2 Samuel 12:7-15

12:7 Nathan said to David, “You are that man! This is what the Lord God of Israel says: ‘I chose ¹  you to be king over Israel and I rescued you from the hand of Saul. 12:8 I gave you your master’s house, and put your master’s wives into your arms. ²  I also gave you the house of Israel and Judah. And if all that somehow seems insignificant, I would have given you so much more as well! 12:9 Why have you shown contempt for the word of the Lord by doing evil in my ³  sight? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and you have taken his wife as your own! ⁴  You have killed him with the sword of the Ammonites. 12:10 So now the sword will never depart from your house. For you have despised me by taking the wife of Uriah the Hittite as your own!’ 12:11 This is what the Lord says: ‘I am about to bring disaster on you ⁵  from inside your own household! ⁶  Right before your eyes I will take your wives and hand them over to your companion. ⁷  He will have sexual relations with ⁸  your wives in broad daylight! ⁹  12:12 Although you have acted in secret, I will do this thing before all Israel, and in broad daylight.’” ¹⁰ 

12:13 Then David exclaimed to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord!” Nathan replied to David, “Yes, and the Lord has forgiven ¹¹  your sin. You are not going to die. 12:14 Nonetheless, because you have treated the Lord with such contempt ¹²  in this matter, the son who has been born to you will certainly die.”

12:15 Then Nathan went to his home. The Lord struck the child that Uriah’s wife had borne to David, and the child became very ill. ¹³ 

2 Samuel 12:1

Nathan the Prophet Confronts David

12:1 So the Lord sent Nathan ¹⁴  to David. When he came to David, ¹⁵  Nathan ¹⁶  said, ¹⁷  “There were two men in a certain city, one rich and the other poor.

2 Samuel 20:1

Sheba’s Rebellion

20:1 Now a wicked man ¹⁸  named Sheba son of Bicri, a Benjaminite, ¹⁹  happened to be there. He blew the trumpet ²⁰  and said,

“We have no share in David;

we have no inheritance in this son of Jesse!

Every man go home, ²¹  O Israel!”

2 Samuel 21:17

21:17 But Abishai the son of Zeruiah came to David’s aid, striking the Philistine down and killing him. Then David’s men took an oath saying, “You will not go out to battle with us again! You must not extinguish the lamp of Israel!”

¹ tn Heb “anointed.”

² tn Heb “and the wives of your lord into your chest [or “lap”].” The words “I put” are supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons and for clarification.

³ tc So the Qere; the Kethib has “his.”

⁴ tn Heb “to you for a wife.” This expression also occurs at the end of v. 10.

⁵ tn Heb “raise up against you disaster.”

⁶ tn Heb “house” (so NAB, NRSV); NCV, TEV, CEV “family.”

⁷ tn Or “friend.”

⁸ tn Heb “will lie with” (so NIV, NRSV); TEV “will have intercourse with”; CEV, NLT “will go to bed with.”

⁹ tn Heb “in the eyes of this sun.”

¹⁰ tn Heb “and before the sun.”

¹¹ tn Heb “removed.”

¹² tc The MT has here “because you have caused the enemies of the Lord to treat the Lord with such contempt.” This is one of the so-called tiqqune sopherim, or “emendations of the scribes.” According to this ancient tradition, the scribes changed the text in order to soften somewhat the negative light in which David was presented. If that is the case, the MT reflects the altered text. The present translation departs from the MT here. Elsewhere the Piel stem of this verb means “treat with contempt,” but never “cause someone to treat with contempt.”

¹³ tn Heb “and the Lord struck the child…and he was ill.” It is necessary to repeat “the child” in the translation to make clear who became ill, since “the Lord struck the child that Uriah’s wife had borne to David, and he became very ill” could be understood to mean that David himself became ill.

¹⁴ tc A few medieval Hebrew mss, the LXX, and the Syriac Peshitta add “the prophet.” The words are included in a few modern English version (e.g., TEV, CEV, NLT).

¹⁵ tn Heb “him”; the referent (David) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

¹⁶ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Nathan) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

¹⁷ tn The Hebrew text repeats “to him.”

¹⁸ tn Heb “a man of worthlessness.”

¹⁹ tn The expression used here יְמִינִי (yÿmini) is a short form of the more common “Benjamin.” It appears elsewhere in 1 Sam 9:4 and Esth 2:5. Cf. 1 Sam 9:1.

²⁰ tn Heb “the shophar” (the ram’s horn trumpet). So also v. 22.

²¹ tc The MT reads לְאֹהָלָיו (lÿ’ohalav, “to his tents”). For a similar idiom, see 19:9. An ancient scribal tradition understands the reading to be לְאלֹהָיו (le’lohav, “to his gods”). The word is a tiqqun sopherim, and the scribes indicate that they changed the word from “gods” to “tents” so as to soften its theological implications. In a consonantal Hebrew text the change involved only the metathesis of two letters.