40 Minutes In The Old Testament - 2 Samuel 12:16-31 (Episode 273)

Episode Date: July 5, 2021

David morns everything Nathan told him about his son. David's servants are concerned about him. David's son dies and he has an unexpected response. And Solomon is born. Chad and Daniel discuss all of this. 1517 Podcast Network Regional Event in Las Vegas 1517 YouTube Donate

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Chad, we took a break last episode. Not really a break, but we took a little pit stop in the Psalms to cover Psalm 51, David's psalm of repentance. And now we're back in the narrative. And this is where we see some of the ramifications of sin. And it would be nice if it was just, well, that was a low part of David's life. And everything was just up and up and up and up from that point on, but that is not how it goes, living life in a sinful world. And so David has got the absolution, he's got forgiveness, but he's still got some things to suffer.

Yeah, this is not an easy section to cover. uh maybe we did psalm 51 so we could have a week break before we actually had to had to to deal with this particular story i mean it's a it's like a lot of stories in scripture it's uh it's difficult to read it's difficult to to talk about it's difficult to really to come to grips with um the the effects of sin but this is one of the things that uh it's part of life it's part of part of scripture it's part of our part of our own lives and we all know that sin has ramifications forgiven sin still has repercussions all of us have experienced that it's a it's an inescapable aspect of life now what those ramifications repercussions look like it's going to be

different for for every a particular person every particular family in this case it's it's quite extreme because of course we're going to be dealing with the death of david and bathsheba's son. So we will do our best to work our way through it and to think aloud about what's going on here. So verse 2 Samuel chapter 12, verse 13 ends by Nathan saying to David, after David confesses, I have sinned against the Lord. Nathan says, the Lord also has put away your sin. You shall not die, which, of course, is very good news. But then he goes on in verse 14 to say this, nevertheless, because by this deed you have utterly scorned the Lord, the child who is born to you shall die. And then Nathan went to his house. Now, at this point, you might think to

yourself, well, if God has said clearly that the child is going to die, then there's really nothing that David can do. God has said this, and so David should simply resolve himself to the fact that the child, in fact, will die, just like God has said. But David doesn't do that. We'll see in just a second that uh david tried to get god to take back this particular word and might be saying yourself well you know how why would you do that because we do have we do have several situations in scripture where god says a is going to happen but over the course of time b happens instead you know we have we have instances where that happened that that change is made directly because someone interceding that god says this is what i'm going to do that person

says let me i'm gonna like try to change your mind and sure enough god that god you know especially especially in situations like this where because a lot of times when god doesn't do the thing that he said he was going to do it says that god relented all right this is god this has got to be what David is praying for, right? Yeah, I mean, we have it later on in the case of Hezekiah. Hezekiah is told he's going to die. He prays, and God extends his life. We've seen it probably most memorably when God says to Moses, hey, you know what? I'm sick of Israel. I'm going to wipe them all out, and I'm going to start over with you. Moses more or less says, no, you can't do that, because that would not be very godlike of you. That's not who you are. And God relents. He

doesn't destroy Israel. Instead, he forgives them and continues to be their God. So for David to act the way he does, in the face of this very definitive word from God through Nathan, there's nothing wrong with it, in other words. It's not as if David didn't believe what God had said. he is simply acting on the basis of what has been experienced by a lot of other believers up to this point. So, picking it up there with the latter half of verse 15, it says, the Lord afflicted the child that Uriah's wife bore to David, and he became sick. This is pretty common language that we find in the Old Testament, where the action is attributed directly to God. Most of us are much more prone to talk about God allowing something to happen.

I think that's pretty typical language that's used today. God permitted something to happen. God allowed something to happen. The almost universal approach in the Old Testament is to attribute these actions directly to God instead of talking about secondary sources or secondary causes or anything like that. So the Lord afflicted the child. Notice the language is used, not that the widow of Uriah, but Uriah's wife bore to David. So she's still being called the wife of Uriah up to this point.

So the child becomes sick. So David does exactly what I've been describing. David therefore sought God on behalf of the child. How did he do this? He fasted. He went in and lay all night on the ground. So in some ways, in a very ironic kind of way, David is sort of doing what Uriah had done. Uriah laid on the ground outside the palace of the king.

He didn't go and eat and drink with his wife. And David, in some ways, is imitating that. He's acting in such a way as to deprive himself of the comforts of life. This is his way of praying, his way of grieving, his way of mourning this possible death of his child by not eating, by laying on the ground, by beseeching God and praying that God would not do the thing that he had threatened to do. But we're told in verse 18 that after seven days had passed, after David had been fasting and praying for seven days straight, that in fact the child did die. And David's servants, who had been watching all of this take place, they were afraid to tell him that the child was dead because they were saying to each other, look, when the child was still alive, we spoke to him and he didn't listen to us. How then can we say to him that the child is dead?

He may do himself some harm. So the servants of David are evidently so worried about David because they were seeing the extreme situation that he was in, and he was not responding to them. He was just basically laying on the ground, mourning and praying constantly. They were afraid that if they told him the bad news, that David, in fact, might harm himself in response to it. Yeah, this tells you that this is no small amount of intercession going on here.

I mean, they're literally afraid that if they give David this news, that David might become suicidal or something. Yeah, it shows you, too, that this wasn't some sort of political act, I suppose, on David's part. We do know that David is quite political, but he's dropped all that. This is a sincere grieving on his part. And this is going to serve as a contrast to what he does next. I mean, you're going to see a move from being so distraught that you're afraid if you tell this person something that they are going to engage in self-harm to getting up and moving on with life. And so this is trying—you have to gather how weird this would be to the servants that are watching what David does next. Yeah, it's perfectly set up as this very stark contrast between the David that we see before the child dies and the David that we see after the child dies.

And, of course, our response would probably be the same thing as the servant's response is going to be, because it seems like it should be reversed, right? Because after the child dies, it's when you would expect someone to be mourning in this sort of way, but instead David does the exact opposite. So getting back to the story in verse 19, David observed that his servants were whispering together. And because of that, David was able to surmise that in fact, the child had died. So David asked them, he says, is the child dead? And they responded, yes, he is dead. Now, if we were one of the servants, had been watching David do all of this, We would have expected him to double down on what he'd been doing, as if he could double down.

I mean, this sounds like it's an extreme case of grieving and mourning, in which he won't get up from the ground, he won't eat anything, he's just praying constantly. You might be thinking, well, what else could he do? Well, you would think that if the child had died, in fact, that he somehow would even go to further extremes, which, of course, is what they're worried about. He might actually, instead of just mourning, somehow harm himself. But he does the exact opposite. Verse 20 says that as soon as they told him, yes, the child is dead, David, instead of continuing to mourn, instead of continuing to grieve, he gets up. It says he arose from the earth, and he took a bath, he washed himself,

and he anointed himself, and he changed his clothes. Presumably he was wearing probably sackcloth. We're not told that, but that's typical clothing of mourning. Either that or his clothes were just filthy because he was in the dirt for seven days. But he gets up, takes a bath, puts oil on himself, changes his clothes. And not only that, but he goes into the house of the Lord and he worshipped. And then he went to his own house. So exact opposite of what his servants and all of us would have anticipated that he would have done.

He cleans himself up, changes his clothes, goes to church, more or less. he goes to god's house he worships and he goes back to his own house and when he asked they set food before him so he told him he's been fasting all these days needs something to eat so they bring him something to eat now verse 21 has the servants saying to him the same thing that we would have been asking him this one an explanation so verse 21 says they asked david what is this thing that you've done. So you fasted, you wept for the child while he was alive, and now that the child has died, you arise and eat food. So what's going on? Here's David's response. This is verse 22. While the child was still alive, I fasted and I wept, for I said. So this is

David explaining kind of what's going on in his own mind as he's engaged in this period of mourning and grieving and petitioning God. Who knows, mi yodea in Hebrew, who knows whether the Lord will be gracious to me that the child may live. But now he is dead. Why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he will not return to me. Yeah, so you have David saying, God may change his mind, but now I know that he did not. Yeah, that's the answer for why I'm reacting the way that I am. So who knows? This particular Hebrew question is found in a few a few places in scripture similar to this. It's found in the book of Joel, Joel chapter 2, verse 14, where it says, who knows, you know, what God might do. It's not just kind of a,

more than simply kind of up in the air, like, you know, who knows what God might do. It's more like, who knows, God might in fact do the opposite of what I expect him to. You know, in other words, It's an acknowledgment on the part of a mortal that we cannot know the mind of the immortal. I'm a human. My knowledge is limited. I'm not God. I don't know what he's going to do. There's a possibility that he might actually be gracious to me and save the child's life.

By the way, this is the same expression that's used in the book of Jonah after Jonah preaches and the people say, who knows? It's a little bit different situation there because Jonah was the worst preacher ever. So their question, who knows, was probably based upon the very poor preaching that Jonah engaged in. Lack of information. We have not been informed of what will happen if we do this. Yeah, who knows? Maybe God will not destroy our city. in this case and in the case of joel chapter two it's more an acknowledgement of our limited knowledge as as human beings so david says i you know i don't know this could have been one of those situations like with moses and the israelites or like it's going to be later on with hezekiah

where god will in fact be gracious and will spare the child but he obviously has not and so david says, why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? Of course, the answer is no. But notice what David says, I shall go to him, but he will not return to me, which is a great confession, a very comforting confession, that David knows that in time to come, when he himself dies, that he will go to be with his child. The child's not going to come back to him, but David himself will go to be with his child, which is a tremendous consolation for all of us who've lost anyone to death that was a beloved family member or friend. Yeah, we can't bring them back, but because of the mercy and grace of God, because we have a God who is life itself

and who gives us life, then when we leave this life, we step through the portal into eternal life. So we go to be with them. They do not come to be with us. Yeah, this is important because it also means that David does not believe that God has poured out this consequence or this judgment on his son and that this is some kind of permanent thing. David is confessing that he believes that he will go to his son, and that his son then is with the Lord, that God has taken his son, but not in a way of damned his son or condemned his son. He has simply taken him, and David is going to have to wait to go be with his son. So the consequence here, yes, it's death, but it's It's taking away from David the joy of having this child,

and he's basically saying, you're going to have to wait to be with this child. This child is going to come with me. It still seems all backwards to us. I mean, when we see Nathan say, you shall not die, but your son shall die, you're like, that seems backwards. That doesn't seem correct.

Shouldn't it be the exact opposite of that? which is the the greater point and i'm sure you were going here chad but that david doesn't die but the son of david dies pointing to ultimately why david doesn't die because the son of david who is promised is going to die for all these sins the whole reason that david can receive the absolution the whole reason that david can have his sins blotted out and be washed from his iniquity and all of these things is because the, the true, the promised son of David is going to take all those sins. Even, even this, I don't think these, this wording is even accidental where, where you have, where it says like, and this is, this is meant to be this way. This is

supposed to, to hit you in a way that is uncomfortable, where it says that the Lord afflicted the child, which is very similar to what Isaiah will write in Isaiah 53, where he will say, of Christ, surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we esteem him stricken, smitten, and afflicted by God. So you see God afflicting the son of David, pointing forward to God who will also take credit for afflicting his own son, who will ultimately pay for the sins of David. Yeah, exactly. This is a, I guess we might call this a foreshadowing of the scandal of the gospel. Yeah. Because you look at Jesus, the true son of David, and in himself, he's innocent. He's done nothing that deserves what happens to him. I mean, even Pilate

acknowledges that right i find no guilt in this man yeah but you know that pilot when he when they cry out for barabbas and barabbas goes free and jesus goes to the cross this is this is the same sort of situation that you have here where you're like wait a minute you got this wrong the wrong person is going free and the wrong person is dying this is supposed to be unfair because it is unfair yeah yeah that's why and that's why it's the scandal of the gospel this is this is exactly why the the gospel is so troubling what do you mean an innocent man died and guilty people get off scot-free i mean if we saw something like that happen in our in our criminal system which of course we we do sometimes uh people are up in arms what do you mean an

innocent man suffered or what do you mean a guilty person got off people are understandably upset by that because it violates everything that we know about justice and yet when you look at what the gospel is, it seems on the outside as if it's the most unjust act imaginable. Here is a purely innocent man who's put to death, where a whole world full of guilty people are absolved. Well, yeah, that's exactly what the gospel is. Except in this case, the innocent one becomes the world's guilt. He actually becomes cursed, as Paul will say in Galatians. Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree. Or he becomes the sin that Paul talks about in his letter to the Corinthians, that he who knew no sin became sin for us, so that to him we might become the righteousness of God.

So if the gospel does not seem scandalous to you, then you probably need to think a little bit more about what the gospel is, because it really is. It is scandalous. A whole world full of very guilty sinners are forgiven when one man who has committed no wrong, no injustice, nothing whatsoever from himself he is the one who not only is put to death but is put to death as the guilty party as the sinner who bears the entire sins of of humanity yeah yeah so if this story is offensive you are not far from the kingdom of god exactly exactly and that doesn't mean that it shouldn't that it can't bother you it bothers me i think it bothers most people but understand why it bothers you as it as it connects to the death of the of the son of david yeah and that and that

much like the death of christ uh while his death for your sin uh is permanent you know him being god uh rise it again the death of david's son is is not an eternal death i mean this is this is just the lord taking him as a picture of what will happen and so uh you know it's hard for us living in a you know as fine you know as finite creatures we think even if we believe that this life is small compared to eternal life we still under and rightly feel like there has been someone has been ripped off uh when when someone dies i mean if we feel like a future has been taken away that uh that so so much uh was stolen from someone but of course god knows different than we do. And so God can look through and say, well, yeah, he didn't have to

struggle through a sinful life and a sinful world and full of pain and suffering and all of that. And yes, that seems like the most horrific judgment to you, but probably in the new heavens and new earth, it will feel like less of a grave injustice. Yeah. If you could talk to the son of David, he won't feel ripped off. No. He was transitioned into the presence of his true father. And, you know, there is a, to kind of run with this whole typology that we've been talking about, there is almost a sense in which this chapter gives us a complete picture of Good Friday and Easter. If we have the death of the son of David in the section we've just been talking about. There is a sense in which you have the resurrection and Easter celebrated with the

coming to life of the next son of David, which is what verse 24 and 25 describes to us. So after everything has just happened and David speaks what he does, then it says David comforted his wife. This is the first time I believe that Bathsheba is called David's wife before this point. She's always called the wife of Uriah. But David comforted his wife Bathsheba, went in to her and lay with her, and she bore a son, and he called his name Solomon. And the Lord loved him and sent a message by Nathan the prophet, so he called his name Jedidiah because of the Lord. Jedidiah means beloved by Yahweh, beloved of the Lord. Now, I want to come back to that in a second, but I do believe what we're seeing here is kind of this complete picture.

So the son of David dies, the son of David comes to life. The son of David is entering into the grave, and then all of a sudden you have in the next verse this, yes, in this case it's another son of david in the case of of christ himself it's the same son of david who then comes back to life so between this unnamed child and solomon you have a complete picture of what happens with christ as he is put to death and then raised to life for for our justification it's wild that david can you know obtain bathsheba as his wife through all of these horrific uh sinful actions that are all evil in the sight of the Lord as was we've stated and then here David is married to Bathsheba and now it refers to Bathsheba as his wife and they bear another they bear another son I think this

line is crazy that it says and the Lord loved him what do you what do you have here is like the real power of the absolution that when God says like I've put it away that he's put it away yeah it's It's a startling, startling story to read because you would expect all the repercussions to follow this to be completely negative, right? I mean, nothing good is going to come out of this. Well, actually, something tremendously good does come out of this because you have Solomon born, who is loved by God. He's named, the name itself that he's given, which is probably a throne name, means beloved Yahweh. So it's not as if God even just likes this child. He loves this child, this child that's born to David and Bathsheba.

This is the one who is beloved by God and the one who will, of course, as time goes on, be the one who is going to sit on the throne of his father, David. And he himself, despite all of Solomon's many flaws, which we will get to when we get into Kings, he himself is a foreshadowing of the Messiah. even his uh the day in which he receives the crown he rides a donkey into jerusalem and he's acclaimed king just like christ on palm sunday will ride his own donkey into jerusalem and be be acclaimed the son of david so this child born to a man who who sinned with that sheba born to a man who sinned by murdering the husband of Bathsheba,

and Anon marries her. This son, despite this horrific set of events, this son is nevertheless, because we have a God of mercy and grace, beloved of God, and chosen to be David's replacement. Yeah, and David has other sons, obviously, yet this is the son, the son that was brought forth in all of this. this is the son that god says yeah that's i'm bringing i'm bringing my promise through him solomon and besheba appear in the genealogy of the savior that this is exactly how god would do it

yeah this yeah this is exactly the way that god would work because he's he's always putting people in front of us that or situations in front of us where he makes sure that we realize that when he's bringing about his salvation it's up it's a salvation for people who are truly sinful yeah it's not like they're you know they're they're kind of messed up they're they're partly sinful uh they just need a little bit of work no these people are in dire need of the mercy of god and this so you can add this story to all the other stories we've covered in all these podcasts whether it is you know judah sleeping with his daughter-in-law while she's dressed up a prostitute or whether it's going all the way back to abraham or whatever story you want to

stick in there there's a whole list of sordid stories of people engage in evil acts and there being a whole list of very negative repercussions from this and yet god is able to use those people in those situations inch by inch uh year by year to work his way toward the one who's going to be born as the as the one who comes from a genealogy of sinners and then he is the savior of those those same sinners yeah okay so let's wrap this uh this chapter up verse 26 through the through the end is going to tell us about finally what happened with this whole war that we started way back in second samuel chapter 10 we heard about at the beginning of chapter 11 and now we're going to wrap it up here with Joab's victory.

So verse 26 says, Joab fought against Rabbah of the Ammonites and took the royal city. So if you remember from back in 2 Samuel 10, there was this series of skirmishes and battles between the Israelites, the Ammonites, and then beginning of chapter 11, when the kings used to go out to war and David stayed in Jerusalem and Joab was out there fighting these Ammonites, then that's his whole context. So we're kind of circling back to this battlefield where Uriah himself had been killed.

Joab, the commander of the armies, fights against Rabbah, takes the royal city. And Joab, rather than taking the honor for himself, he sends messengers to David. And it's kind of interesting because the message itself is a sort of two-line poem. it says i have fought against rabba moreover i have taken the city of waters now gather the rest of the people together in the camp against the city and take it lest i joab lest i take the city and it be called by my name i i kind of hear a couple different things going on here On the one hand, because there is this long conflict between Joab and David, which originated years before this, Joab is kind of rubbing at David's face. you know all this was going on and you were back in jerusalem creating this whole

messy situation uh i was out here doing my duty and i have i'm on the brink of taking this city i'm on the brink of taking rabba but uh since you're king and i'm not i'm gonna let you know this and i want you to come out here and basically take the credit for all the work that i've that i've done yeah he's that's the way i read it he's he's like he's rolling out like hey remember back when people were singing songs about how Saul slayed his thousands and David slayed his tens of thousands. You might want to get out here unless something like that happens again. David has slain his thousands in Joab, his tens of thousands.

Yeah, I think for sure this is a dig of sorts. Yeah, where you were out there just doing all kinds of horrific things, dragging me into those horrific things, this is what I was doing and the people are going to love it a lot more than they love whatever you were doing so you might want to get out here and take credit for everything I've done yeah and this isn't going to be the last

time that there is this kind of back and forth between David and Joab we're going to see this again coming up those two never really do fully reconcile uncle and nephew they always have this history between them

which prevents a a full reconciliation so uh david actually listens which is which is probably a good thing he's probably at the point now in his life where he's much more prone to listen to other people rather than just listening to his own own uh self-counsel so he gathers all the people together and he goes to rava and fights against it and took the city and we have description uh further description of what happened verse 30 says he took the crown of their king from his head the weight of it was a talon of gold and then it was a precious stone and it was placed on david's head so he's pictured here of course as a the royal the royal conqueror takes the crown of the of the king of rabba and

places it on his on his own head and he brought out the spoil of the city which was a very great amount this is uh just a further description of the kind of the the activities that would have been involved with a military conquest by the way this crown it weighs a talent it's like 75 pounds isn't it it's a heavy crown maybe just maybe two servants held it on either side of its head that it was removed i mean i'm pretty sure they yeah the talent of weight is like yeah it's like 70 it's like 70 pounds or something like that like that's a that's a heavy crown not something that you wanted to not that you wanted on your on your head i guess that's why it was noteworthy but yeah there's a there's actually i wasn't going to bring this up but

now that you say that i'll i'll bring it up there there is a different way of reading this so if you check the the greek translation then the septuagint and it says that in that translation it says that he took the crown not of their king but of milcom which was the god of the ammonites some people think who who lean in that direction and the in the hebrew could go other way the the the the vowels were added to the hebrew reflect the translation that most of us are familiar with so the vowels added to those consonants are of their king but if you took away those vowels and you just read the consonants, you could also read that as Milcom. So the reason I bring this up is this could have been, if you go that route,

a crown that was placed on like a statue of Milcom, of the Ammonite god, which would actually make a whole lot more sense than having a 75-pound crown on the head of the king. Of course, they take it off, and then they place it on David's head for about one second, and David's like, okay. Enough of that. yeah david had a big enough head already he didn't need something something else up there so they uh yeah they so they place on david's head he takes the spoils of the city and then

verse 31 depending on which english translation you're looking at can read a couple different ways so i'm gonna read the esv it says he brought out the people who were in it that is he brought out the the ammonites who were in the city and set them to labor with saws and iron picks and iron axes and made them toil at the brick kilns and thus he did to all the cities of the of the ammonites so that's esv the new american standard has he also brought out the people who were in it and set them under saws and sharp iron instruments and iron axes and made them pass through the brick kiln so you have two two translations one of which reflects David basically subjecting the conquered peoples

to the labor of servants. So he's making them labor with saws and iron picks and so forth and makes them work in these brick kilns. That's the ESV, in which in the majority of English translations. The other translation is basically put to some kind of horrific torture. with iron picks and saws and iron axes and, I guess, burning their bodies in brick kilns, all of which makes no sense

because, first of all, why would you torture with such strange and a strange variety of tools and then burn them in brick kilns? It just doesn't make any sense. I mean, I'm not saying the Hebrew can't be translated that way, but it makes a whole lot more sense to go the ESV route. Yeah, I mean, he's making them make bricks. Yeah, he's just subjecting them to labor, yeah.

Which is not unusual for a conquering people to do this to the people that they've conquered. I know there's something weird about the Israelites making other people make bricks. There's something very, yeah. It's like, didn't the Israelites have to do that at one point? Yeah, it's a very odd activity to subject your servants, your conquered servants to do, given Israel's history. And so that's what David did, it says, to all the cities of the Ammonites. He basically made them serve Israel by, I guess, engaging in some sort of construction. We're not told exactly what that was, but they're making bricks,

and they're building with the use of these various implements. And then the chapter wraps up by saying David and all the people returned to Jerusalem. So this is sort of a bookend to this long story that we've been covering these past few episodes. It really begins with chapter 10 of 2 Samuel, where you have the Ammonite king insulting the Israelite messengers that are sent by David. You know, he cut off half their beard, cut their garments so that their privates were showing. this all began at the beginning of chapter 10, which then led to the wars that take place in the rest of chapter 10. And then beginning of 11, you have the transition to everything happening with David and Bathsheba and Uriah. So in many ways, the end of 12 is kind of taking this story

and summing it up. So the Ammonites are finally conquered after all this has gone down. David makes him into servants, and David goes back to Jerusalem, where everything happened that is recorded for us in 11, 11 and 12. Now, what we're going to encounter with chapter 13, which we'll get to in the next episode, is, well, it's not going to be a lot of very, what should I say, not a lot of very kind of optimistic and uh enjoyable stories to read because what we're going to encounter right away is more of the the ongoing demolition we might say of david's house because we're going to encounter what the story of what happens with uh two of his children actually more than two but two in particular with amnon and tamar and then we'll see we'll

go from that into what begins to happen with Absalom and a whole lot of other members of David's household. So everything that happened in 11 and 12, we're going to see how that kind of works its way into various problems in David's house as we go on from here. Yeah, 13, 14, 15, these are not fun times in the house of David at all. You realize that if you just give the Bible to someone and have them read it that if you don't know a lot about what's in there this this sort of stuff is sort of surprising yeah yeah for sure um and it's why it's it's good to it's good to see things in its broader context you know if you just handed the bible to someone and said hey read second samuel 13 or 14 or whatever it might be it's kind of hard to see okay where does this

fit into the bigger bigger picture but that's one advantage of doing what we're doing we're we're building the bigger picture as we go along, and we're able to see how all of this fits into the broader picture of what God is doing in the midst of David's house. Yep, and next week we will tackle that. Chad, I'll see you then. All right, we'll see you then. I'll see you next time.