The Pulpit Commentary — 2 Samuel — Section 285

or his repentance, e.nd we moy even feel Bat the death of the adulterouR offspring bore that oon£ession was to him 11, relief. of David and Bathsheba would prove to The deep internal wound wo.s e.t longtb these irreligious men that Jehovah's disclosed, ond bee.ling be.cl become possible. ri_ghteo?s rule could reach and punish the Up to this timo be hod shut God owo.y kmg h1mself, and would thus vindicote his from his heart, ond eo there had been no justice from their reproach. remedy for a eoul diseased. It wns because Ver.16.-David ... went in, He went, not his sorrow wns genuine that comfort was into the sonctuary, which he did nnt enter not delayed. Jehovah alao bath put away until after the child's death, but into some thy sin; thou ahalt not die, Now, death private room in his own house. There be we.a the legal penalty for adultery (Lev. xx. remained, passing hie nights stretched on 10), and though it might not be easy to the ground, and fasting until the seventh exact it or o king, yet, until it was remitted, day. His fasting does not imply that he David would be in the eyes of 11.U "11 son of took no food during this long interval, but death" (see on ver. 5); ond how could he that he abeta.ined from the royal tablP, and administer justice to others while the death- ate so much only as was necessary to main- sentence for a capital crime was hanging tain life. Now, wha.t was the meanin"' or over himself? Had not the prophet been this privacy and abstinence? Evidently it authorized to use his dispensing power as was David's acknowledgment, before all his the mouthpiece of Jehovah, David could not subjects, of his iniquity, and of his sorrow have remained king. And we oan see no for it. The sickness of the child followed reason for supposing, with Ewald and others, immediately upon Na.tha.n's visit, a.nd we that e. substantie.l interval of time elapsed may feel sure tha.t news of bis rebuke, and between Dovid's confession and Nathan's of all that po.seed between him and the absolution. The sole conceivable ree.son for king, ra.n quickly throughout Jerusa.lem. such a view would be the supposition that And David at once takes the position of a David's repentance began and was com- condemned criminal, and humbles himself pleted with the one stab of shame which with that thoroughness which forms so pierced through him when he heard Nathan's noble e. part of his character. Grieved a.s sudden reproach. Buch e. mere thrill, follow- he was at the child's sickness, and a.t the ing upon such persistent callousness, would mother's sorrow, yet his grief was ma.inly have merited little attention. But if months for his sin ; and he was willing that all of brooding sorrow and secret ehame had should know how intense was his shame been humbling David, thon his open con- and self-reproach. And even when the fession was the proof that the Spirit's work most honourable of the rulers of his house- had reached the goo.I, and was now complete. hold (Gen. :uiv. 2), or, as Ewald thinks, And we gather from Ps. Ii. 3 that euch his uncles and elder brethren, came to was the case. " My sin," he says, "is ever comfort him, he persists in maintaining an before me." It had long haunted him : had attitud11. .1f bee.rt-stricken penitence. long occupied his thoughts by day, and Ver. 20.-Then David arose from the broken his rest o.t night. Like a flood, his earth. If David's grief bad been occasioned iniquities had gone over his head, and by love for the child, then its death onit threatened to drown him; like a heavy the consciousness that, while his guilt had burden, they had pressed upon him so as to caused its sickness, his prayers had not break him down (Ps .. xx:xviii. 4). Both availed to save it, would have aggravated these psalms tell of long-continued sorrow his anguish. There was much personal of heart; but with confession had come relief. regard for the child, which bad been made He had offered to God the 811.Crifice of a the more precious by these very events. broken spirit, ll.Ild knew that it had not But David's sorrow was, e.s we have seen, been despised. We shall eee subsequently that of penitence, and uot that of natural that his timo and attention had been much affection. When, therefore, the threatened occupied with the Ammonite wor, and this penalty had been paid by the death of the had probably helped him in evading the child, David felt it to be his duty to show secret pleadings of his own conscienco. his resiguo.tion, and therefore he went into Ver. 14.-Thou hast given great occasion the sanctuary and worshipped, in proof tllllt to the enemies of J ehovo.h to blaspheme; he acknowledged the justice of God's deal- Hebrew, thou hast made the enemi88 of ings, and was content to bear the punis!:i- Jehooall to deBpise; that is, to despise J e- mont as his righteous desert. hovah's government, the theocracy,of which Ver. 22.-God; Hebrew, Jel1o-vah, usually Do.vi:l wo.s the visible head and earthly re- rendered "Lord." Similo.rly in Gen. vi. 5 presentative. Jehovah's enemies are not the iu thti Authorized Version we find God ia heathen, but Israelitish unbelievers, who co.pita! letters, as here, for the He brew would scoff at all religion when one in Jehovah. Pavid's position foll into terrible open sin. Ver. 2S.-I shall go to him, but he shall JI, SAMUEL, u  290 'l'HE SEOOND BOOK OF SAMUEL. [ell, XII, 1-31.