📖 2 Samuel 12 : 💎 A chapter in which one child is taken by God, and another is given, showing God's love

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The previous chapter, 2 Samuel 11, records David's sin.

• When his plan to cover up his own sin went wrong,
• David deliberately has the faithful Uriah killed.

📖 2 Samuel 12 : 💎

A chapter in which one child is taken by God,
and another is given, showing God's love

In verse 1, the LORD sends Nathan to David.

➡️ Nathan, through a parable,

• tells of two men, one rich and one poor.
• The rich man took the poor man's ewe lamb, which was not his own, and prepared it for the traveler who had come to him.

➡️ David, angered, swears by the life of the LORD

• He declares that the man who did this deserves to die (v. 5).
• He declares that, because he did this, he must repay the lamb fourfold (v. 6).

➡️ Nathan says, “You are that man!” and delivers the word of the LORD's anger

• I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you from the hand of Saul.
• I gave you your master's house and your master's wives, and I entrusted Israel and Judah to you.
• Why, then, have you despised the word of the LORD by doing what is evil in my sight?
• You struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and killed him with the sword of the Ammonites,
• and took his wife to be your wife.
• Now you have despised me and taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife; therefore
• the sword will never depart from your house, forever.
• I will raise up trouble against you and your house; before your eyes I will take your wives and give them to your neighbors,
• and they will lie with your wives in broad daylight.
• You did it in secret, but I will do this before all Israel, in broad daylight.

📌 The heart of the LORD's word ➔ repeated statements

• Despising the LORD (repeated 2 times)
• Taking the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife (repeated 2 times)
• Taking your wives and giving them to your neighbors (they will lie with your wives in broad daylight)
  • The wording differs, but it can be said that this too is similar content repeated 2 times.

👉 David's confession and the LORD's word that follows

• “I have sinned against the LORD,” says David.
• Nathan replies: “The LORD has also forgiven your sin; you shall not die,

📌 but the child born to you shall surely die.”

👉 The LORD strikes the child that was born

• The child is ill for 7 days and dies. (During that time the parents endure the pain - the punishment of pain 💎)
• David fasts, weeps, and prays for the child.
• But the LORD did not relent, and the child left their side.

👉 The LORD God grants a new child

• God gives David and Bathsheba a new son.
• The LORD loved Solomon, the child who was born, and sent Nathan to give him the name Jedidiah.
• ➔ The text records that this was because the LORD loved him.

👉 The fall of Ammon

Joab sends messengers to David and asks that the capture of the city be done in the king's name.

So David gathers all the army, goes to Rabbah, attacks and captures the place, brings out the Ammonites, and returns to Jerusalem.

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Closing thoughts - 1

2 Samuel 8 records the LORD God's immense blessing on David, but

chapter 12 shows his severe punishment.

• The reason is that David despised the word of God.
• He took another man's wife
• and had her husband die by the sword of the Ammonites.

The child, the fruit of that adulterous union, was taken by God;

and He gave a new life, one whom the LORD loved in a special way.

✔️ Along with this, David still had to receive the severe punishment of God that was to come.

💎 Closing thoughts - 2 : How long did the war against Ammon last?

2 Samuel 11 and 12 record David's sin during the period in which the war against the Ammonites began and ended. So how long did this war last?

📌 Could it be that the LORD God has set a trap here?

① First calculation

At first, reading it as recorded, I calculated that at least 1 to 2 years had passed. ❌

- Taking as the basis the record of one child dying and another being born

② Second calculation

Taking Solomon's birth as the basis, it would take at least 4 to 5 years. ❌ (not this either)

- The child dies and Solomon is born, but before Solomon there were three more sons (born to Bathsheba).

💡 While calculating under various scenarios, I suddenly realize.

✔️ In the Bible's record, just as a verse is tossed in in passing, these two verses were placed in that way. 💎

➡️ They are 2 Samuel 12:24-25. This is the verse in which the LORD's grace shines on David. 💎

David comforted his wife Bathsheba, went in to her, and lay with her; and she bore a son, and he was named Solomon. The LORD loved him, and sending the prophet Nathan, He gave him the name Jedidiah; this was because the LORD loved him.

➡️ It should be read as a verse that shows the LORD's grace,

and if it is placed into the order of the record, everything becomes twisted. 💎💎💎

📌 Summary - 1

If we think of verses 24-25 separately, the war fits precisely into the period after the child's death, and we can infer that the war against Ammon, running from chapter 11 to 12, may have taken at least 1 year or more. 💎

📌 Summary - 2

Sometimes the Bible's record inserts a single word or a verse or two to aid understanding, while at other times it creates very complex situations. Why He causes this puzzlement, we cannot grasp His intention exactly, but…

Might the intention be that, after first grasping what the heart of the record is, we think and read not once or twice but until it is resolved?

😀 What an interesting record. One more way of reading the Bible is added to my memory!

Closing thoughts - 3

The LORD took the son born of adultery, and in David's case it was right that He took him.

• Because the child was a stain on King David.
• And because, in the eyes of the world, this child could not have been happy.

🔎 The LORD, thinking of David, gave Bathsheba a new child, and through his son Solomon the throne would later be passed on.

✔️ Might this not be the immense grace of the LORD, who turns shame into glory? 💎

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