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2 Samuel 12 of 24

2 Samuel 12

A prophet tells a king a story about a stolen lamb; the king pronounces sentence on himself before realising the case is his own.

Summary

The Lord sends Nathan to David. Nathan tells him the parable of two men in a city: one rich with many flocks and herds, one poor with nothing save one little ewe lamb he had bought and nourished and that lay in his bosom and was unto him as a daughter. A traveller comes to the rich man, who spares his own flocks and takes the poor man's lamb to dress for the guest. David's anger is greatly kindled; he says the man shall die and restore the lamb fourfold because he had no pity. Nathan says: thou art the man. He delivers the oracle of consequence: God gave David the house of Saul and Saul's wives and the houses of Israel and Judah; if that had been too little, God would have given more. Why has David despised the commandment of the Lord, killed Uriah with the Ammonites' sword, taken his wife? Therefore the sword shall never depart from David's house; God will raise up evil against him from his own house; his wives will be taken in the sight of the sun. David says: I have sinned against the Lord. Nathan says: the Lord also hath put away thy sin; thou shalt not die. Nevertheless the child shall die.

Nathan departs and the Lord strikes the child Bathsheba bore to David. The child is very sick. David beseeches God for the child and fasts, going in and lying all night on the earth. The elders of his house try to raise him but he will not, nor will he eat with them. On the seventh day the child dies. David's servants are afraid to tell him, fearing what he will do. David sees them whispering and asks if the child is dead; they answer yes. David rises from the ground, washes and anoints himself, changes his clothes, comes into the house of the Lord and worships, then comes to his own house and asks for bread and eats. His servants ask why he fasted while the child was alive and rises and eats now it is dead. He answers: while the child was yet alive I fasted and wept, for who knows whether the Lord will be gracious to me that the child may live. But now he is dead, why should I fast? I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me. David comforts Bathsheba his wife, goes in unto her, and she bears a son, whom he names Solomon. The Lord loves him and sends word by Nathan the prophet; his name is called Jedidiah for the Lord's sake.

Appears
David Bathsheba Nathan
Themes
Prophetic Confrontation Sin and Repentance Divine Judgment
All 24 chapters — click to jump
  1. 2 Samuel 1Chapter 1 is the hinge between 1 Samuel and 2 Samuel.
  2. 2 Samuel 2Chapter 2 opens the period of civil war that will occupy much of the first half of the book.
  3. 2 Samuel 3Chapter 3 is one of the most politically complex chapters in the book.
  4. 2 Samuel 4Chapter 4 closes the civil war with a brief, ugly episode.
  5. 2 Samuel 5Chapter 5 is the pivotal chapter of the book's first half.
  6. 2 Samuel 6Chapter 6 is one of the most dramatically charged chapters in 2 Samuel, covering two episodes that frame the ark's arrival in Jerusalem.
  7. 2 Samuel 7Chapter 7 is the theological centre of the entire David narrative and one of the most consequential passages in the Hebrew Bible for later Jewish and Christian thought.
  8. 2 Samuel 8Chapter 8 reads differently from everything around it.
  9. 2 Samuel 9Chapter 9 is the chapter the Court History uses to establish one key dimension of David's character before the crisis arrives.
  10. 2 Samuel 10Chapter 10 establishes the military context of the Bathsheba episode.
  11. 2 Samuel 11Chapter 11 is the turning point of 2 Samuel and one of the most consequential chapters in biblical narrative.
  12. 2 Samuel 12Chapter 12 contains the most famous confrontation in the book.
  13. 2 Samuel 13Chapter 13 is the first fulfilment of Nathan's sentence in chapter 12.
  14. 2 Samuel 14Chapter 14 covers the three years in which David longs for Absalom but will not recall him, and Joab's intervention to change that.
  15. 2 Samuel 15Chapter 15 is the emotional nadir of the first movement of the Absalom crisis.
  16. 2 Samuel 16Chapter 16 covers three encounters as David makes his way out of Jerusalem.
  17. 2 Samuel 17Chapter 17 is the intelligence chapter of the Absalom revolt and turns on a moment of competitive counsel.
  18. 2 Samuel 18Chapter 18 is the emotional climax of 2 Samuel.
  19. 2 Samuel 19Chapter 19 covers David's return to Jerusalem and the political settlements it requires.
  20. 2 Samuel 20Chapter 20 is the coda to the Absalom crisis.
  21. 2 Samuel 21Chapter 21 opens the appendix section of 2 Samuel — chapters 21-24 are not chronological narrative but supplementary materials: two episodes of famine and plague bracketing two poems and two hero lists.
  22. 2 Samuel 22Chapter 22 is an extended psalm, found also as Psalm 18 in the Psalter, which the editors of 2 Samuel have placed near the end of the book as David's retrospective meditation on his life.
  23. 2 Samuel 23Chapter 23 contains two distinct sections.
  24. 2 Samuel 24Chapter 24 is the second appendix episode bracketing the poems of chapters 22-23, and it closes the book on an unexpected note.
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2 Samuel 11
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2 Samuel 13
The book itself
Summary & story
What 2 Samuel is, why it matters.
Analysis
Themes
Power, consequence, grief, the dynastic promise, and the realism of the prose.
Who's who
David's court
The household of a king who has everything and gives most of it away.

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