Scripture Texts:
2 Samuel 12:1-3 and sent Nathan to David. Nathan said to him, “There were two men in the same city—one rich, the other poor. The rich man had huge flocks of sheep, herds of cattle. The poor man had nothing but one little female lamb, which he had bought and raised. It grew up with him and his children as a member of the family. It ate off his plate and drank from his cup and slept on his bed. It was like a daughter to him.
4 “One day a traveler dropped in on the rich man. He was too stingy to take an animal from his own herds or flocks to make a meal for his visitor, so he took the poor man’s lamb and prepared a meal to set before his guest.”
5-6 David exploded in anger. “As surely as God lives,” he said to Nathan, “the man who did this ought to be lynched! He must repay for the lamb four times over for his crime and his stinginess!”
7-12 “You’re the man!” said Nathan. “And here’s what God, the God of Israel, has to say to you: I made you king over Israel. I freed you from the fist of Saul. I gave you your master’s daughter and other wives to have and to hold. I gave you both Israel and Judah. And if that hadn’t been enough, I’d have gladly thrown in much more. So why have you treated the word of God with brazen contempt, doing this great evil? You murdered Uriah the Hittite, then took his wife as your wife. Worse, you killed him with an Ammonite sword! And now, because you treated God with such contempt and took Uriah the Hittite’s wife as your wife, killing and murder will continually plague your family. This is God speaking, remember! I’ll make trouble for you out of your own family. I’ll take your wives from right out in front of you. I’ll give them to some neighbor, and he’ll go to bed with them openly. You did your deed in secret; I’m doing mine with the whole country watching!”
Psalm 51: A David Psalm, After He Was Confronted by Nathan About the Affair with Bathsheba
1-3 Generous in love—God, give grace!
Huge in mercy—wipe out my bad record.
Scrub away my guilt,
soak out my sins in your laundry.
I know how bad I’ve been;
my sins are staring me down.
4-6 You’re the One I’ve violated, and you’ve seen
it all, seen the full extent of my evil.
You have all the facts before you;
whatever you decide about me is fair.
I’ve been out of step with you for a long time,
in the wrong since before I was born.
What you’re after is truth from the inside out.
Enter me, then; conceive a new, true life.
7-15 Soak me in your laundry and I’ll come out clean,
scrub me and I’ll have a snow-white life.
Tune me in to foot-tapping songs,
set these once-broken bones to dancing.
Don’t look too close for blemishes,
give me a clean bill of health.
God, make a fresh start in me,
shape a Genesis week from the chaos of my life.
Don’t throw me out with the trash,
or fail to breathe holiness in me.
Bring me back from gray exile,
put a fresh wind in my sails!
Give me a job teaching rebels your ways
so the lost can find their way home.
Commute my death sentence, God, my salvation God,
and I’ll sing anthems to your life-giving ways.
Unbutton my lips, dear God;
I’ll let loose with your praise.
Commentary on 2 Samuel 12:1-9; Psalm 51:1-9 by Brent A. Strawn
The exchange between Nathan and David after the incidents with Bathsheba and Uriah (see 2 Samuel 11) are among the most well-known in 2 Samuel.
The narrative does not indicate what God knows, or how God knows, only that God sends Nathan to David (2 Samuel 12:1; cf. the superscription to Psalm 51), who tells the king a story. The parable is memorable and rhetorically shrewd: A rich man had everything, but a poor man had nothing -- save a little ewe lamb that he had raised as a member of his house, so much so that it would eat from his table and sleep in his arms. “It was like a daughter to him,” verse 3 says -- precious, that is, and irreplaceable. But one day when a traveler came to the rich man (the visitor isn’t even named, so we ought not think of an important personage, just some individual who happened along), the rich man wasn’t willing to take one of his own animals for the meal but took the poor man’s lamb as the dinner entrée for his guest.
Preachers and readers need to pause here because this turn of events is shocking. This isn’t just any old lamb for dinner. This is a daughter (v. 3), taken by force and power, killed and cooked, then offered up for another’s culinary pleasure! And not only a daughter, but the only daughter (of this kind, at least) that the poor man had (v. 2). He has nothing else to his name and certainly no replacement for this particular child.
The bait is set and David seizes it, as we all should: what the rich man has done is unconscionable. David is incensed and swears a rather elaborate oath in the Lord’s name that the rich man must restore the poor man’s lamb many times over (v. 6).1 It may be that David also issues the death penalty for the rich man (v. 5).2 At the very least, the rich man will pay dearly; he may also have to pay with his life.
But then the blow is struck by Nathan: “You are that man!” In Hebrew this phrase is only two words long, and is the second of three important two-word phrases that drive the plot in 2 Samuel 11-12. The first belongs to Bathsheba when she tells David, “I’m pregnant” (11:5: harâ ?anokî); then comes Nathan’s “You are that man!” (12:7: ?attâ ha?îš); the third is David’s own two-word phrase after hearing God’s judgment through Nathan, “I’ve sinned against the LORD” (12:13: ?a?a?tî la-yhwh). Much is communicated with very few words in this narrative. Big things hang on two-word phrases.
Two key terms are crucial for this text. The first is the verb ?amal. In v. 4, in Nathan’s mouth, ?amal describes how the rich man “wasn’t willing” (CEB; NRSV: “loath”) to take a lamb from his own flock. In v. 6, in David’s mouth, ?amal describes why the rich man must be punished so severely: because he “had no compassion.” In point of fact, the first formulation does not employ a negative particle. Rather woodenly one might translate that the rich man “spared to take” one of his own lambs. The rich man, that is, had compassion on his own flock, and spared it. David’s formulation, however, does employ the negative particle: the rich man did not have compassion, did not spare. Elsewhere in the Old Testament, the verb ?amal is used in the extension of mercy, consideration, and care (e.g., Exodus 2:6; Jeremiah 15:5) or the denial of such (e.g., Deuteronomy 13:9; Jeremiah 13:14).
If one maps Nathan’s parable back to David, armed with the information gleaned from ?amal, some new angles on this old story can be seen. Clearly David is the rich man (v. 7) with Uriah the poor man who is robbed of his precious possession (here understood as Bathsheba) and ultimately killed (v. 9). This much is obvious from the parable and Nathan’s judgment, but then ?amal enters the picture. David’s actions of killing Uriah (even if that is by someone else’s sword, v. 9) and his taking of Bathsheba are seen, via the verb ?amal, as actions that are not compassionate, not merciful -- that lack or somehow deny care and consideration. To modern minds, murder is obviously an act that lacks compassion and mercy, but adultery? Most moderns are foolish enough to think that act is limited to two consenting adults. Far from it! The verb ?amal suggests that the act of adultery (which is considerably broadened in scope and definition by Jesus in Matthew 5:27-30) lacks compassion, consideration, mercy. “Lack of compassion and consideration and mercy for whom?” we might ask. The first, most obvious answer is the spouse who has been cheated on, but perhaps the adulterous spouse him/herself is another, close second. In the case of 2 Samuel 11-12, we know nothing of Bathsheba’s feelings about all this, nor her level of complicity (or lack thereof) in the affair with David. The parable may even suggest that she is anything but complicit -- she has been “taken” by the rich man, David, from the bosom of her caring husband.
Indeed, the second key word in this unit is precisely the Hebrew verb laqa?, “to take,” which occurs at four crucial points in the story (vs. 4 [twice], 9, 10). The rich man does not take one of his own sheep, but takes the poor man’s lamb instead (v. 4). David takes Bathsheba, who is twice mentioned, not by her name, but by her definition as the wife of another in vs. 9-10, which underscores the illicit nature of David’s action: this is someone else’s wife! In 1 Samuel 8, when Israel first requests a king, Samuel tells them that what kings do is “take” -- extensively and mercilessly (see 1 Samuel 8:11-18). In 2 Samuel 11, David fits the bill, with his royal taking exceeding even that predicted in 1 Samuel 8. His royal power is out of control -- even by his own account. By his “objective” standards, as he stands in the role of judge, the rich man that is he himself is now “a son of death” and responsible for massive restitution.
That restitution is announced, via Nathan, in 2 Samuel 12:10-12. The reasons for the brutal judgment of David’s “house” (i.e., his dynasty) are not solely due to adultery and murder, but are first and foremost because he “despised the LORD’s word by doing what is evil in his eyes” (v. 9; CEB). This brings us to a third and final response to our earlier question: “For whom does adultery show lack of compassion, consideration, and mercy?” According to Nathan in 2 Samuel 12, and also Matthew in the Sermon on the Mount, the response to that question includes the Lord.
A final remark: David, his life, his career, and so on and so forth are often popularly glossed by preachers and believers alike as being somehow “after God’s own heart.” It pays to remember that, in Samuel, that phrase occurs very early on, in connection with the rejection of Saul’s kingship (1 Samuel 13:14). David has not yet been introduced in the narrative, is not mentioned by name there, and is not yet anointed king -- all of which doesn’t happen until 1 Samuel 16. Much happens after 1 Samuel 13:14, that is -- including 2 Samuel 11 -- which should give us pause whenever we are tempted to tritely say that David was a king “after God’s own heart.” Not always! Definitely not always! Sometimes, instead, David was a king who “despised the LORD’s word” and who did what was evil in God’s eyes (2 Samuel 12:9). That is why he must suffer the judgment of God in so many shocking and horrific ways (2 Samuel 12:10-13).
And yet David doesn’t dissemble. He hears Nathan’s parable, hears the two-word conclusion, ?attâ ha?îš (“You are that man!”) and replies with a stunningly quick and brief two-word confession: ?a?a?tî la-yhwh (“I’ve sinned against the LORD”). It almost seems too quick, too brief, which may be what led to the long association of Psalm 51 with this exchange with Nathan. We’d like to hear David say more, be more contrite, than just two words. We’d like to hear him talk about how he knows his wrongdoings and how his sin is always right in front of him (Psalm 51:3). We’d like to hear him say that he knows God is correct in judging him (Psalm 51:4b). We’d like to hear him beg for mercy and forgiveness (Psalm 51:1-2, 7-13). Of course all of that and more is what Psalm 51 delivers. And yet, even in 2 Samuel 12, even with only two words at hand, David doesn’t dissemble, he confesses. Immediately, quickly, without excuse -- in front of Nathan and God and all others who witnessed this dialogue. There he is: Great king David, a man after God’s own heart, an adulterous, murderous sinner. And yet, there he is: adulterous, murderous, sinful David, confessing. Perhaps he is a man after God’s own heart after all because he is somehow able to hear God’s judgment and immediately accept it and the results that follow upon it.
Perhaps the immediacy of David’s confession is what sparks the immediacy of his forgiveness (2 Samuel 13:13). But even forgiveness can’t erase the damage that has been done and the judgment that has been announced. Forgiveness doesn’t mean that the consequences just disappear -- not when a baby is now gestating and a husband has been murdered. David must live with the consequences of his taking for the rest of his life. That should come as no surprise, really. That is always the case when someone fails to show ?amal.
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Notes:
1 The Hebrew text (MT) says the repayment should be fourfold, while the Greek (Septuagint/LXX) says sevenfold.
2 The Hebrew text reads that the rich man is “a son of death,” which could be idiomatic for “as good as dead,” signifying the death penalty. The CEB renders the phrase, “demonic,” perhaps taking the phrase as referring to the Canaanite god of death, Mot (“a son of Mot”).
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PRAYER OF THE DAY:
God of forgiveness, you showed your servant David the error of his ways, and forgave him for his sins. Forgive us, and help us to see how we might live differently to honor you. We pray these things in the name of Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord. Amen.
HYMNS:
For by grace you have been saved by Kari Tikka
Verse 1: For by grace you have been saved and even faith is not your
own, it's the gift of God for you and not the
works that you have done. Don't let anybody
boast, for this is God's great gift. Amen.
Verse 2: "So my grace is all sufficient for each child who is my
own, for my strength is now made prefect for each
child who is my own. When you're weak, then you are
strong, for this is God's great gift." Amen.
Verse 3: So this weakness with contentment I'll accept now in my
self, all my hardships, pain, and griefs that still lie
deep within myself. When I'm weak, then I am
strong, for this is God's great gift. Amen. Amen.
Change my heart, O God by Eddie Espinosa
1. Change my heart oh God,
Make it ever true.
Change my heart oh God,
May I be like You.
2. You are the potter,
I am the clay,
Mold me and make me,
This is what I pray.
Great God, your love has called us by Brian A. Wren (1973)
1. Great God, your love has called us here
as we, by love, for love were made.
Your living likeness still we bear,
though marred, dishonored, disobeyed.
We come, with all our heart and mind,
your call to hear, your love to find.
2. We come with self-inflicted pains
of broken trust and chosen wrong;
half-free, half-bound by inner chains;
by social forces swept along,
by powers and systems close confined;
yet seeking hope for humankind.
3. Great God, in Christ you call our name
and then receive us as your own
not through some merit, right, or claim,
but by your gracious love alone.
We strain to glimpse your mercy seat
and find you kneeling at our feet.
4. Then take the towel, and break the bread,
and humble us, and call us friends.
Suffer and serve till all are fed,
and show how grandly love intends
to work till all creation sings,
to fill all worlds, to crown all things.
5. Great God, in Christ you set us free,
your life to live, your joy to share.
Give your Spirit's liberty
to turn from guilt and dull despair
and offer all that faith can do
while love is making all things new.
God, when human bonds are broken by Fred Kaan
1. God! When human bonds are broken
and we lack the love or skill
to restore the hope of healing,
give us grace and make us still.
2. Through that stillness, with your Spirit
come into our world of stress,
for the sake of Christ forgiving
all the failures we confess.
3. You in us are bruised and broken:
hear us as we seek release
from the pain of earlier living;
set us free and grant us peace.
4. Send us, God of new beginnings,
humbly hopeful into life;
use us as a means of blessing:
make us stronger, give us faith.
5. Give us faith to be more faithful,
give us hope to be more true,
give us love to go on learning:
God! Encourage and renew!
CHORAL:
Create in me, Carl Mueller/Various
Create!in!me!a!clean!heart,!O!God;
and!renew!a!right!spirit!within!me.!
Cast!me!not!away!from!Thy!presence;!
and!take!not!Thy!Holy!Spirit!from!me.!
Restore!unto!me!the!joy!of!my!salvation!
and!uphold!me!with!Thy!free!Spirit.!
Then!will!I!teach!transgressors!Thy!ways;!
and!sinners!shall!be!converted!unto!Thee.!
Create!in!me!a!clean!heart,!O!God.
John Wesley's Notes-Commentary:
2 Samuel 12:1-9
Verse 1
[1] And the LORD sent Nathan unto David. And he came unto him, and said unto him, There were two men in one city; the one rich, and the other poor.
The Lord sent — When the ordinary means did not awaken David to repentance, God takes an extraordinary course. Thus the merciful God pities and prevents him who had so horribly forsaken God.
He said — He prudently ushers in his reproof with a parable, after the manner of the eastern nations, that so he might surprize David, and cause him unawares to give sentence against himself.
Verse 2
[2] The rich man had exceeding many flocks and herds:
Many flocks — Noting David's many wives and concubines.
Verse 3
[3] But the poor man had nothing, save one little ewe lamb, which he had bought and nourished up: and it grew up together with him, and with his children; it did eat of his own meat, and drank of his own cup, and lay in his bosom, and was unto him as a daughter.
Bought — As men then used to buy their wives: or, had procured.
Verse 5
[5] And David's anger was greatly kindled against the man; and he said to Nathan, As the LORD liveth, the man that hath done this thing shall surely die:
Is worthy to die — This seems to be more than the fact deserved, or than he had commission to inflict for it, Exodus 22:1. But it is observable, that David now when he was most indulgent to himself, and to his own sin, was most severe and even unjust to others; as appears by this passage, and the following relation, verse 31, which was done in the time of David's impenitent continuance in his sin.
Verse 7
[7] And Nathan said to David, Thou art the man. Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, I anointed thee king over Israel, and I delivered thee out of the hand of Saul;
Thus saith the Lord God — Nathan now speaks, not as a petitioner for a poor man, but as an ambassador from the great God.
Verse 9
[9] Wherefore hast thou despised the commandment of the LORD, to do evil in his sight? thou hast killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and hast taken his wife to be thy wife, and hast slain him with the sword of the children of Ammon.
To be thy wife — To marry her whom he had defiled, and whose husband he had slain, was an affront upon the ordinance of marriage, making that not only to palliate, but in a manner to consecrate such villainies. In all this he despised the word of the Lord; (so it is in the Hebrew.) Not only his commandment in general, but the particular word of promise, which God had before sent him by Nathan, that he would build him an house: which sacred promise if he had had a due value for, he would not have polluted his house with lust and blood.
Psalm 51:1-9
Verse 4
[4] Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight: that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest.
Thee only — Which is not to be, understood absolutely, because he had sinned against Bathsheba and Uriah, and many others; but comparatively. So the sense is, though I have sinned against my own conscience, and against others; yet nothing is more grievous to me, than that I have sinned against thee.
Thy sight — With gross contempt of thee, whom I knew to be a spectator of my most secret actions.
Justified — This will be the fruit of my sin, that whatsoever severities thou shalt use towards me, it will be no blemish to thy righteousness, but thy justice will be glorified by all men.
Speakest — Heb. in thy words, in all thy threatenings denounced against me.
Judgest — When thou dost execute thy sentence upon me.
Verse 5
[5] Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.
Behold — Nor is this the only sin which I have reason to bewail before thee; for this filthy stream leads me to a corrupt fountain: and upon a review of my heart, I find, that this heinous crime, was the proper fruit of my vile nature, which, ever was, and still is ready to commit ten thousand sins, as occasion offers.
Verse 6
[6] Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts: and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom.
Truth — Uprightness of heart; and this may be added; as an aggravation of the sinfulness of original corruption, because it is contrary to the holy nature and will of God, which requires rectitude of heart: and, as an aggravation of his actual sin, that it was committed against that knowledge, which God had wrote in his heart.
Verse 7
[7] Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
Hyssop — As lepers, are by thy appointment purified by the use of hyssop and other things, so do thou cleanse me a leprous and polluted creature, by thy grace, and by that blood of Christ, which is signified by those ceremonial usages.
Verse 8
[8] Make me to hear joy and gladness; that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice.
Joy — By thy spirit, seal the pardon of my sins on my conscience, which will fill me with joy.
Rejoice — That my heart which hath been sorely wounded may be comforted.
Sermon Story "Being Confronted" by Gary Lee Parker for Sunday, 19 October 2014
Nobocy likes to be confronted or even to confront someone who is their superior. Yet, God has called His prophet Nathan to confront king David of his recent sin against God and God's Law. Nathan comes to David and says to him that there was rich man who had many, many sheep, but there was a poor man who had only one little lamb. Now the rich man had a guest come to his house and instead of using his own lamb to kill and have a dinner party, he used the poor man's lamb. What should I do asked Nathan. David said that this rich man should be killed for his stealing and killing the poor man's only lamb. Nathan said that he was the man. God has brough you from being a shepherd of sheep to be King over all of His people and in thanksgiving for all God has given you, you took a man's only wife and had sex with her then went ahead and had her husband killed. David recognized that he had sinned against God especially as we have read in Psalm 51. With David's confession and repentance of his sin, God said that he would not die, but he would still have to pay the consequences for his sin by seeing this baby die. Who do you relate to or not relate to in this story? How do you understand your own sins that you may have successivefully hidden from others look? How will you respond to a person who confronts you of your sin?
As we think and reflect on this story of David's sins against God, let us look at the church in the 21st century and how they have treated the marginalized in society whether they are LGBTQ people, Immigrant children, the poor, people of another culture, people who are not like us, or even people who are differently abled. Let us look at the people who are differently abled for a moment. We know when God called Moses to lead the Israelites out of Egyptian bondage, one of his excuses was that he was slow of speech and God responded that he made the lame, the blind, and deaf. Then, there was the disciples asking Jesus who sinned this man or his parents why he was born blind and Jesus responded that no one sinned but that God's glory to be seen. We look over the history of the church's response to people who are differently abled. First, they saw them on the streets and placed them in institutions away from society. Then as we progressed, some families kept them and raised them, but the church refused to include them. Then, there were well-meaning pastors and laity who suggested to parents to place their baby who was differently able in state institutions because the child would not be able to grow up to contribute to the church's mission or society's benefit. We realize from certain people who have been differently abled how they have contributed to society and even the church. Some of the people may have been Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Fanny Crosby and many others, but the church still excludes even when they discovered this is against God plan for them. How do you relate to these characters in the story or not relate to? How will you listen to God to find ways to include in His church people who are differently abled and other marginalized people? How will you respond to God's confrontation of your sin?
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