this is not all; it is far from all. He pleads most plaintively for the restoration of God’s friendship. “Cast me not away from Thy presence, and take not Thy Holy Spirit from me,” – for that would be hell; “Restore unto me the joy of Thy salvation, and uphold me with Thy free Spirit,” – for that is heaven. And, with the renewed sense of God’s love and grace, there would come a renewed power to serve God and be useful to men. “Then will I teach transgressors Thy ways; and sinners shall be converted unto Thee. O Lord, open Thou my lips; and my mouth shall show forth Thy praise.” Deprive me not forever of Thy friendship, for then life would be but darkness and anguish; depose me not for ever from Thy ministry, continue to me yet the honour and the privilege of converting sinners unto Thee. Of the sacrifices of the law it was needless to think, as if they were adequate to purge away so overwhelming a sin. “Thou desirest not sacrifice, else I would give it: Thou delightest not in burnt-offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise.”
With all his consciousness of sin, David has yet a profound faith in God’s mercy, and he is forgiven. But as we have seen, the Divine displeasure against him is to be openly manifested in another form, because, in addition to his personal sin, he has given occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme.
This is an aggravation of guilt which only God’s children can commit. And it is an aggravation of a most distressing kind, enough surely to warn off every Christian from vile self-indulgence. The blasphemy to which David had given occasion was that which denies the reality of God’s work in the souls of His people. It denies that they are better than others. They only make more pretence, but that pretence is hollow, if not hypocritical. There is no such thing as a special work of the Holy Ghost in them, and therefore there is no reason why anyone should seek to be converted, or why he should implore the special grace of the Spirit of God. Alas! how true it is that when anyone who occupies a conspicuous place in the Church of God breaks down, such sneers are sure to be discharged on every side! What a keen eye the world has for the inconsistencies of Christians! With what remorseless severity does it come down on them when they fall into these inconsistencies! Sins that would hardly be thought of if committed by others, – what a serious aspect they assume when committed by them! Had it been Nebuchadnezzar, for example, that treated Uriah as David did, who would have thought of it a second time? What else could you expect of Nebuchadnezzar? Let a Christian society or any other Christian body be guilty of a scandal, how do the worldly newspapers fasten on it like treasure-trove, and exult over their humbled victim, like Red Indians dancing their war dances and flourishing their tomahawks over some miserable prisoner. The scorn is very bitter, and sometimes it is very unjust; yet perhaps it has on the whole a wholesome effect, just because it stimulates vigilance and carefulness on the part of the Church. But the worst of the case is, that on the part of unbelievers it stimulates that blasphemy which is alike dishonouring to God and pernicious to man. Virtually this blasphemy denies the whole work of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of men. It denies the reality of any supernatural agency of the Spirit in one more than in all. And denying the work of the Spirit, it makes men careless about the Spirit; it neutralizes the solemn words of Christ, “Ye must be born again.” It throws back the kingdom of God, and it turns back many a pilgrim who had been thinking seriously of beginning the journey to the heavenly city, because he is now uncertain whether such a city exists at all.
Hardly has Nathan left the king’s house when the child begins to sicken, and the sickness becomes very great. We should have expected that David would be concerned and distressed, but hardly to the degree which his distress attained. In the intensity of his anxiety and grief there is something remarkable. A new-born infant could scarcely have taken that mysterious hold on a father’s heart which a little time is commonly required to develop, but which, once it is there, makes the loss even of a little child a grievous blow, and leaves the heart sick and sore for many a day. But there is something in an infant’s agony which unmans the strongest heart, especially when it comes in convulsive fits that no skill can allay. And should one, in addition, be tortured with the conviction that the child was suffering on one’s own account, one’s distress might well be overpowering. And this was David’s feeling. His sin was ever before him. As he saw that suffering infant he must have felt as if the stripes that should have fallen on him were tearing the poor babe’s tender frame, and crushing him with undeserved suffering. Even in ordinary cases, it is a mysterious thing to see an infant in mortal agony. It is solemnizing to think that the one member of the family who has committed no actual sin should be the first to reap the deadly wages of sin. It leads us to think of mankind as one tree of many branches; and when the wintry frost begins to prevail it is the youngest and tenderest branchlets that first droop and die. Oh! how careful should those in mature years be, and especially parents, lest by their sins they bring down a retribution which shall fall first on their children, and perhaps the youngest and m.ost innocent of all! Yet how often do we see the children suffering for the sins of their parents, and suffering in a way which, in this life at least, admits of no right remedy! In that “bitter cry of outcast London,” which fell some years ago on the ears of the country, by far the most distressing note was the cry of infants abandoned by drunken parents before they could well walk, or living with them in hovels where blows and curses came in place of food and clothing and kindness – children brought up without aught of the sunshine of love, every tender feeling nipped and shriveled in the very bud by the frost of bitter, brutal cruelty. And if in ordinary families children are not made to suffer so palpably for their parents’ sins, yet suffer they do in many ways sufficiently serious. Wherever there is a bad example, wherever there is a laxity of principle, wherever God is dishonoured, the sin reacts upon the children. Their moral texture is relaxed; they learn to trifle with sin, and, trifling with sin, to disbelieve in the retribution for sin. And where conscience has not been altogether destroyed in the parent, and remorse for sin begins to prevail, and retribution to come, it is not what he has to suffer in his own person that he feels most deeply, but what has to be borne and suffered by his children. Does anyone ask why God has constituted society so that the innocent are thus implicated in the sin of the guilty? The answer is, that this arises not from God’s constitution, but from man’s perversion of it. Why, we may ask, do men subvert God’s moral order? Why do they break down His fences and embankments, and, contrary to the Divine plan, let ruinous streams pour their destructive waters into their homes and enclosures? If the human race had preserved from the beginning the constitution which God gave them, obeyed His law both individually and as a social body, such things would not have been. But reckless man, in his eagerness to have his own way, disregards the Divine arrangement, and plunges himself and his family into the depths of woe.
There is something even beyond this, however, that arrests our notice in the behaviour of David. Though Nathan had said that the child would die, he set himself most earnestly, by prayer and fasting, to get God to spare him. Was this not a strange proceeding? It could be justified only on the supposition that the Divine judgment was modified by an unexpressed condition that, if David should humble himself in true repentance, it would not have to be inflicted. Anyhow, we see him throwing his whole soul into these exercises: engaging in them so earnestly that he took no regular food, and in place of the royal bed he was content to lie upon the earth. His earnestness in this was well fitted to show the difference between a religious service gone through with becoming reverence, because it is the proper thing to do, and the service of one who has a definite end in view, who seeks a definite blessing, and who wrestles with God to obtain it. But David had no valid ground for expecting that, even if he should repent, God would avert the judgment from the child; indeed, the reason assigned for it showed the contrary – because he had given occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme.
And so, after a very weary and dismal week, the child died. But instead of abandoning himself to a tumult of distress when this event took place, he altogether changed his demeanor. His spirit became calm, “he arose from the earth, and washed, and anointed himself, and changed his apparel, and he came into the house of the Lord and worshipped; then he came to his own house, and when he required, they set bread before him, and he did eat.” It seemed to his servants a strange proceeding. The answer of David showed that there was a rational purpose in it. So long as he thought it possible that the child’s life might be spared, he not only continued to pray to that effect, but he did everything to prevent his attention from being turned to anything else, he did everything to concentrate his soul on that one object, and to let it appear to God how thoroughly it occupied his mind. The death of the child showed that it was not God’s will to grant his petition, notwithstanding his deep repentance and earnest prayer and fasting. All suspense was now at an end, and, therefore, all reason for continuing to fast and pray. For David to abandon himself to the wailings of aggravated grief at this moment would have been highly wrong. It would have been to quarrel with the will of God. It would have been to challenge God’s right to view the child as one with its father, and treat it accordingly.
And there was yet another reason. If his heart still yearned on the child, the re-union was not impossible, though it could not take place in this life. “I shall go to him, but he shall not return unto me.” The glimpse of the future expressed in these words is touching and beautiful. The relation between David and that little child is not ended. Though the mortal remains shall soon crumble, father and child are not yet done with one another. But their meeting is not to be in this world. Meet again they certainly shall, but “I shall go to him, and he shall not return to me.”
And this glimpse of the future relation of parent and child, separated here by the hand of death, has ever proved most comforting to bereaved Christian hearts. Very touching and very comforting it is to light on this bright view of the future at so early a period of Old Testament history. Words cannot express the desolation of heart which such bereavements cause. When Rachel is weeping for her children she cannot be comforted if she thinks they are not. But a new light breaks on her desolate heart when she is assured that she may go to them, though they shall not return to her. Blessed, truly, are the dead who die in the Lord, and, however painful the stroke that removed them, blessed are their surviving friends. Ye shall go to them, though they shall not return to you. How you are to recognize them, how you are to commune with them, in what place they shall be, in what condition of consciousness, you cannot tell; but “you shall go to them;” the separation shall be but temporary, and who can conceive the joy of re-union, re-union never to be broken by separation for evermore?
One other fact we must notice ere passing from the record of David’s confession and chastisement, – the moral courage which he showed in delivering the fifty-first Psalm to the chief musician, and thus helping to keep alive in his own generation and for all time coming the memory of his trespass. Most men would have thought how the ugly transaction might most effectually be buried, and would have tried to put their best face on it before their people. Not so David. He was willing that his people and all posterity should see him the atrocious transgressor he was – let them think of him as they pleased. He saw that this everlasting exposure of his vileness was essential towards extracting from the miserable transaction such salutary lessons as it might be capable of yielding. With a wonderful effort of magnanimity, he resolved to place himself in the pillory of public shame, to expose his memory to all the foul treatment which the scoffers and libertines of every after-age might think fit to heap on it. It is unjust to David, when unbelievers rail against him for his sin in the matter of Uriah, to overlook the fact that the first public record of the transaction came from his own pen, and was delivered to the chief musician, for public use. Infidels may scoff, but this narrative will be a standing proof that the foolishness of God is wiser than men. The view given to God’s servants of the weakness and deceitfulness of their hearts; the warning against dallying with the first movements of sin; the sight of the misery which follows in its wake; the encouragement which the convicted sinner has to humble himself before God; the impulse given to penitential feeling; the hope of mercy awakened in the breasts of the despairing; the softer, humbler, holier walk when pardon has been got and peace restored, – such lessons as these, afforded in every age by this narrative, will render it to thoughtful hearts a constant ground for magnifying God. “O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out!”