2 Samuel 12:14

2 Samuel 12:14. Great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme To reproach God and his people, and the true religion. For, although these were not concerned in David’s sin, but the blame and shame of it belonged entirely to himself, yet heathen and wicked men would, according to their own evil hearts, endeavour to throw the reproach of it upon God and religion; as if God were unholy because the man whom he had termed a man after his own heart was so; and partial in conniving at so great a crime in him, when Saul was cast off for an apparently less sin; and negligent in the government of the world and of his church, in suffering such wickedness, as even heathen have abhorred, to go unpunished; and as if all religion were but hypocrisy and imposture, and a pretence for villanies. The neighbouring nations in particular might well take occasion to object to the Israelites, that they had no room to boast much about the purity of their religion; since he whom they acknowledged to be their best king, and the great favourite of their God, was guilty of such atrocious crimes. And the Ammonites, upon their success against Uriah and his party, would, doubtless, magnify and praise their idols, and blaspheme the God of Israel. The child that is born unto thee shall surely die David seems to have been much taken with Bath-sheba, and very desirous of having a child by her, otherwise it is hardly to be supposed that he would have been so distressed at the denunciation of its death; especially, as its life must needs have been a standing monument of his adultery, and of the murder of Uriah. It must be observed, that the immediate infliction of this punishment was a certain token that Nathan was sent by God, and that the other threatenings which he had denounced would be executed.