David has gotten Bathsheba pregnant and then had her husband killed. All is presumably resolved now....
2 Samuel 12: 1-4, A story
The Lord sent Nathan to David. When he came to him, he said, “There were two men in a certain town, one rich and the other poor. The rich man had a very large number of sheep and cattle, but the poor man had nothing except one little ewe lamb he had bought. He raised it, and it grew up with him and his children. It shared his food, drank from his cup and even slept in his arms. It was like a daughter to him.
“Now a traveler came to the rich man, but the rich man refrained from taking one of his own sheep or cattle to prepare a meal for the traveler who had come to him. Instead, he took the ewe lamb that belonged to the poor man and prepared it for the one who had come to him.”
Nathan tells a sad story of an abusive man killing a loved pet lamb. Nathan is about to confront a powerful ruler with the man's crime. Nathan begins by attempting to reach the residual part of David that still believes in justice.
2 Samuel 12: 5-12, "You are the man!"
David burned with anger against the man and said to Nathan, “As surely as the Lord lives, the man who did this must die! He must pay for that lamb four times over, because he did such a thing and had no pity.”
Then Nathan said to David, “You are the man! This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you from the hand of Saul. I gave your master’s house to you, and your master’s wives into your arms. I gave you all Israel and Judah. And if all this had been too little, I would have given you even more. Why did you despise the word of the Lord by doing what is evil in his eyes? You struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and took his wife to be your own. You killed him with the sword of the Ammonites. Now, therefore, the sword will never depart from your house, because you despised me and took the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your own.’
“This is what the Lord says: ‘Out of your own household I am going to bring calamity on you. Before your very eyes I will take your wives and give them to one who is close to you, and he will sleep with your wives in broad daylight. You did it in secret, but I will do this thing in broad daylight before all Israel.’”
David's sin (and his sense of justice) are revealed in a story about a rich man who steals a beloved animal. David responds like the good David of old -- he is angry at injustice. Nathan then points a long bony finger at the powerful king and says, "You are the man!"
God's response is that He gave David pretty much anything he, David, wanted. Indeed, there are many women, including, if desired, the wives of his master, Saul, who have but to put into David's "arms". The Hebrew word bə·ḥê·qe·ḵā, translated "into your arms" by the NIV is translated "into thy bosom" by the King James Version and "into your lap" by Robert Alter. It is the same word used by Sarah in Genesis 16:5, and, says Alter, in both cases has a sexual meaning. David had lots of choices for women to sleep with. But he chose the wife of an upright but powerless soldier.
David, like Adam long ago in the Garden of Eden, can have almost anything in his garden, but reaches out and grabs what is not his. (Walter Vogel, "David's Greatness in His Sin and Repentance".)
2 Samuel 12: 13-14, David repents
Then David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord.”
Nathan replied, “The Lord has taken away your sin. You are not going to die. But because by doing this you have shown utter contempt for the Lord, the son born to you will die.”
Caught off guard by the true meaning of this story, David is ashamed and suddenly aware of his sin. After that confession, Nathan has additional information: David's sin is forgiven by Go but there are consequences. One of them is that the child in the womb will not survive. (There will be other indirect consequences.)
2 Samuel 12: 15-18, A child dies
After Nathan had gone home, the Lord struck the child that Uriah’s wife had borne to David, and he became ill. David pleaded with God for the child. He fasted and spent the nights lying in sackcloth on the ground. The elders of his household stood beside him to get him up from the ground, but he refused, and he would not eat any food with them.
On the seventh day the child died. David’s attendants were afraid to tell him that the child was dead, for they thought, “While the child was still living, he wouldn’t listen to us when we spoke to him. How can we now tell him the child is dead? He may do something desperate.”
David fasts and prays for his child. After the child dies, the attendants are worried that in his grief David will harm himself. They are afraid to tell David the news.
2 Samuel 12: 19-22, David grieves
David noticed that his attendants were whispering among themselves, and he realized the child was dead. “Is the child dead?” he asked.
“Yes,” they replied, “he is dead.”
Then David got up from the ground. After he had washed, put on lotions and changed his clothes, he went into the house of the Lord and worshiped. Then he went to his own house, and at his request they served him food, and he ate.
His attendants asked him, “Why are you acting this way? While the child was alive, you fasted and wept, but now that the child is dead, you get up and eat!” He answered, “While the child was still alive, I fasted and wept. I thought, ‘Who knows? The Lord may be gracious to me and let the child live.’ But now that he is dead, why should I go on fasting? Can I bring him back again? I will go to him, but he will not return to me.”
2 Samuel 12: 24-25 Solomon
Then David comforted his wife Bathsheba, and he went to her and made love to her. She gave birth to a son, and they named him Solomon. The Lord loved him; and because the Lord loved him, he sent word through Nathan the prophet to name him Jedidiah.
The couple have a second child, Solomon. God has his own name for this child and passes on the name Jedidiah, which means "loved by the Lord." This is surely an important message for David.
2 Samuel 12: 26-31, Joab goes back to work
Meanwhile Joab fought against Rabbah of the Ammonites and captured the royal citadel. Joab then sent messengers to David, saying, “I have fought against Rabbah and taken its water supply. Now muster the rest of the troops and besiege the city and capture it. Otherwise I will take the city, and it will be named after me.”
So David mustered the entire army and went to Rabbah, and attacked and captured it. David took the crown from their king’s head, and it was placed on his own head. It weighed a talent of gold, and it was set with precious stones. David took a great quantity of plunder from the city and brought out the people who were there, consigning them to labor with saws and with iron picks and axes, and he made them work at brickmaking.
David did this to all the Ammonite towns. Then he and his entire army returned to Jerusalem.
Joab defeats the Ammonites and then, because of David's procrastination, has to get David to join him so that David gets some of the glory. It is likely that this victory is a continuation of the conflict described two chapters back in 2 Samuel 10. Joab has been faithful to David (to a fault) and here he recognizes that David's inaction will bring David down.
The last two chapters bring to a close a very sad scandal in David's life. Although the Hebrew scriptures routinely praise David, they do not gloss over his violence and lust.
Although David's relationship with YHWH is restored, David's past actions will continue to ripple through the palace, taking down a number of sons, including his firstborn.
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