We need 2nd Samuel 11-12, and 1 Chronicles 20 to piece together the full context of this story.
The account in today’s reading in 1st Chronicles 20:1 is likely the situation happening in the background when David sins with Bathsheba and when Uriah is killed. Siege warfare was not swift. It would’ve taken months. Sometimes sieges lasted for years on end.
So while Joab is leading the army in the siege of Rabbah, David is in Jerusalem committing adultery then attempting to cover it up, then marrying Bathsheba, then welcoming their son into the world. There is much more time passing here than we might think at first glance – at the VERY least, 9 months.
I find it fitting that Yahweh would give His servant, the Prophet Nathan, a sheep story to make the point to David of just how wicked he has been. 🐑
SIDE NOTE
Prophets are just pretty amazing. I mean – God has revealed David’s secrets to Nathan.
Put in the context of flocks and a precious lamb, (something that David could well relate to), David immediately perceives the wrong that has been done. The story infuriates him. He instantly announces the death penalty for the greedy man who had no pity.
“YOU are the man!” Nathan says.
I feel like there was probably a long pause after that revelation.
David puts it together and realization breaks upon on him like the red dawn of Judgment Day.
But Nathan wasn’t finished. He goes on to announce several judgments on David:
- Even greater blessings that David would’ve had have now been curtailed.
- The Sword (meaning violence & death) will not depart from his house from that point on.
- There will be an “evil” that will rise up in opposition to David from his own family.
- Some man will take David’s wives from him and commit adultery with them; not in secret but in public view.
- The son born of this adulterous union will die.
We would do well to take this story to heart. God delighted in David. But that didn’t give him a free pass. Sin is a serious thing. And if we have it in our lives and think we will get away with it, we’re only fooling ourselves. Get it OUT. Whatever you have to do.
😟 But why did the innocent baby have to die? It wasn’t his fault.
The baby is not being punished. Its soul went to be at rest. The application that comes to mind is that the “fruit of sin” brings death (Rom. 6:23, Gal. 5, Jas. 1:15). One person’s sin can, and often does, bring about death in another person’s life. That’s what happened with Adam. In Adam all die. You cannot isolate sin. It has a nasty habit of effecting everything and everyone around you.
SOLOMON
“Then David comforted his wife, Bathsheba, and went in to her and lay with her, and she bore a son, and he called his name Solomon. And the Lord loved him and sent a message by Nathan the prophet. So he called his name Jedidiah, because of the Lord.”
2 Samuel 12:24-25 ESV
I don’t know ‘bout you, but the name Jedidiah always makes me think of…
Jedidiah means “Beloved of Yahweh.” It was God’s name for Solomon. He seems to enjoy giving people names or new names.
- Abram > Abraham
- Sarai > Sarah
- Isaac
- Jacob > Israel
Did you know that believers will be given a name by God?
“The one who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers, I will give to him some of the hidden manna, and I will give to him a white stone, and on the stone a new name written, that no one knows except the one who receives it.’”
Revelation 2:17 LEB
Jesus is going to have a new name too and we will share it with Him:
“The one who conquers, I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God, and he will never go outside again, and I will write on him the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem that comes down from heaven from my God, and my new name.”
Revelation 3:12 LEB
PSALM 32
This psalm is an expression of David’s relief on being forgiven. For someone who is a musician and singer, that is no big thing. Of course he is going to express his heart through his music. What’s really significant is verses 8-9.
“I will instruct you and teach you in the way which you should go; I will advise you with My eye upon you. Do not be like the horse or like the mule, which have no understanding, Whose trappings include bit and bridle to hold them in check, Otherwise they will not come near to you.”
Psalms 32:8-9 NASB2020
This is Yahweh speaking.
🤨 Uhh… duh. It’s the Bible. Of course God is speaking. Why is that significant?
Well…not only has Yahweh forgiven David, He is speaking to him and through him again. When you are a person who has been close to the LORD and known His presence and heard His voice like David, it’s SUPER miserable and empty when sin cuts off that connection. That’s why David says:
“When I refused to confess my sin, my body wasted away, and I groaned all day long. Day and night your hand of discipline was heavy on me. My strength evaporated like water in the summer heat. Interlude.”
Psalms 32:3-4 NLT
What this psalm communicates is kind of like the story of the Prodigal Son. The Father didn’t just forgive the wayward one. He restored sonship and fellowship.
(Let’s try to remember this. It will be significant in a future story with David.)
One final thing about what Yahweh says in this psalm… When He says, “I will instruct you…” the Hebrew word for instruct is sakal (saw-kal). It’s spelled: SKL
- Shin – pictograph: teeth
- Meaning: eat, consume, destroy, front/face
- Kaf – pictograph: palm of the hand
- Meaning: palm, hand, grasp, grip, cover, subjugate, sole of foot
- Lamed – pictograph: shepherd’s staff
- Meaning: shepherd, guide, lead, teach, protect, toward
Sakal (instruction) is a picture of eating out of the palm of the Shepherd’s hand.
🫴🏼🐑
🥹
Selah.
To The Reader 