Automatic Transcript Generated:
Did God punish David’s child because of David’s sin with Bathsheba?
Speaker 1
Alright, Jim asks was a good one. In Deuteronomy 20 416 it says that parents should not be put to death for sins of their children and children should not be put to death for the sins of their parents. Then why did God punish David in Two Samuel chapter twelve, verses one through 15, by verse 14 where it says but because by doing this you have shown utter contempt for the Lord the son born to you, it will die. It sounds like God punished the child for David sin. Yeah, this is a good question.
Speaker 1
I totally see where you’re coming from and I respect you for your adamant Bible study. This is great. But I do have an answer for this. I know it suffices you. So let’s go ahead and look at that verse.
Speaker 1
First of all, in Deuteronomy chapter 24 and verse 16, and this is written in the book of the law of Moses, but still a very important question because God’s truth is truth and David lived under this law. So again, let’s look at Deuteronomy chapter 24 and verse, there it is. Verse 16 says father shall not be put to death for their children, nor shall children be put to death for their fathers. A person shall be put to death for his own sin. I believe that this is a very fair law that God put in place when he called God’s people out of Israel or out of Egypt and to the promised land.
Speaker 1
He wanted to form a nation based on a good government. And I think this is a very fair law. God was saying it’s not fair for people to be punished for their family. And I think that’s kind of a frame thing, I think a lot of people believe they live under the curse of their parents or the curse of their children, as if they need to suffer for the sins of the other person and they don’t. And God doesn’t require your blood on their hands because of their sins unless you definitely cause them to do something like that or do a sin.
Speaker 1
Now, in the case of David, this is a very interesting situation, as you may know. I’m sure you do, jim, who asked this question, the situation that David was in in Second Samuel, in this chapter we’re talking about, we see that David had just slept with a woman named Best Shiba and she was married and she was actually married to a man named Uriah, who was one of his mighty man, was one of his most close and trusted army men. And it was just really devastating story because what happened was David was in his palace, he should have been out to war with his army, but he wasn’t. He was staying cozy and home. And while he was there, he looked at a window and he saw this woman bathing in her window and he thought she is beautiful.
Speaker 1
And he called her to the house, to his castle, and he slept with her. And she was the wife of a man named Uriah. Again, like I said, one of his closest army men. And what happened was she ended up getting pregnant. And so in order to try to cover this in, he tried to get his friend Uriah drunk and get him home and sleep with his wife.
Speaker 1
And he’s like, no, how can I do this when my men in the army are out of war? I can’t do this, I can’t dishonor them, I have to be a man of fortitude. And he was much more honorable than David in this situation. And so because he wouldn’t give in to David’s scheme, david went ahead and had them put in the front lines and had him killed in the heat of battle. Once this happened, word got out and it was really sad to see.
Speaker 1
And so what happened was because Beth, sheba was pregnant, david took her to be his wife and she had a baby. Now what’s very interesting, I’m just going to go to, let me go ahead and go to that first really quick. I apologize again. I’m having some technical difficulties this evening, so thank you for your patience. Go again to Samuel in chapter twelve, I think verse 13 really holds the answer.
Speaker 1
So I’m going to go ahead and pull that up. Second Samuel, chapter twelve. And verse 13, it says, david said to Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord. So Nathan the prophet brings us up to David and so basically tells an allegorical story and says, there was a man who only had one sheep and this man took it. What should be done?
Speaker 1
And he says, oh, that man should be punished. And he says, you’re the man. And so David’s going, oh, I am like my sin has been found out. And so here we see. I apologize, I went off track here.
Speaker 1
We see in second Samuel, chapter twelve, and in verse 13, if we can get that back up, david said to Nathan the prophet, I have sinned against the Lord. And Nathan said to David, the Lord has put away your sin, you shall not die. So David was sincerely remorseful for his sin. David confesses sin. We see this in the book of Psalms, chapter 51.
Speaker 1
The whole chapter is beautiful, but like in verse ten it says, created me a clean heart, o God, renewal right spirit within me. In this chapter, David says, against you only have I sin against God. But he’s like saying basically the whole chapter is just him apologizing to God regarding this specific sin that he committed as far as adultery and murder. Now according to the law that we just read in Deuteronomy 24, it says that he that sin shall be put to death. Now, because David confessed, God in keeping with his law, said, okay, you’ve confessed, I’ve put away your sin.
Speaker 1
And you’re not going to die. Because David knew that according to the law, he should have died for this sin. And that’s true. So God was fair in dealing with David in this way. Now, when you keep going to the next verse, I think this kind of explains why the baby died.
Speaker 1
So if you look in verse 14, it says, how be it? However, because by this deed you have given great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme the child. Also who is born to you shall surely die. Now, I think my friend who shared this question, the version he said, basically said a different phrase. But the King James version and the new King James version basically say because David gave an occasion for the other nations around them to blaspheme the name of the Lord, that’s why this baby had to die.
Speaker 1
Now, if you think about it, it’s a terrible story. And the sad thing is sometimes we do pay for the sins of our parents. And it wasn’t that he died because of Davidson, but he died because basically this child’s life was an occasion for other nations to basically say, oh look, God blessed David with this birth. And so if God is going to let this child live, it basically means God approved of this sin.
Speaker 1
Because of this, God didn’t choose to allow this child to live and the child passed away. And honestly, when I think about the situation and I don’t know, I’m not God, obviously, but when I think about the situation, I can’t help but think if I was this child born to these parents, I was conceived in adultery sin and this man killed my father in order to sleep with my mom. And I’m just basically a reminder to the other nations that, hey, my birth father had sinned against God and it was just an occasion for them to ridicule God’s, name his character. It would have just been a really difficult life for this child. And I think that it would have ended in this child having self destructive behaviors.
Speaker 1
It would have been just miserable and a terrible life for this child. And so I think God and his mercy allowed this child to go to sleep because it was perhaps the only way that this child could have been saved. And I do believe that in heaven there’s going to be many babies that will be raised again and lifted to the arms of their parents. And I do believe the Bible talks about that the children are covered by the believing parents. And we know that David, he wasn’t after God’s own heart.
Speaker 1
He definitely made a big mistake here. But he did repent sincerely. And I do believe that because of his sincere repentance, his child is covered. And so when he goes to heaven, by God’s grace, that he will get to see that child raised in a perfect environment, in a loving environment. And I think that God in his mercy, just knows what he’s doing in a lot of these situations.
Speaker 1
And maybe it still seems unfair, and I can only imagine being a mom. I would not want to lose my child under any circumstance. I don’t care. And I think that that’s very easy to argue. As far as the justice of God, like, how could this be a just decision for this innocent child to die?
Speaker 1
But I think God knows the big picture. He knows the end from the beginning, and he does whatever he can do, working with us, working with our freedom of choice in order to save us. I believe God is always calling everybody to be saved. And so I think that God knew what was best in the situation, not just for the salvation of this child and this family, but also for the surrounding nations, because the purpose of Israel was to proclaim God’s character to the Gentiles. You see that all over the Book of Isaiah that God’s people were supposed to be sharing with the world who God is.
Speaker 1
And sadly, they failed miserably as people, and which is why, ultimately, Jerusalem was destroyed. But Jesus, thank God, he was the only successful demonstrator of God’s character, his perfect character of love and kindness and patience. And I thank God for the promise that we see in one thessalonians four starting over 13, where basically it says that don’t be without hope because the dead in Christ shall rise first, and those that are alive and remain shall be caught together with them, and so shall they forever be with the Lord. So again, we might suffer things, our children might suffer things, people in this world suffer things that don’t seem fair. And that happens.
Speaker 1
But at the end of the day, it comes down to trusting in God and knowing that if we’re right with God, if we present things to Him, we know that all things will work together for good. All things will work together for our blessing and the blessing of our children if we give them to Him. So I hope that answers your question, where it could seem a little bit tricky. But the law stated that definitely that person needed to die for their sin. And so, David, his sin was pardoned.
Speaker 1
That’s why he didn’t die very clearly. But this child wasn’t allowed to live the rest of his life, not because of the sin of the Father, but basically because his life would have just been a cause for blaspheme to the surrounding nations, basically leaving thousands of people outside of Israel without hope of knowing who God is. And I do believe that there’s going to be a lot of people in Heaven that maybe didn’t know everything about God, but they’re going to be there based on what they did know. And I think that’s a beautiful promise in God’s word. We see.
Speaker 1
I can think of the verse off the top of my head. But basically it’s the verse we see that where many will come to Jesus in the kingdom and say, what happened to your hands? And he will say, I received these at the house of my friends. So basically, there’s people that didn’t know all all the stories of the Bible, but they’ll know, again, going back to that verse, that they’ll know God. They’ll know his character, and they’ll resemble God and his character of love.
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In His Service
BibleAsk Team
