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Patriarchs and Prophets
Bathsheba observed the customary days of mourning for her hus-
band; and at their close “David sent and fetched her to his house, and
she became his wife.” He whose tender conscience and high sense
of honor would not permit him, even when in peril of his life, to put
forth his hand against the Lord’s anointed, had so fallen that he could
wrong and murder one of his most faithful and most valiant soldiers,
and hope to enjoy undisturbed the reward of his sin. Alas! how had
the fine gold become dim! how had the most fine gold changed!
From the beginning Satan has portrayed to men the gains to be
won by transgression. Thus he seduced angels. Thus he tempted
Adam and Eve to sin. And thus he is still leading multitudes away
from obedience to God. The path of transgression is made to appear
desirable; “but the end thereof are the ways of death.”
Proverbs 14:12
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Happy they who, having ventured in this way, learn how bitter are the
fruits of sin, and turn from it betimes. God in His mercy did not leave
David to be lured to utter ruin by the deceitful rewards of sin.
For the sake of Israel also there was a necessity for God to interpose.
As time passed on, David’s sin toward Bathsheba became known, and
suspicion was excited that he had planned the death of Uriah. The
Lord was dishonored. He had favored and exalted David, and David’s
sin misrepresented the character of God and cast reproach upon His
name. It tended to lower the standard of godliness in Israel, to lessen
in many minds the abhorrence of sin; while those who did not love
and fear God were by it emboldened in transgression.
Nathan the prophet was bidden to bear a message of reproof to
David. It was a message terrible in its severity. 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,
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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,” he said, “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