“Nathan Confronts King David.”

 Based on 2 Samuel 12.  In this story, in the aftermath of David’s affair with Bath-Sheba and his having her husband murdered Nathan the prophet confronts David.  But he does so indirectly.  Nathan tells David about two men, one rich and one poor.  In this story, the rich man callously exploits the poor man.  David is outraged at the rich man and insists that the man pay fourfold for what he has done.  Nathan lets David know that he is the man in the story.  David, too, will pay fourfold.  Though David’s sins are forgiven, the consequences remain.  Eventually, David loses three sons and has to deal with his daughter’s Being raped.  Even forgiven sins often have consequences.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
The Bible is full of stories that we all know
and love, but how well do we know? That the
answer might surprise you. The Bible you thought you knew
is going to dive deep into the exquisite details of
the Biblical stories that make them fascinating and transforming. In

(00:26):
this week's podcast, we will treat an incident in the
aftermath of David's infamous affair with Bathsheba and his murdering
her husband Uriah. This incident is narrated in Second Samuel twelve.
Of course, the previous chapter outlines not only David's affair,

(00:50):
but his cynical and cold blooded plot to have Bathsheba's
husband killed in battle. Remember that David had not on
Bathsheba's getting pregnant. When this happened, the king was in
a dilemma, primarily because Uriah was deployed in the Israelite

(01:10):
army far away from Jerusalem. This meant that Bathsheba's pregnancy
would be attributed to someone other than her husband. The
king could not afford this scandal, so he hatched a plot.
He sent for Uriah to be returned to Jerusalem. Once

(01:31):
he got there, the king encouraged Uriah to go home relax,
enjoy a little home cooking, and spend some time with
his wife. When people saw that Uriah had been home,
they would naturally think that Bathsheba's pregnancy had been the
result of her husband's little furlough. But Uriah refused to

(01:54):
go home, citing a code that he and other Israelite
soldiers observed that when the army was fighting, it was
inappropriate for a fellow soldier to enjoy the comforts of
the home. David even got Eurah drunk to induce him
to go home, but that ploy did not work either.

(02:15):
In his desperation, David sent Uriah back to the front
with instructions for his commanding officer. That officer was supposed
to put Uriah in a vulnerable position that would lead
to his death. Uriah was soon killed, along with a

(02:37):
number of other Israelite soldiers, all because David had sent
these orders. That story is narrated in Second Samuel eleven.
Though David thought that he had dodged a bullet by
getting rid of Uriah and marrying his widow, the Lord
was not amused. For that reason, the Lord sent Nathan

(03:01):
the Prophet to go to David. The prophet went to
see David, but took an indirect rather than a confrontational approach.
In fact, Nathan told David a story. It was a
story featuring two men, one very rich and the other

(03:23):
one very poor. The wealthy man's wealth came in the
form of many flocks and herds. By contrast, the poor
man had only one lamb, a you that he treated
more as a pet than as a resource. In fact,

(03:44):
this lamb grew up with the man along with his children,
as though it was another child. Also, the man fed
the lamb by hand and allowed it to drink from
his own cup. He even catered to the you, allowing
it to share his bed. The narrator points out that
the lamb was like a daughter to this poor man.

(04:08):
That's in the verse first three verses of chapter twelve.
In the course of time, a visitor came to see
the wealthy man in order to feed his guest. The
wealthy man did not want to use any of his resources,
even though he had so many herds and flocks. Instead,

(04:31):
he took the poor man's ewe lamb and served it
as a meal for his guest. When David heard this,
he was outraged, thinking that Nathan had told him of
an actual situation. The king's first impulse was to argue
that the wealthy man should be executed on reflection, though

(04:56):
David maintains that the wealthy man should ret store fourfold
what the poor man had lost. After all, David reasoned,
the wealthy man did something despicable and reflected, not an
ounce of human compassion. That's in verses four through six

(05:17):
of chapter twelve. At that point, the prophet Nathan lowers
the boom. He says directly to David, you are the man,
meaning obviously the wealthy man in the story, which, as
it turns out, was a parable. But Nathan did not

(05:39):
stop there. Immediately, he went into prophetic mode. Now speaking
in God's behalf. He quotes God so to speak by
noting that God had anointed David king over Israel, had
given him his master's house and his master's wives, and
as a matter of fact, had given him kingship over

(06:03):
Israel and Judah. As if that were not enough, God
was prepared to do even more for David. That's in
verses seven and eight of chapter twelve. Given what God
had done for David, how could he have done something
so depraved more than the affair, he had callously killed

(06:26):
a loyal Israelite soldier. Because of this dastardly behavior, God continues,
the sword would always plague David's house he had acted violently.
Violence would hence well forth be something that David would

(06:46):
have to deal with constantly. That's verses nine and ten
of Chapter twelve. God goes on to specify the nature
of some of the violence. God plans to raise up
evil against David and his house, meaning his dynasty. This

(07:07):
punishment will involve David watching his wives being taken away
and given to someone else. According to God, this someone
else will be a neighbor. This neighbor will have sex
with David's wives out in the open, thus shaming the king.
David's sin was something that he tried mightily to keep secret.

(07:31):
The punishment, however, will be public, something for everyone to see.
That's in verses eleven and twelve. After this prophetic tirade,
David is compelled to confess his sins. He declared, I
have sinned against the Lord. That's in verse thirteen. Nathan

(07:56):
immediately absolves David, noting that God had already aside his
grievous sin. That was the good news. The bad news
was that the consequences of the sin would remain. In effect.
Being forgiven is wonderful, of course. Nevertheless, the consequences of

(08:21):
our sins often continue. Sinning is not a zero sum activity.
As this part of the story continues, the consequences of
David's sins come about with numbing regularity. Each of these
consequences involves David's children. The poor man in Nathan's parable

(08:48):
lost his dear pet Ewlamb. That was costly enough from
the poor man's perspective. However, David's losses were in calcil First,
the child Bathsheba was carrying died. That's in verses fourteen,

(09:08):
and following in chapter twelve. That terrible event, however, was
only the beginning of the punishment. Recall that David had
said that the wealthy man in the story should be
required to pay fourfold for his heinous crime. David is
about to pay at least that much in the wake

(09:30):
of his adultery and murder. The second of David's children
to reap calamity because of her father's sins was his
daughter Tamar. She was a beautiful woman, which, as it
turned out, was a curse for her This was because
her beauty caught the eye of her half brother Amnin.

(09:53):
Amin was smitten, but could not make any headway with
his half sister since she had known sexual experience. However,
Amnen had a friend. This friend had a plan that
he thought would get would work to get Amnen close
to Tamar. Quite simply, Ammin should pretend to be sick

(10:17):
and then asked David to have Tamar prepare food for him.
Both David and Tamar were compliant. This resulted in Tamar's
being in a room alone with Amnen, at which point
he raped her. Having done that, he then discarded her

(10:37):
and locked her out of his quarters. David knew about
this egregious behavior on his son's part, but he did
nothing about it. That's in the first nineteen verses of
chapter thirteen of Tewod Samuel. However, another brother, Tamar's full brother,

(11:00):
manned by the name of Absalom, knew about what had transpired.
Of course, he was livid for a while he bided
his time, but when the opportunity arose, he had no
compunction whatsoever about taking the life of Amnen. So far,
David's sins had been followed by two sons dying and

(11:25):
one daughter being raped. Violence is becoming characteristic in David's
own palace. Over the course of time, the relationship between
David and Absalom became strained. Absalom lived outside of Israel
for a while. Eventually he returned to Israel and met

(11:48):
with his father, but the relationship was almost beyond repair.
As time went by, Absalom lobbied Israelites to curry their favor.
This also involved fomenting dissension against David's own administrative policies.

(12:08):
After a while, Absalom managed to convince a critical mass
of Israelites to support his taking over kingship in Israel.
With David severely weakened politically, he had to abandon the
palace and flee. When that happened, Absalom set up a

(12:35):
tent on the palace roof and let all Israel see
that he had taken David's wives as his own wives.
This fulfilled one aspect of God's terrible punishment. But the
violence in David's house did not end there. As David

(12:57):
gathered strength after his ugnent ignominious flight from Jerusalem, his
forces took on Absalom's forces. David won this battle, but
again at a terrible cost. Absalom was struck down. During
that fight, David had lost yet another son. Without question,

(13:22):
he had paid at least fourfold for his sins. His
sins were just terrible. The punishment was equally terrible. To
be sure, he had been forgiven, but the consequences of
his sins remained. That cost was beyond description. Let me

(13:47):
encourage you to go to my website faspoina dot com.
Take a look at it, leave me a evidence of
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f Spina one zero six at gmail dot com. I

(14:17):
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(14:37):
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(14:59):
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