“THE PARABLE OF THE RICH MAN AND THE POOR MAN (2 SAMUEL 12:1-6)
OVERVIEW: Nathan’s shrewd manner of confronting David with his own words and then by open rebuke is an effective strategy for taking the powerful of this world to task (GREGORY THE GREAT). David’s harsh verdict against Nathan’s figurative rich man is met with his immediate and pointed indictment, yet David’s prompt confession of guilt is met with assurance of the Lord’s forgiveness and the repeal of his self-condemning sentence (CHRYSOSTOM). David’s lust was a one-time sinful fall rather than a habit as suggested in the metaphor of the guest. Nathan used the sharp scalpel of David’s own words to remove the diseased tissue of his heart (AUGUSTINE).
12:1-6 Nathan’s Story and David’s Judgment
CHALLENGING THE POWERFUL. GREGORY THE GREAT: But at times, in taking to task the powerful of this world, they are first to be dealt with by drawing diverse comparisons in a case ostensibly concerning someone else. Then, when they give a right judgment on what apparently is another’s case, they are to be taken to task regarding their own guilt by a suitable procedure. Thus a mind puffed up with temporal power cannot possibly lift itself up against the reprover, for by its own judgment it has trodden on the neck of pride; and it cannot argue to defend itself, as it stands convicted by the sentence out of its own mouth.
Thus it was that Nathan the prophet, coming to chide the king, to all appearance asked his judgment in the case of a poor man against a rich man. The king first was to deliver judgment and then to hear that he was the culprit. Thus he was completely unable to deny the just sentence which he had personally delivered against himself. Therefore, the holy man, considering both the sinner and the king, aimed in that wonderful manner at convicting a bold culprit first by his own admission and then cut him by his rebuke. For a short while he concealed the person whom he was aiming at and then at once struck him when he had convicted him. His stroke would, perhaps, have had less force if he had chosen to castigate the sin directly the moment he began to speak. But by beginning with a similitude, he sharpened the rebuke which he was concealing. He came like a physician to a sick man, saw that his wound had to be incised, but was in doubt about the endurance of the patient. He, therefore, concealed the surgeon’s knife under his coat, but drawing it out suddenly, pierced the wound, that the sick man might feel the knife before he saw it, for if he had first seen it, he might have refused to feel it. PASTORAL CARE 3.2.1
THE GOOD OF A PROMPT CONFESSION. CHRYSOSTOM: Therefore, Nathan went to David and wove a dramatic act for judgment. And what did he say? “My king, I want your judgment. There was a certain rich man and a certain poor one. The “rich person possessed herds of cattle and many other flocks; and the poor one had one ewe that drank from his glass, ate from his table and slept in his embrace.” Here Nathan revealed the genuine bond between a husband and wife. “When a certain stranger arrived, the rich man desired to keep his own animals, and he took the poor man’s ewe and slaughtered her.” Here, do you see how Nathan wove the dramatic act, mysteriously concealing the weapon in the glands of David’s throat? Then what did the king say? Thinking that he had to pass judgment against someone else, he decided most severely. For such are human beings. When it concerns other people, they gladly and abruptly render decisions and publicize them. And what did David say? “As the Lord lives, the man who did this thing is worthy of death. And he shall restore the lamb fourfold.” Therefore, what did Nathan reply? He did not allow the wound to be relieved for many hours; rather, he quickly stripped it naked and sharply embedded the knife deeply into it, so as not to rob it of the painful sensation. “You are the man, my king.” What did the king say? “I have sinned against the Lord.” He did not say, “Who are you who censures me? Who sent you to speak with such boldness? With what daring did you prevail?” He did not say anything of the sort; rather, he perceived the sin. And what did he say? “I have sinned against the Lord.” Therefore, what did Nathan say to him? “And the Lord remitted “your sin.” You condemned yourself; I [God] remit your sentence. You confessed prudently; you annulled the sin. You appropriated a condemnatory decision against yourself; I repealed the sentence. Can you see that what is written in Scripture was fulfilled: “Be the first one to tell of your transgression so you may be justified”2 How toilsome is it to be the first one to declare the sin? HOMILIES ON REPENTANCE AND ALMSGIVING 2.2.9.3
THE FLEETING CHARACTER OF DAVID’S SIN. AUGUSTINE: And with what moderation and self-restraint those men used their wives appears chiefly in this, that when this same king, carried away by the heat of passion and by temporal prosperity, had taken unlawful possession of one woman, whose husband also he ordered to be put to death, he was accused of his crime by a prophet, who, when he had come to show him his sin, set before him the parable of the poor man who had but one ewe lamb, and whose neighbor, though he had many, yet when a guest came to him, refused to take of his own flock but set his poor neighbor’s one lamb before his guest to eat. And David’s anger kindled against the man, he commanded that he should be put to death and the lamb restored fourfold to the poor man; thus unwittingly condemning the sin he had wittingly committed. And when he had been shown this, and God’s punishment had been announced against him, he wiped out his sin in deep penitence. But yet in this parable it was the adultery only that was indicated by the poor man’s ewe lamb. About the killing of the woman’s husband—that is, about the murder of the poor man himself who had the one ewe lamb—nothing is said in the parable, so that the sentence of condemnation is pronounced against the adultery alone. And hence we may understand with what temperance he possessed a number of wives when he was forced to punish himself for transgressing in regard to one woman. But in his case the immoderate desire did not take up its abode with him but was only a passing guest. On this account the unlawful appetite is called even by the accusing prophet, a guest. For he did not say that he took the poor man’s ewe lamb to make a feast for his king, but for his guest. In the case of his son Solomon, however, this lust did not come and pass away like a guest but reigned as a king. And about him Scripture is not silent but accuses him of being a lover of strange women; for in the beginning of his reign he was inflamed with a desire for wisdom, but after he had attained it through spiritual love, he lost it through carnal lust.4 CHRISTIAN INSTRUCTION 3.21.5
DISEASED TISSUE IN DAVID’S HEART. AUGUSTINE: For I admit my wrongdoing, and my offense confronts me all the time.6 “I have not thrust my deed behind my back; I do not look askance at others while forgetting myself; I do not presume to extract a speck of straw from my brother’s eye while there is a timber in my own;7 my sin is in front of me, not behind my back. It was behind me until the prophet was sent to me and put to me the parable of the poor man’s sheep.” What the prophet Nathan said to David was this: There was a certain rich man who had a large flock of sheep. His neighbor was a poor man who had only one little ewe lamb; she rested in his arms and was fed from his own dish. Then a guest arrived at the rich man’s house. The rich man took nothing from his flock; what he wanted was the little ewe lamb that belonged to his neighbor, so he slaughtered that for his guest. What does he deserve? Angrily David pronounced sentence. Obviously the king was unaware of the trap into which he had fallen, and he decreed that the rich man deserved to die and must make fourfold restitution for the sheep. It was a very severe view, and entirely just. But his own sin was not yet before his eyes; what he had done was still behind his back. He did not yet admit his own iniquity and hence would not remit another’s. But the prophet had been sent to him for this purpose. He brought the sin out from behind David’s back and held it before his eyes, so that he might see that the severe sentence had been passed on himself. To cut away diseased tissue in David’s heart and heal the wound there, Nathan used David’s tongue as a knife.
EXPLANATIONS OF THE PSALMS 50.8
NATHAN CONFRONTS DAVID (2 SAMUEL 12:7-12)
OVERVIEW: Nathan’s foretelling of the evils to befall David on account of his adultery and murder illustrate one of the three classes of prophecy, namely that which refers to the earthly Jerusalem as distinguished from the heavenly Jerusalem and from both the heavenly and earthly Jerusalem (AUGUSTINE). That God sees and judges actions committed in secret is proven by the exposure of David’s grave sins, thereby warning sinners of impending punishment (SALVIAN). Although a virtuous man through whom Christ would descend, David was punished for his adultery, even though he was repentant and was declared forgiven (ISAAC OF NINEVEH).
12:10-12 Nathan Pronounces the Lord’s Judgment
CLASSES OF PROPHECY. AUGUSTINE: Thus, the prophets’ sayings are of three classes: one class refers to the earthly, a second to the heavenly Jerusalem, and a third to both simultaneously. It will be best to support this assertion with illustration. The prophet Nathan was sent to accuse King David of a grave sin and to foretell what evils were to befall him on this account. Now no one can fail to see that this prophecy refers to the earthly city. There are others like it, sometimes addressed to the people at large for their profit and well-being, and sometimes to an individual who merited a word from God to foreknow some event for the guidance of his temporal life. CITY OF GOD 17.3.1
GOD SEES AND JUDGES SECRET ACTIONS. SALVIAN THE PRESBYTER: But that you may clearly know that his censure and sacred considerations deal more with actions than with persons themselves, hear how God, the judge, who many times gave sentences favorable to his servant David, often gave decisions unfavorable to him. This happened in a transaction which did not involve many men, or perhaps, what would have aroused God more, in a transaction involving holy men. It happened in the instance of one man, a foreigner, where the action rather than the person demanded punishment.
When Uriah the Hittite, a member of a wicked race and of an unfriendly nation, had been killed, the divine Word was immediately passed to David, “You have killed Uriah, the Hittite, with the sword and have taken his wife to be your wife, and have slain him with the sword of the children of Ammon. Therefore the sword shall never depart from your house. Thus said the Lord, ‘Behold, I will raise up evil against you out of your own house; and I will take your wives before your eyes and give them to your neighbor. For you did it secretly: but I will do this thing in the sight of all Israel and in the sight of the sun.’
What do you say to this, you who believe that God does not judge our actions and who believe that he has no concern whatsoever for us? Do you “not see that the eyes of God were never absent even from that secret sin through which David fell once? Learn from this that you are always seen by Christ, understand and know that you will be punished, and perhaps very soon, you, who, perhaps in consolation for your sins, think that our acts are not seen by God. You see that the holy David was unable to hide his sin in the secrecy of his inmost rooms; neither was he able to claim exemption from immediate punishment through the privilege of great deeds. What did the Lord say to him? “I will take your wives before your eyes, and the sword shall never depart from your house.” THE GOVERNANCE OF GOD 2.4.2
TEMPORAL PUNISHMENT REMAINED. ISAAC OF NINEVEH: And David, who was a man after God’s own heart, who because of his virtues was found worthy to generate from his seed the promise of the Fathers, and to have Christ shine forth from himself for the salvation of all the world, was he not punished because of adultery with a woman, when he held her beauty with his eyes and was pierced in his soul by that arrow? “For it was because of this that God raised up a war against him from within his own household, and he who came forth from his loins pursued him. These things befell him even after he had repented with many tears, such that he moistened his couch with his weeping, and after God had said to him “through the prophet, “The Lord hath forgiven thy sin.”3 ASCETICAL HOMILIES 10.4
DAVID CONFESSES HIS SIN (2 SAMUEL 12:13-14)
OVERVIEW: That, as king, David frankly confessed his sin and humbly repented in sackcloth and ashes admonishes the private person to offer no less of an expression of remorse (CYRIL OF JERUSALEM). While Matthew presents Christ’s kingly descent through Solomon, Luke presents his priestly ascent through Nathan, because it was through Nathan the prophet that David obtained the annulment of his sin (AUGUSTINE). Those who are rightly accused of a great sin may take heart that they will be forgiven if they admit their guilt as David did (AMBROSE). While the reward of David’s great penitence for his misdeed was the avoidance of eternal punishment, he did not merit full pardon: the child died because of David’s sin (SALVIAN). That God responded differently to the similar confessions of David and Saul reveals the dissimilarity of their hearts. For the baptized who have deserted or violated the faith, forgiveness may be obtained through the heartfelt repentance exhibited in uttering a confession of sin, doing genuine penance and living good lives afterwards (AUGUSTINE). While we should be ashamed to sin, we should not be ashamed to repent, as this is the means of deliverance and healing (PACIAN OF BARCELONA). Confession alone is not sufficient for the penitent, but must be accompanied by correction and humility, as David exemplifies (PAULINUS OF MILAN).
12:13-14 Nathan Responds to David’s Admission of Guilt
AN EXAMPLE OF REPENTANCE. CYRIL OF JERUSALEM: If you like, however, I will give you further examples relating to our condition. Come then to the blessed David, and take him for your example of repentance. Great as he was, he suffered a fall. It was in the afternoon, after his siesta, that he took a turn on the housetop and saw by chance what stirred his human passion. He fulfilled the sinful deed, but his nobility, when it came to confessing the lapse, had not perished with the doing of the deed. Nathan the prophet came, swift to convict, but now as a healer for his wound, saying, “The Lord was angry, and you have sinned.” So spoke a simple subject to his reigning sovereign. But David, though king and robed in purple, did not take it amiss, for he had regard not to the rank of the speaker but to the majesty of him who sent him. He was not puffed up by the fact that guardsmen were drawn up all around him, for the angelic host of the Lord came to his mind and he was in “terror “as seeing him who is invisible. 1 So he answered and said to the “man that came to him, or rather, in his person, to the God whose messenger he was, “I have sinned against the Lord.” You see this royal humility and the making of confession. Surely no one had been convicting him, nor were there many who knew what he had done. Swiftly the deed was done and immediately the prophet appeared as accuser. Lo! The sinner confesses his wicked deed, and as it was full and frank confession, he had the swiftest healing. For the prophet Nathan first threatened him, but then said immediately, “And the Lord has put away your sin.” And see how quickly lovingkindness changes the face of God! Except that he first declares, “you have given great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme” as though he said “you have many that are your foes because of your righteousness, from whom nevertheless, you were kept safe by your upright living. But as you have thrown away this best of armors, you have now, standing ready to strike, these foes that are risen up against you.”
So then the prophet comforted David as we have seen, but that blessed man, though he received most gladly the assurance, “The Lord has put away your sin,” did not, king as he was, draw back from penitence. Indeed he put on sackcloth in place of his purple robe, and the king sat in ashes on the bare earth instead of on his gilded throne. And in ashes he did not merely sit, but took them for eating, as he himself says, “I have eaten ashes as it were bread, and mingled my drink with weeping.”2 His lustful eye he wasted away with tears; as he says, “every night I wash my bed and water my couch with my tears.”3 And when his courtiers exhorted him to eat food, he would not, but prolonged his fast for seven whole days. CATECHETICAL LECTURES 2.11-12.4
THE ANNULMENT OF HIS SIN. AUGUSTINE: But just as Matthew, presenting Christ the king as if descending for the assumption of our sins, thus descends from David through Solomon, because Solomon was born of her with whom David had sinned, so Luke, presenting Christ the priest as if ascending after the destroying of sins, ascends through Nathan to David, because Nathan the prophet had been sent, and by his reproof the penitent “David obtained the annulling of his sin. ON EIGHTY-THREE VARIED QUESTIONS 61.5
ON ADMITTING ONE’S GUILT. AMBROSE: Are you ashamed, sir,6 to do as David did—David, the king and the prophet, the ancestor of Christ according to the flesh? He was told of the rich man who had a great number of flocks and yet, when a guest arrived, took the poor man’s one ewe lamb and killed it; and when he recognized that he was himself condemned by the story, he said, “I have sinned against the Lord.” Therefore do not take it ill, sir, if what was said to King David is said to you, “You are the man.” For if you listen with attention and say, “I have sinned against the Lord,” if you say, in the words of the royal prophet, “O come, let us worship and fall down, and weep before the Lord our Maker,”7 then it will be said to you also, “Because you repented, the Lord has put away your sin; you shall not die.” LETTER 51.7.8
ETERNAL PUNISHMENT AVERTED. SALVIAN THE PRESBYTER: You see what instant judgment so great a man suffered for one sin. Immediate condemnation followed the fault, a condemnation immediately punishing and without reservation, stopping the guilty one then and there and not deferring the case to a later date. Thus he did not say, “because you have done this, know that the judgment of God will come and “you will be tormented in the fire of hell.” Rather, he said, “You shall suffer immediate punishment and shall have the sword of divine severity at your throat.”
And what followed? The guilty man acknowledged his sin, was humbled, filled with remorse, confessed and wept. He repented and asked for pardon, gave up his royal jewels, laid aside his robes of gold cloth, put aside the purple, resigned his crown. He was changed in body and appearance. He cast aside all his kingship with its ornaments. He put on the externals of a fugitive penitent, so that his squalor was his defense. He was wasted by fasting, dried up by thirst, worn from weeping and imprisoned in his own loneliness. Yet this king, bearing such a great name, greater in his holiness than in temporal power, surpassing all by the prerogative of his antecedent merits, did not escape punishment though he sought pardon so earnestly.
The reward of this great penitence was such that he was not condemned to eternal punishment. Yet, he did not merit full pardon in this world. What did the prophet say to the penitent? “Because you have given occasion to the enemies of the “Lord to blaspheme, the son that is born to you shall die.” Besides the pain of the bitter loss of his son, God wished that there be added to the very loving father an understanding of this greatest punishment, namely, that the father who mourned should him self bring death to his beloved son, when the son, born of his father’s crime, was killed for the very crime that had begotten him. THE GOVERNANCE OF GOD 2.4.9
GOD INSPECTS HEARTS. AUGUSTINE: Similarity of words, dissimilarity of hearts. We may hear the similarity of the words with our ears, but we can only know the dissimilarity of hearts by the angel’s declaration. David sinned, and when he was rebuked by the prophet, he said, “I have sinned,” and was immediately told, “Your sin has been forgiven you.” Saul sinned, and when he was rebuked by the prophet, he said, “I have sinned,” and his sin was not forgiven, but the wrath of God remained upon him. What can this mean but similarity of words, dissimilarity of hearts? Human beings can hear words, God inspects hearts. SERMON 291.5.10
THE EFFECTIVENESS OF THREE SYLLABLES. AUGUSTINE: Baptized people, though, who are deserters and violators of such a great sacrament, if they repent from the bottom of their hearts, if they repent where God can see, as he saw David’s heart, when on being rebuked by the prophet, and very sternly rebuked, he cried out after hearing God’s fearsome threats and said, “I have sinned,” and shortly afterward heard, “God has taken away your sin.” Such is the effectiveness of three syllables. “I have sinned” is just three syllables; and yet in these three syllables the flames of the heart’s sacrifice rose up to heaven. So those who have done genuine penance, and have been absolved from the constraints by which they were bound and cut off from the body of Christ, and have lived good lives after their penance, such as they ought to have lived before penance, and in due course have passed away after being reconciled, why, they too go to God, go to their rest, will not be deprived of the kingdom, will be set apart from the people of the devil. SERMON 393.1.11
NO SHAME IN REPENTANCE. PACIAN OF BARCELONA: May we by all means be filled with revulsion for sin but not for repentance. May we be ashamed to put ourselves at risk but not to be delivered. Who will snatch away the wooden plank from the shipwrecked so that he may not escape? Who will begrudge the curing of wounds? Does David not say, “Every single night I will bathe my bed, I will “bathe my bed, I will drench my couch in my tears.”12 And again, “I acknowledge my sin, and my iniquity I have not concealed”13 And further, “I said, ‘I will reveal against myself my sin to my God,’ and you forgave the wickedness of my “heart”14 Did not the prophet answer [David] as follows when, after the guilt of murder and adultery for the sake of Bathsheba, he was penitent? “The Lord has taken away from you your sin.” LETTER 1.5.3.15
CONFESSION AND CORRECTION. PAULINUS OF MILAN: Indeed, to the penitent himself confession alone does not suffice, unless correction of the deed follows, with the result that the penitent does not continue to do deeds which demand repentance. He should even humble his soul just as holy David, who, when he heard from the prophet: “Your sin is pardoned,” became more humble in the correction of his sin, so that “he did eat ashes like bread and mingled his drink with weeping.”16 THE LIFE OF ST. AMBROSE 9.39.17
THE CHILD DIES DESPITE DAVID’S FASTING (2 SAMUEL 12:15-19)
OVERVIEW: David’s repentance and fasting, offered not for his sin’s sake but for his child’s, does not atone for sin but encourages abstinence from all evil (CHRYSOSTOM). That David’s prayerful and humble repentance did not move the Lord to spare his child’s life shows that no crime deserves greater guilt than those that give others cause for blasphemy (SALVIAN). “12:15-17 David Pleads to God for the Child’s Life
ABSTAINING FROM ALL EVIL. CHRYSOSTOM: And I do not say this to overturn fasting (God forbid!) but to exhort you that with fasting you do that which is better than fasting, the abstaining from all evil. David also sinned. Let us see then how he too repented. Three days he sat on ashes. But this he did not for the sin’s sake but for the child’s, being as yet stupefied with that affliction. But he wiped away the sin by other means, by humbleness, contrition of heart, compunction of soul, by falling into this sin no more, by remembering it always, by bearing thankfully every thing that befalls him, by sparing those that grieve him, by forbearing to requite those who conspire against him; yes, even preventing those who desire to do this. HOMILIES ON 2 CORINTHIANS 4.6.1
CAUSING OTHERS TO BLASPHEME. SALVIAN THE PRESBYTER: How particularly difficult it is to atone for the evil deed of handing over the name of the Lord to the blasphemy of the heathen, we are instructed by the example of the most blessed David who, because of the intercession of his acts of justice, deserved to evade eternal punishment for his offenses through one confession only. Yet he, with penance as his protector, was unable to obtain full pardon for his sin. When Nathan the prophet had said to David, who was confessing his own sins to him, “The Lord has taken away your sin, you shall not die,” he added immediately, “nevertheless, because you have given occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme, for this word, the child that is born to you, shall die.”
And what happened next? Having laid aside his crown and put away his jewels, all splendor of royal dignity being removed, he was relieved of the purple. For all his sins he shut himself up alone, weeping, filthy in sackcloth, soaked in tears and soiled with ashes, and sought the life of his little child with the voice of many lamentations and beat upon the Most Holy God with great fervor or prayer. Thus asking and imploring, he believed he could in this manner obtain what he sought from God. Yet he was unable to obtain his request through what is the most forceful aid to those who ask.
From this it can be understood that there is no crime deserving of greater guilt than to give to the heathen a reason for blaspheming. For, whoever has erred gravely without giving cause for blasphemy to others brings damnation to himself only, but he who makes others blaspheme drags many to death with himself, he will, of necessity, be guilty of as many as he shall have drawn into guilt. Not only this, whatever sinner so sins that he does not cause others to blaspheme by his sin, his sin is injurious only to him who sins, but does not insult the holy name of God with the sacrilegious curse of those who blaspheme. But he who, by his sin, causes others to blaspheme, his sin is, of necessity, beyond the measure of human crime, because he has done unthinkable harm to God through the curses of many. THE GOVERNANCE OF GOD 4.18.2”
Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture: Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1-2 Samuel