Board index ‹ Specific Bible verses, texts, and passages ‹ 2 Samuel

[MIA]

11 “This is what the Lord says: ‘I am bringing trouble to you from your own family. While you watch, I will take your wives from you and give them to someone who is very close to you. He will have sexual relations with your wives, and everyone will know it. 12 You had sexual relations with Bathsheba in secret, but I will do this so all the people of Israel can see it.’”
13 Then David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord.”
Nathan answered, “The Lord has taken away your sin. You will not die. 14 But what you did caused the Lord’s enemies to lose all respect for him. For this reason the son who was born to you will die.”

So when you read the above, the claim is that god is literally saying it is going to kill david's baby.

Your view is that god did not actually speak to anyone, the baby got sick and died, so they attributed the death to god and then manufactured this passage as a way of making sense.

The lord did not take away davids sin. The lord did not threaten to disgrace him. None of this actually happened?

[jimwalton]

> the claim is that god is literally saying it is going to kill davids baby

Actually, that's not the claim, if you read the text. The verse literally says, "The son born to you will die." It doesn't say God would kill it. There are other choices here, including that God knew it would be born sickly and wouldn't live, and its death would still be a source of much grief to David.

> Your view is that god did not actually speak to anyone, the baby got sick and died, so they attributed the death to god

I didn't say that at all. God spoke to the prophet Nathan, and Nathan conveyed the message to David. The baby did get sick and die, and they did attribute the death to God, as they attributed all death to God in those days.

> and then manufactured this passage as a way of making sense.

No, that's not what I said. The passage is a theological interpretation of the event, and not just "manufactured" at all. According to the prophet Nathan, it's the honest explanation of what happened. David sinned, and he was judged for it.

> None of this actually happened?

No, that's not what I said. It did actually happen. David sinned. There were consequences of his sinned (God judged him), but God forgave him. David was disgraced by the death of his son and the abominable behavior of others of his sons. It all actually happened.

But it's not necessarily true that God killed the baby. What actually happened was that the son died, and we are to understand even that as a token of God's displeasure with David's sin.

[MIA]

So, in short, the story is that god did not punish David.

[jimwalton]

Again (for the 5th time), no, that's not the case. God did punish David. The conclusion is the child died. The reason is God's displeasure with David's adultery. The action is that God was judging David. But...

1. Did God kill the baby?
2. Did God know the baby was sick and didn't intervene to protect it? In other words, he let nature take its course (which he often does).

The text is about judgment on David, but not on anyone else (none of the 4 sons). The focus of the text is on David.
The text makes no mention of saying, "Oh, now God is satisfied." The death of the child was not an appeasement. Nor does the text say God was demanding life (the baby) for a life (Uriah). As I said before, "It was perceived, along with the eventual deaths (by completely different and unrelated means) of 3 more of David’s sons, as David's punishment for his adultery with Bathsheba. That's what makes it justice. The text is concerned to show us that David is paying for his sin with his family (four of his offspring, and therefore 'eye for eye' for adultery) going to ruin and his heart being filled with unquenchable grief."

The Bible is clear that there is always collateral damage for people's sins. Sometimes its obvious and sometimes not, but there always is. There's no such thing as privately contained sin. This story makes very clear that sin always has ramifications for those around us. Much of it is what we would call "natural consequences." Those are words we would use, but not words the ancients would use. The ancients' expression for is would be "God struck the child." How could this be natural consequences? I cannily speculate, but, for instance, while Bathsheba was pregnant with the child, she learned of the death of her husband. Did this gut-wrenching grief happen at a particularly formative period of fetal development? We don't know, but such things are always possible. We know all about fetal development, so we know that's half-reasonable to assume. So did God kill the child, or did David?

David himself had pronounced this judgment, ironically on himself. Look earlier in the chapter, at 2 Sam. 2.5-6. David thought it was fair and just that the death of one be compensated by the death of 4. As it turns out, David had killed Uriah, and four of David's own sons died. So did God kill the child unjustly, or had David pronounced the sentence himself, and God said, "As you wish"?

[MIA]

> The verse literally says, "The son born to you will die." It doesn't say God would kill it. There are other choices here, including that God knew it would be born sickly and wouldn't live, and its death would still be a source of much grief to David.

SO IT'S NOT A PUNISHMENT?

> I didn't say that at all. God spoke to the prophet Nathan, and Nathan conveyed the message to David. The baby did get sick and die, and they did attribute the death to God, as they attributed all death to God in those days.

AGAIN...IT'S NOT A PUNISHMENT

> There were consequences of his sin (God judged him), but God forgave him

CONSEQUENCES...YOU JUST GOT DONE SAYING WAS NOT GOD, BUT NOW YOU JUST ATTRIBUTED IT TO GOD.

> In the ancient Near East, including Israelite culture, there was no distinction between natural and supernatural. Their perception was that God or the gods were involved in every detail of life. Thus anything that happened was considered to be an act of God.

NOW:

Again (for the 5th time), no, that's not the case. God did punish David.

THEN - CLAIM IT WAS A PUNISHMENT

I give up. Either the baby died by god's doing or not. After multiple, long paragraphs I have no idea what you think.

[jimwalton]

God was punishing David, not the baby. You're confusing the two. The baby died a natural death (It's not true, from the original post, that "God killed David's baby"..."slowly killing a baby"). The baby died a natural death, and God used that event to punish David for his sin.

So, to try to make it clear, No, God didn't punish the baby. Yes, God did punish David. To answer the question in your last line, the baby didn't die by God's doing (God didn't kill the baby). The baby's death by natural causes was used by God to punish DAVID for his (David's) sin. Does that help?

[MIA]

God used an event that was going to happen anyway to punish david. Meaning if david had not sinned, god would have definitely saved the baby from dying?

[jimwalton]

Interesting question, but you're not thinking it all through. David was guilty of adultery, so if he hadn't sinned, there would have been no conception and no baby.

[MIA]

If he had decided, instead of murdering his friend, to then let her divorce him so they could marry...what then?

[jimwalton]

"If he decided"—if David had decided that? So you're asking what if the situation had been different, if David had persuaded either Uriah or Bathsheba to divorce his or her spouse so that David could have Bathsheba "legally"?

Ultimately, the "what if" question is impossible to answer, because what happens and why it happened depends on so many elements that the answer just can't be known. At the very least, David is being lustful and desiring what he has no right to, what belongs (via commitment) to someone else. At the very least David would be coming between a husband and wife for his own selfish desires, breaking up a marriage because he was horny and self-indulgent. Since we can't say all of what David would have done and why, how it would have played out, and what other sins were committed and what other problems were created, it would be irresponsible to try to speculate (even for the sake of argument) about your hypothetical situation. Setting a trap with a contrived situation just doesn't lead us to understanding let alone to truth.