Picture from http://www.bricktestament.com/king_david/index.html
2 Samuel 12 (NIV)
Nathan Rebukes David
1 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. 2 The rich man had a very large number of sheep and cattle, 3 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.
4 “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.”5 David burned with anger against the man and said to Nathan, “As surely as the LORD lives, the man who did this must die! 6 He must pay for that lamb four times over, because he did such a thing and had no pity.”
7 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. 8 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. 9 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. 10 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.’
11 “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. 12 You did it in secret, but I will do this thing in broad daylight before all Israel.’”
13 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. 14 But because by doing this you have shown utter contempt for the LORD, the son born to you will die.”
15 After Nathan had gone home, the LORD struck the child that Uriah’s wife had borne to David, and he became ill. 16 David pleaded with God for the child. He fasted and spent the nights lying in sackcloth on the ground. 17 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.
18 On the seventh day the child died.
I have heard this passage read in church, so technically this is not a bible verse rarely read on Sunday. However, it does show God killing an innocent baby, as well as forcing David’s wives to commit adultery in public.
I have argued with apologists on these verses, but they can not get around the evil actions of the God they worship. Killing a baby as punishment for the actions of an adult is never justified.
There is also the fact that God will also punish David by forcing some of David’s wives into adultery. These verses do not say “some of your wives may commit adultery in public as a choice of their free will”, but rather tells what God will cause to happen in the future. The humans doing the actions have no choice – God is going to cause them to act in this way.
I spoke with one Christian who claimed that David was the baby killer and that his wives’ future adultery would occur as a result of free will. I got her to admit that God was killing the baby after reading the verses more carefully, but she claimed that God was justified based on David’s sin, even though she thought it would be immoral for societies to do the same thing as punishment for adultery today! She also admitted that at the moment Nathan said the adultery would occur, it was inevitable that it would happen because Nathan was speaking for God. After admitting that God was behind this future adultery, she quickly decided it was time to abandon her attempts to defend this text, making generic statements like “it must be true because it’s in the bible”, etc.
Should we punish adulterers today by killing their children or forcing their spouses to commit adultery in broad daylight? If you think this would not be a good law to enact, then you are showing humanism, which is a good thing. Our laws are based on humanism, not on the bizarre examples of immorality in the bible. We should be thankful that our laws are based on humanism and not on the actions and examples of the evil God of the bible.
Call me crazy but maybe the baby died not from gods wonderfully righteous curse but from some narutal cause. A lot of youngsters died back in those days from unexplained natural causes.
Its always amazing how god never punishes his chosen ones but some other innocent. But if your a nobody or not the central character your instantly zapped for any minor mistake.
I cany t but help that the kings and high priests were weaselling their way out of gods justice even back then.
By: mP on December 31, 2011
at 10:00 pm
It doesn’t sound like David’s wives would have much choice in their ‘adultery.’ The wording of that sounds more like they will be raped in the open. They probably didn’t get much choice in marrying David in the first place anyway…If the king wants to marry you what choice do you really have? Bathsheba didn’t get a choice either, and she ends up with a dead baby. Besides, wives? *Plural* wives? So much for biblical marriage of “one man one woman”!
By: Mikel on December 31, 2011
at 11:24 pm
Mr. Hensley:
Your failure to hear or remember whether any passage is taught during your childhood should not be the standard by which you judge. That standard is only appropriate if you are the center of all knowledge and experience. There are many ancient and modern commentaries of the entire scripture methodically teaching each chapter and verse – available online. However, your definition and judgment of “rare bible passages” is consistent with a postmodern mindset that finds all truth and morality within the individual preferences and experiences of each “rational” person. Can you not see this is the swift path to the rule of men and the abdication of the rule of law?
The life of the baby belongs to God. All lives are His. The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the Name of the Lord. You do not know, ultimately the experiences or ultimate destiny of the child. This life is not all that is, and nothing is impossible with God.
God is not the author of evil. He causes no one to commit adultery. He ALLOWS men the freedom to follow the inclinations of their own wickedness, and He chooses sometimes to use the wickedness of men to accomplish His good purposes – the crucifixion of Christ being the most dramatic example.
Absalom set up tents on the rooftop to defile the wives of his father in the presence of the people. This was not a crime of passion so much as it was an act of usurpation – a desire to obtain the power of the throne. You do not know the feelings of the women involved. David was a great king, but a lousy husband and father. The women were not destroyed or abandoned afterward when David returned to Jerusalem – but were kept throughout their lives in the palace, but apart from David’s bed. Perhaps this was a relief? Who knows. You presume too much.
Absalom was killed shortly thereafter. God used Absalom’s will to power and lawlessness to punish David’s sin. Absalom was slain for his trespass (even though God used it to accomplish a punishment of David) yet David was spared death. David did receive discipline – the sword never departed from his house (punishment for murdering Bathsheba’s loyal husband) and treachery arose from within his own family (punishment for adultery with Bathsheba). See 2 Samuel 12.
Julia Gwin
By: Julia Gwin on January 1, 2012
at 2:00 pm
Your justification for the murder of a baby is pathetic. I want nothing to do with four justifications for immorality.
“He causes no one to commit adultery.” … “He chooses sometimes to use the wickedness of men to accomplish His good purposes.” Once again, Julia Gwinn is shown to be the master of double speak. God did not cause the adultery, he just used the adultery for His good purposes. According to the bible, once God said someone from David’s house would commit adultery in public, it was going to happen and there was no stopping it. I have a simple question for you: after Nathan made his announcement of the future adultery, was there a possibility it was not going to occur? Please answer this once question. Do not reply by writing a book and making a hundred other questions in return.
“Can you not see this is the swift path to the rule of men and the abdication of the rule of law?” Your question’s previous sentence contained false assumptions about me. That is only your fear that causes you to believe this. I do not share your irrational fear. This blog is not about your cartoonish version of atheists and their “post-modern mindsets.” Talk about the verses in the bible, not other topics for which you show even less knowledge.
By: edhensley on January 1, 2012
at 3:30 pm
What is the point of providing all these moralistic stories if the hero commits the sin and others get punished?
After reading text like the scripture given it seems one can commit any sin even murder,aslong as we say a pray or two everyday.
How many bad things did King David do ? The answering lots and everyone around him was punished except fir him. Why would god select a man who even by the bibles account which may be selective but still fails to mention a kind, good or noble dead done by King David. The only way to describe him is as a homicidal maniac who kills any one who gets in his waynor has something or some sexy woman that he wants. Why is it God never has the Bible record a single goodness done by him ? Is God trying to say that they are not necessary because I’ll reward anyone I like without just cause or reason? Why would God want his son Jesus, to be proudly a descendant ofnsomeone who is never portrayed as anything but a monster? Why couldn’t Jesus who represented goodness and peace benproud of someone with less blood and anger on his hands. Please dont
Tell me he was good because if he was the bible would surely have mentioned it.
If everyone is sinning all the time, and god kills others around them how is it possible anyone survived. If we believed the recorded numbers of people punished because King David made a mistake, how
Did Judah ever survive as a nation? Let’s not forget that the figure punished is around a million, eg seventy thousand for taking a census etc.
It must have been a nightmare living back then, because you might get zapped by god becausenof your king. We all know David made a lot of bad mistakes which meant a lot of his subjects paid the price. How is that kind, sounds more like a disaster, I can’t but help think Israel and Judah would have been netter off if god punished David from the start.
After all how woukd you feel if your suburb was Zapped because the pres or pm in your country had sex with another women assuming he is a man? What kin of a society would it be if everyone else but the guilty person got punIshed, the country would collapse.
By: mP on January 3, 2012
at 1:29 am
Ms Gwin, Please do not make justifications such as “it was the law of the time” to justify an immoral act. If that is the path you want to take let’s not forget that Jesus actually did break all the laws he was accused of breaking and thus deserved all the beatings and lashings he got as well as the cruisafiction according to the “laws of the period”. Don’t hold him up as a saint (or higher) because he broke period laws yet condemn others for doing the same.
By: Mike M on January 5, 2012
at 9:34 pm
Under things that make me glad I’m not christian, some of their messed up bible verses would be near the top of the list. I’m totally not getting why a god would feel the need to kill a baby and make a man’s wives cheat (this can be construed as rape if you take it a certain way, i.e. god making the women sleep with someone) because a guy killed someone’s sheep. Don’t get me wrong, killing someone elses pet is very wrong but wouldn’t a more reasonable reaction be to kill the guy’s sheep or if god was that mad, then to kill the man who actually commited a crime? Just doesn’t add up to me. I’m kinda glad they don’t teach children this stuff.
By: Tina on January 7, 2012
at 2:36 pm
Actually, the crime was David killing a man (Uriah the Hittite) to cover his sin of having sex with Uriah’s wife, Bathsheba, and getting her pregnant. However, your reasoning about inappropriate punishment being administered on innocent people is correct.
By: edhensley on January 8, 2012
at 1:05 am
Haha that’s what I get for reading while half asleep. My reasoning still stands though. Can’t really understand julia’s explaination of the story. Sounds like half-***** justification that most people use when they’re stuck in a corner.
By: Tina on January 8, 2012
at 8:49 pm
Big fools trying to understand God. Why don’t you get a life and do something with it. At least as a believer in the truth of God’s Word, I live great, have a great wife and family, see all my needs met by my loving Heavenly Father, and am embarrassed that I even am on your website. I happened to find it and I promise I’ll never be back! Never heard such foolishness. I do pray you quit trying man’s reasoning to figure out God. You are so obsessed with trying to prove the non-existence of God and the supposed falsehoods in the Bible. I just pity you how in your pride, you refuse to acknowledge the true things even you should see in the Bible and you’re going to wake up in hell one day realizing someone in northwest Indiana who believes the Bible cared enough to tell you “you’re wrong.” Please email me if you ever repent of your rebellion toward God, your pride in your own intellect.
By: Ura on February 24, 2012
at 6:10 am
The whole option of questioning God is because we think we have a say…He gave us so much and we have forgotten about his sovereignty. We SIMPLY CANNOT QUESTION HIM, period. How does a clay say to its moulder/potter, ‘you should do this or do that’? NO! It is thinking too much of itself. The Potter can crush it or keep it, he made it. He can make it into a pot, a bowl or whatever he wishes. His neighbor cant question him, he owns the clay and does whatever he wishes Its difficult to accept or understand but ultimately because HE (God) gave us life, we seem to think we can question Him. He owns the whole universe, He does what He wants and we (creations) do not have that right we think we have to question Him. Its called d sovereignty of God. Of cos you have to 1st believe He created you otherwise you will have a problem with that.
By: Phinie Ade on March 10, 2012
at 5:16 am
Many Germans also once said “We SIMPLY CANNOT QUESTION HIM”.
I say question everything. Accepting anything on blind faith closes the path the knowledge and truth.
By: edhensley on March 10, 2012
at 12:33 pm
I also strongly challenge the notion that “he gave us so much” and yet we are NEVER TO QUESTION HIM. It is not free will to say “you can do what you want…. but if you don’t do exactly what you say I will use my immortal god powers to banish your pathetic unworthy soul to an eternity of damnation”
That is a completely false choice that is completely removed from free will.
That’s like me pointing a gun at you and saying it is your choice whether I rape or kill you.
By: troyepetersen on July 22, 2012
at 5:40 pm
Being a Christian, you should never show anger at people who are angry with bible text. You should try remember that people can get very confused by some of the messages that the bible tries to give. Otherwise people will go away even more bitter and avoid God. I don’t see how telling people, ”who are you? God can do as he wants with you” is shining God’s light.
By: Puppet2012 on December 20, 2012
at 12:25 am
Edhensley asked if people should punish adulterers by killing their children, but infact God allowed their child to die because David allowed Uriah to die. It was his wives that paid for the adultery.
By: Puppet2012 on December 23, 2012
at 7:08 am
God did not allow their children to die – he killed them.
By: edhensley on December 23, 2012
at 8:01 pm
Good news for you mp. Jesus was not the son of David. Joseph was. In those days many did not know about Mary’s visit from the angel, so they continued to call Son of David.
By: Puppet2012 on December 23, 2012
at 7:41 am
Just an observation but it seems possible to me that these things would have happened anyway. The punishment seems more likely to be a lack of God’s Gabor by intervening and possibly changing the outcome. Only God is omniscient so He’d be the one to ask. Just my take on the scripture.
By: Christie Chandler on March 4, 2013
at 8:20 pm
* sorry God’s favor is what i meant
By: Christie Chandler on March 4, 2013
at 8:22 pm
What evidence do you have that God is omniscient? Did he know the little children in Newtown were all going to be murdered by a nut?
While a Christian I asked God many questions, but I never heard a reply.
By: edhensley on March 5, 2013
at 2:39 am
If God knows everything, and does what he wants, and we are just a lump of clay on a potter’s wheel, why bother praying or trying to flatter him with worship or impress him with sacrifice?
By: RoyStone on March 21, 2013
at 6:00 am