Nathan Rebukes David

As time passed, it became common knowledge that David was the father of Bathsheba’s unborn child. It was rumored he had also orchestrated Uriah’s death.

David was God’s anointed and, as such, both the civic and religious leader of the people. He who was to enforce God’s law appeared guilty of breaking it with impunity.

God sent the prophet Nathan to rebuke the king and show him the enormity of his transgression. “To few sovereigns could such a reproof be given but at the price of certain death to the reprover. Nathan delivered the divine sentence unflinchingly, yet with such heaven-born wisdom as to engage the sympathies of the king, to arouse his conscience, and to call from his lips the sentence of death upon himself. Appealing to David as the divinely appointed guardian of his people’s rights, the prophet repeated a story of wrong and oppression that demanded redress.” “There were two men in one city; the one rich, and the other poor. The rich man had exceeding many flocks and herds: But the poor man had nothing, save one little ewe lamb, which he had bought and nourished up: and it grew up together with him, and with his children; it did eat of his own meat, and drank of his own cup, and lay in his bosom, and was unto him as a daughter. And there came a traveller unto the rich man, and he spared to take of his own flock and of his own herd, to dress for the wayfaring man that was come unto him; but took the poor man’s lamb, and dressed it for the man that was come to him” (2 Samuel 12:1–4).

David was incensed by this injustice.

“As the LORD liveth, the man that hath done this thing shall surely die: And he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity” (vv. 5, 6).

Nathan, staring directly at the king, raised his right hand to heaven and gravely declared, “Thou art the man” (v. 7). David realized he had just passed judgment upon himself.

David had tried to hide his secret, “but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do” (Hebrews 4:13).

David’s fall is a warning to all Christians to guard the portals of the heart and mind.