Sermon: Psalm 51 (Part One): Background

#1806
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
Given 01-Mar-25; 79 minutes 2025-03-01

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Most of you old timers, meaning not old in terms of age necessarily, but old in terms of being with CGG for a long time, will remember my lengthy series of sermons on the book of Psalms and its internal organization. We learned things like the book of Psalms is broken down into five books. Each one of those books parallels the five books of the Torah or the Pentateuch, as well as the five festival scrolls, the Megilloth, and those are the Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, and Esther. And using the holy days as our base, we can see that the year can be divided into five different seasons. We normally do four because that is the natural seasons of the year, but if you plug the holy days into there, you can come up with five distinct seasons, meaning Passover and Unleavened Bread is one season. The season of Pentecost is another season. Then you have the period of summer where in many cases, bad things happen. The 9th of Av occurs in the summer season and the Temple was destroyed on that day twice. The fall holy days, Trumpets, Atonement, the Feast of Tabernacles, the Eighth day, they form a fourth season. And then you have the long cold season of winter at the end of the year. That is five different seasons, and the books of Psalms track with that.

The last five psalms, Psalm 146 through 150, are summary psalms. So they are their own separate little section at the end. Psalm 146 is a summary for the first book, 147 for the second book, 148 for the third, and on it goes.

I am concerned about Book Two today. Those are the psalms between 42 and 72—31 psalms. And its summary psalm is Psalm 147. The second book of Psalms is thematically linked to the book of Exodus and some of the things that come out in that book: coming out of the world or coming out of Egypt and things along that line. It is also connected with the book of Ruth, which is the festival scroll for this time period, and the time period of the season is the season of Pentecost. Of course we know that Pentecost is a feast of harvest, a feast of firstfruits having to do with the wheat harvest in Israel. And harvest seasons have to do, as we know, with preparations for and also the resurrection of God's people. So you have the firstfruits in the Pentecost season, and then the fall holy days, which is also a harvest brings in the harvest of the rest of mankind.

David, the sweet psalmist of Israel, as he is called, was the author of most of Psalm Book Two's psalms. I do know that Psalms 42 to 49 were by the sons of Korah and Psalm 50 was by Asaph and Psalm 72 by Solomon. I think that is 10 if I counted right. So 21 psalms are by David and these others, the sons of Korah, Asaph, and Solomon contributed 10 others.

This links up with what Christian [Hunter] said earlier. A distinguishing factor of Book Two is its use of the divine name Elohim. It is quite a difference. Book Two uses Elohim far more times than it uses Yahweh. And it is very significant, 164 times versus just 30. And when we go through the Bible and we see the Lord, the Lord, the Lord all through there. But in Book Two, the Lord is actually L O R D, that LORD, Yahweh, is fairly rare. Most of the time in Book Two we see God. You know, God; and that is the King James and the New King James way of telling you without having to go to a concordance or what have you that the word God or Elohim stands behind that.

So what this does is that in Book Two, the emphasis in terms of God is as Creator, using His power and His omniscience and His providence to fashion us in His image. It is a hint, if you will, that even though Elohim created the heavens and the earth way back when He did, it is an indication that He is still creating and His creation now is spiritual. He is still forming us in His image, not just a physical image, He has already done that. But He is forming us into His spiritual image and that theme is part of Book Two. And it goes with Exodus, and it goes with Ruth, and it goes with the Pentecost season, and all those things fit very neatly together.

Considered as a whole, Book Two of the Psalms chronicles God's work to bring its primary author, David (remember, he did 21 of these psalms), creating its primary author into God's image. He uses David as a prototype, you could say, because the psalms that we go through in Book Two are all about David's troubles except for one. But we see him developing as a child of God. And what is David doing while he is developing as a child of God? Well, we see him constantly undergoing severe trials. We see him struggling against sin. He is alone. He is outcast. He is hunted, hiding. He is oppressed and depressed.

That man could be the most depressing man in some of his psalms. "Oh God, I'm so low. You've gotta do something. My enemies are all about me, and there is just no way out. I need your help." And so we see that only God could help him—and that is what happened. It took God to intervene in his life and bring him out of those severe trials that he was under at the time. We see David having to learn to trust God to save him and to give him victory against his enemies.

And we do see him growing in character as he learns to rely on God as a whole, but also on God's sovereignty. That He rules in the nations. That He is faithful. That He does what He says. And that He is the great Provider. He can give anyone anything at any time. Nothing on this earth could keep Him from doing what He wants to do.

So this overall theme that I am getting at about David's being used as a prototype for our learning in how to become a child of God, how to grow in the image of God, is important to today's sermon and to the next two, at least that is what I am planning at this moment, a three-part series, because we will be eventually in the next sermons be considering David's famous psalm of repentance, Psalm 51. I figured late winter would be a good time for this since we are evaluating ourselves in the run up to Passover. And also the Feast of Unleavened Bread where a lot of these themes come out, as David Grabbe in his latest sermon talked about putting on the mind of Christ, and that is what the theme of eating unleavened bread is all about.

These themes that we see in Psalms, Book Two play into our relationship with God very deeply and our growth in Christ's image and Christ's mind. So, I feel that it is crucial to understand the background of Psalm 51 before we even try to start to get into what David actually wrote there. So this whole sermon from this point on is going to be about the background to Psalm 51 because it is extensive. We know the general background of Psalm 51. We know that the superscription says something to the effect that this was his psalm of repentance after he went in to Bathsheba. So, that is its general background. But in some ways, or maybe I should say in many ways, it was far worse than that. And I think you will see by the end of today's sermon how much worse the situation was. Believe it or not, it was dire. Eternally dire.

So, let us set the scene. Let us go first to II Samuel 7. I am starting a little bit before because I want you to see in a bit of a run up to what happens in II Samuel 11 and 12 that things were not going right even before this time. So we are going to read the first 17 verses of II Samuel 7 and then we will read 25 through 29. Just think of this as we go through of the details that are brought out here. This is where God makes a covenant with David ultimately, by the time we get to the end of the chapter. And God still makes the covenant with David because he had chosen David for this purpose.

As a matter of fact, maybe I will just throw this out here. When God says David was a man after My own heart, that may not be what you think. It may not mean what you think it means. Obviously, David was a man, he was a sinful man. He did a lot of things wrong. Obviously, those cannot be reflections of God's heart. There is a sense that "a man after God's own heart" is a phrase that is a Hebrew idiom. Or we do not really understand the meaning of the words that were used there. But the possible understanding that we can get out of that term is not that he was a man after God's own heart, but he was a man of God's own choosing, which parallels our election. God calls each one of us personally, God chooses us. And in this case, God has chosen David for a very important role and a very important position. He was the progenitor of His Son, Jesus Christ. He is going to be the king of all Israel in the Kingdom of God. He had chosen David and so He was going to work with David and bring him to the place he needed to be.

He was not like Saul. Saul was different. He was not a man of God's choosing. He was good looking. He was tall. He was a warrior. But he was crazy. Ultimately, his head was not on straight. He was a man of Israel's choosing. Remember, they said they wanted a king. And it was not long after that that God says, "Okay, they've chosen theirs, I'm going to choose Mine." And He sent Samuel, He said, "Go to Jesse's house and I'll tell you which one of his sons I have chosen." And he gets to young David who was not even invited to the dinner. He was so young and out of the social scene of Jesse's household that he was the one that they sent out to watch over the sheep while everybody else was having a party.

So they called him in and Samuel anointed him as God's chosen because God says, "I look on the heart. I don't look on the fact that he's just a teenager and he doesn't seem to get the respect of his brothers here. I've seen that his heart is one I could work with." And so, he was anointed and it says very clearly there in I Samuel 16 that the Spirit of the Lord came upon him right then. So that was his calling and conversion, if you will, but he had a long way to go to be in God's image. Maybe that is what it means that he is a man after My own heart. It means that he had a heart that He could work with. But I just thought I would mention that before we get into this.

II Samuel 7:1-10 Now it came to pass when the king was dwelling in his house, and the Lord had given him rest from all his enemies all around, that the king said to Nathan the prophet, "See now, I dwell in a house of cedar, but the ark of God dwells inside tent curtains." Then Nathan said to the king, "Go, do all that is in your heart, for the Lord is with you." But it happened that night that the word of the Lord came to Nathan, saying [Whoa, wait a second here.], "Go and tell My servant David, 'Thus says the Lord: "Would you build a house for Me to dwell in? For I have not dwelt in a house since the time that I brought the children of Israel up from Egypt, even to this day, but have moved about in a tent and in a tabernacle. In all the places where I have walked with all the children of Israel, have I ever spoken a word to anyone from the tribes of Israel, whom I commanded to shepherd My people Israel, saying, 'Why have you not built Me a house of cedar?'" Now therefore, thus shall you say to My servant David, 'Thus says the Lord of hosts: "I took you from the sheepfold, from following the sheep, to be ruler over My people, over Israel. And I have been with you wherever you have gone, and I have cut off all your enemies from before you, and have made you a great name, like the name of the great men who are on the earth. Moreover I will appoint a place for My people Israel, and will plant them, that they may dwell in a place of their own and move no more; nor shall the sons of wickedness oppress them anymore as previously, . . .

Note the future tenses here. I am going to do this. They were already in the land and had been in the land for 400 years or so by this time. But He is saying that I will do this at some point, plant them in the land that is theirs.

II Samuel 7:11 . . . since the time that I commanded judges to be over My people Israel, and have caused you to rest from all your enemies. Also the Lord tells you that He will make you a house."

He flips it on to David. I am going to make you a house. I do not want you to make a house for Me. I am going to make a house for you.

II Samuel 7:12-17 "When your days are fulfilled and you rest with your fathers, I will set up your seed after you, who will come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for My name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be his Father, and he shall be My son. If he commits iniquity, I will chase him with the rod of men and with the blows of the sons of men. But My mercy shall not depart from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I removed from before you. And your house and your kingdom shall be established forever before you. Your throne shall be established forever."'" According to all these words and according to all this vision so Nathan spoke to David.

David gives a prayer of thanksgiving in the next section. We want to come into the middle of that in verse 25.

II Samuel 7:25-29 "Now, O Lord God, the word which You have spoken concerning Your servant and concerning his house, establish it forever and do as You have said. So let Your name be magnified forever, saying, 'The Lord of hosts is the God over Israel.' And let the house of Your servant David be established before You. For You, O Lord of hosts, God of Israel, have revealed this to Your servant, saying, 'I will build you a house.' Therefore Your servant found it in his heart to pray this prayer to You. And now, O Lord God, You are God, and Your words are true, and You have promised this goodness to Your servant. Now therefore, let it please You to bless the house of Your servant, that it may continue forever before You; for You, O Lord God, have spoken it, and with Your blessings let the house of Your servant be blessed forever."

This was sometime near the midpoint of David's reign, sometime maybe around 980 BC. Let us say he started it right around 1000 BC. This was 20 years into the reign. Now he wants to build a temple for God, but God refuses. Just flat-out says no. Now we know that elsewhere (and that elsewhere is I Chronicles 22:8) that God says Solomon would build it or his son would build it because David had spilled far too much blood. He was a warrior, he was a soldier. He was not a man of peace. Solomon was, however. That is what his name means. Shlomo means man of peace, basically. It is very close to the Hebrew word shalom. If we would go there to I Chronicles 22, we would see that obviously the reason is, no, you spilled too much blood.

But here in II Samuel 7, He gives a different reason altogether for why He does not want David to build a temple to Him. He says (I am going to just put this in my own words), "Have I ever asked anyone to build Me a permanent house?" He said, "I act just fine in a tabernacle. I don't need a house of cedar. It's not yet time." That is why I had you hear the future tenses there. This will happen in the future. Not now. It is not quite the right time.

And if I may, He says, "You're certainly not the one to build it." I almost hear in what He says, kind of the subtext of what God says, that God is saying to David, "Are you trying to confine Me? I brought Israel from Egypt where they have other gods, all the way through the wilderness and into the Promised Land. I was mobile. I showed by the pillar of fire and the pillar of cloud that I could lead wherever you are."

Now just throw this into the back of your mind, there was a common cultural idea, religious idea, that gods had a certain place. That the Canaanite gods were only in Canaan. That the Egyptian gods were only in Egypt. The Mesopotamian gods were only in Mesopotamia. They had very little power outside their area. I mean, that is why Naaman, when he got cured of his leprosy, wanted to take a wagon load of Israel's soil back to his homeland so he could put it in a certain place and worship the God of Israel on Israelite soil. That was the idea here, and I get the idea, I get a hint of God saying, "David, are you trying to confine Me to Jerusalem alone by building Me a house?"

Maybe I am way off base here, but I kind of get an idea that God is saying, "Look, I don't need a house in a particular place. I know you have plenty of money. I know you have lots of laborers that can do this. I know that it will be grand and magnificent." But another subtext here: "I'm the God of all the universe. I don't need a specific house and a specific place to be sovereign and to do My work."

I go to this because I want you to see that David's thinking does not seem to be quite right. He is starting to begin to think of himself in the same terms that other kings from other nations thought of themselves, as they are anointed of their particular god. So he was going to honor God by building Him a temple. I am not saying that his attitude was wrong. I just think it came from a wrong place. He did not understand God well enough at this time.

We will leave that for a moment. Actually, we will pretty much leave that for now. We do not need to think about that anymore, just keep it in your mind.

Now notice in verse 1 of chapter 7 it said that "the Lord had given him rest from his enemies all around" and he "was dwelling in his house." This is kind of interesting that the first thing that we lead with in this section where David is saying, "I want to build God a house," it is saying that David had built himself a house and he was dwelling in a house.

Also, this is flipped. Remember when the Jews came back from exile, God wanted them to build His house first and what did they do? They built their own houses first! And you know, made them really nice and God said, "Hey, look at My Temple here. You're not finished yet. Get back to work." Well, David is in kind of the same position. I want you to see here that he is not thinking quite like we would think David should think, if you understand. If he is the chosen of God, he should be thinking "God first." But God is not first in his life right now. David is first in his life. He has built himself a house. And he thinks, "Oh, I haven't built God's house. I better build God a house." And God says, "No. You're not going to do that. I'm going to get it done eventually, but your son's going to do it. And spiritually, My Son Jesus Christ is going to build the real house. That's way in the future. Right now I don't need that from you."

Verse 1, though, says that God had given him peace all from his enemies. Or rest is the word. What this means in actuality is that Israel was essentially stable. They had become powerful enough that their enemies were afraid to come against them. David had had so many victories that his enemies were lying back now, wary. But he was still expanding his borders at this time. We know this because even in chapter 11, it tells us that Joab was out conquering Rabbah of the Ammonites. So there were still military expeditions going on in Israel, but it reached the point where David felt that he could live in his own house in Jerusalem and not be with the army.

Now, if we would go to I Chronicles 17 (which we will not do), it characterized the rest of David's reign as one of conquest, followed by David's census and the plague that killed 70,000 people, as well as his preparations for Solomon to build the Temple and taking care of some administrative matters in terms of the Temple, the priests, and those sorts of things. So he was busy in the second half of his reign, but the conquests did not end. And the military excursions did not end. However, David was not in the front lines anymore.

Second Samuel, if we would flip through II Samuel here from this point on, shows that the last half of his reign was filled with turmoil. Chapter 13 has to do with Amnon's rape. Amnon was the oldest son of David. He raped his sister Tamar. And then Absalom, who was his younger brother, and Tamar's full brother, kills Amnon. Then you have Absalom's machinations and then his rebellion against David and you have civil war for a certain amount of time. Absalom is killed. It is not long before that Sheba, an Israelite, rebels, and there is more civil war. "To your tents, O Israel!" and they divide up and David has to conquer Israel again.

And then at some point in there, you have a three-plus year famine where God tells David, David rightly asked Him, "What's the matter here? Why aren't our crops growing?" And He says, "It's the Gibeonites. Saul really did them wrong. That's why there is this famine." Problem was, David did not say, "God, how should I deal with this?" Instead, he lets the Gibeonites dictate terms, and the terms were, "Send us six of Saul's descendants and we'll hang them. And we will call it evens." That was not the right thing to do. And we see that because the famine went on. The Gibeonites, in the manner of the Canaanites at the time, hung their bodies out to display. And you know, the law says that anybody who is hanged has to be put into the ground by evening. And they hung there for months, and God did not lift the famine. It was not the right thing to do.

So these were the things that were happening toward the end of David's reign. And also the census was toward the end of his reign as well. So that is a lot of unrest, division, war, unwise decisions, and disasters in that second half of his reign. In fact, we could characterize the last half of his reign as an unraveling. All that had been built up in the first half was unraveling in the second half and it was only by God's will and God's providence that Solomon had a kingdom to rule over once he got on the throne. We could also call it, rather than unraveling, David paying the piper for his bad decisions and for his sins.

At the time, as I mentioned, when he had his adulterous affair with Bathsheba, Joab was busy conquering Rabbah, which is almost directly east of Jerusalem, a little bit north, and Uriah was there. in Ammon, so he was across Jordan and a day or two away. David, though, as we find here in chapter 7, verse 1, was at home. He was not worried about what was happening in Rabbah. That was Joab's thing. He was the general. So David was kind of just chilling in Jerusalem doing king things. He was content at this time to live indulgently at home. Kind of like the old idea of an oriental potentate with his harem and all those things that those men did.

We should know that Bathsheba at this time was probably about 20 years old. David, though, was near 50 if it is the half point of his reign. He died at 70. He had reigned 40 years. If this was half point, he would have been 50. More telling about how wicked and terrible his sin was. He had been God's anointed for more than 30 years. He had been given God's Holy Spirit sometime in his mid to late teens. And so now he was 50, that was closing on 35 years of being God's chosen.

I believe that God's reasons for not allowing him to build a temple were a hint to David that he had started to what the Bible calls "settle on his lees." That is a phrase that is used in Zephaniah 1:12. The New King James has translated it as "settled in complacency." That is what settled on your lees means. It means becoming complacent, careless, straying from one's early dedication to God. It is a winemaking term where you leave the wine on its lees for a certain time for flavor, but if you leave it on the lees too long, it becomes bitter. The wine is ruined and this is what was happening with David. David was beginning to get a little bit too soft, a little too cushy, a little bit too permanent, a little too settled in his house.

We know from what is said in places like Hebrews 11, that our life is one of pilgrimage. Remember, that is why God was in a tabernacle. Because the children of Israel going through the wilderness were on a pilgrimage. They had been freed from Egypt and they were on a pilgrimage to the Promised Land. And they were a tough, hardy people walking in the wilderness. I would not say they submissively followed God's lead, but they did follow God's lead in most cases. Theirs was not a life where they settled down and enjoyed the blessings of God. They were constantly on the move, moving forward toward the Promised Land, toward, we could say, we should always be constantly moving forward toward the Kingdom of God. That was the life that God requires of His servants. Let us go look at that in Hebrews 11. We will read a few verses here starting in verse 8. He says,

Hebrews 11:8-10 By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to the place where he would receive as an inheritance. [See, right from the beginning of the faithful Abraham, he was called to go out from his house in Ur of the Chaldees and travel and wander, be a pilgrim.] And he went out, not knowing where he was going. [He was following the cloud, as it were.] By faith he sojourned in the land of promise as in a foreign country, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise; for he waited for the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God.

Hebrews 11:13-16 These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off were assured of them, embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For those who say such things declare plainly that they seek a homeland. [a different civilization than the one we are living in] And truly if they had called to mind that country from which they had come out, they would have had opportunity to return. But now they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly country. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them.

So what we see is that David had begun to settle in. He was no longer a pilgrim. He was beginning to show the signs of neglect of God. He was beginning to show signs of pride, setting himself up as something great, and it was beginning to affect the decisions that he would make.

Let us continue in II Samuel, this time in chapter 11. Again, I am going to read a lot but we need to read these to get the understanding that they give us chapter.

II Samuel 11:1-2 Now it came to pass in the spring of the year, at the time when kings go out to battle, that David sent Joab and his servants with him, and all Israel; and they destroyed the people of Ammon and besieged Rabbah. But David remained at Jerusalem. Then it happened one evening that David arose from his bed. . .

This has been something that I always have wondered about. "It happened one evening that David arose from his bed." What was he doing? I mean, most people go to bed at night, not evening. Was he just lounging around? Here his men were out fighting in Rabbah, taking care of business, and he was lying around on his bed in the evening time. Maybe this was late evening. Maybe he had decided to turn in early and could not sleep, so he got up, but it is just one of those little hints that tells you he was not doing anything. He was lying on his bed.

II Samuel 11:2-17 . . . and walked on the roof of the king's house. And from the roof he saw a woman bathing, and the woman was very beautiful to behold. So David sent and inquired about the woman. And someone said, "Is this not Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?" Then David sent messengers and took her [that is an interesting way to phrase it, is it not?]; and she came to him, and he lay with her, for she was cleansed from her impurity; and she returned to her house. And the woman conceived; so she sent and told David, and said, "I am with child." Then David sent to Joab, saying, "Send me Uriah the Hittite." And Joab sent Uriah to David.

When Uriah had come to him, David asked how Joab was doing, and how the people were doing, and how the war prospered. [all that yada yada] And David said to Uriah, "Go down to your house and wash your feet." So Uriah departed from the king's house, and a gift of food from the king followed him. [Meaning David sent servants after he arrived to make sure he went home. Well, it did not happen.] Uriah slept at the door of the king's house with all the servants of his lord, and did not go down to his house.

So when they told David, saying, "Uriah did not go down to his house," David said to Uriah, "Did you not come from a journey? ["Aren't you tired? Don't you want to go lie on your bed and have a good sleep?"] Why did you not go down to your house?" And Uriah said to David, "The ark and Israel and Judah are dwelling in tents [Get the point?], and my lord Joab and the servants of my lord are encamped in the open fields. Shall I then go to my house to eat and drink, and to lie with my wife? As you live, and as your soul lives, I will not do this thing." [It's only right that I not indulge myself when all my fellows are out there getting ready for battle.]

Then David said to Uriah, "Wait here today also, and tomorrow I will let you depart." [He is stalling.] So Uriah remained in Jerusalem that day and the next. Now when David called him, he ate and drank before him, and he made him drunk. And at evening he went out to lie on his bed with the servants of his lord [but even drunk], he did not go down to his own house. In the morning it was so that David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it by the hand of Uriah.

And he wrote in the letter, saying, "Set [this stupid man] Uriah [I am putting that in there because he was not doing what David wanted him to do.] in the forefront of the hottest battle, and retreat from him, that he may be struck down and die." [Just absolutely betray him and make sure he is dead.] So it happened, while Joab besieged the city, that he assigned Uriah to a place where he knew there were valiant men. Then the men of the city came out and fought with Joab. And some of the people of the servants of David fell; and Uriah the Hittite died also.

II Samuel 11:26-27 When the wife of Uriah heard that Uriah her husband was dead, she mourned for her husband. [He was a good man, obviously.] And when her mourning was over [same day, maybe], David sent and brought her to his house, and she became his wife and bore him a son. But the thing that David had done displeased the Lord.

What a sordid mess this was. I have a sermonette that I did 30 years ago or so, called "Israelite Soap Opera" and it goes over some of this stuff. I also have one called Psalm 55 that goes into some of the aftermath, if you want those have more details.

We have to know something here, however. David's counselor was Ahithophel. He was about 70 at this time, and by the way, his name means "brother of folly," but he was known as pretty much the wisest man in Israel and they said his counsel was like that of the counsel of God, the words of the Lord. So he was David's chief counselor, a man he looked up to. And Eliam, which is mentioned here in chapter 11 as Bathsheba's father, was Ahithophel's son. Eliam was one of his 30 great warriors, and he was buddies with Uriah the Hittite, who was also one of the 30 great warriors. So I suspect that that is how Uriah came to be the husband of Bathsheba, that he married his buddy Eliam's daughter.

Uriah and Bathsheba, because of her age, we would think that they had not been married long, four or five years probably at the most. They married fairly early in those days, so I would not press that too far. I would think five years at the most. So she was at her peak of beauty at this point, 20 or so when David spied her bathing on her rooftop. And her culpability in all this is fodder for another message. I do not know if I will be giving it. But we do know that in Matthew 1:6, Matthew will not even say her name. He calls her the wife of Uriah. Who did he really respect in that couple?

Perhaps the most important sentence in the whole story here in chapter 11 is the last one. "But the thing that David had done displeased the Lord." That is a classic understatement. It does not say that in Hebrew. What it says, it tells us that God was not pleased in the least. It says literally, "But the thing that David had done was evil in the eyes of the Lord." Of course!

Let us just recount the sins here, and I probably have missed a few: lust, adultery, if their coming together was consensual. If it was not, then it was rape. Deceit, a lot of deceit, malice aforethought, conspiracy with Joab and his servants, murder, and cover up. These are serious, disqualifying sins. Any one of them could disqualify him for the Kingdom of God. Is that not what Paul says in I Corinthians 6:9-10? Anyway, they are actions unworthy of a converted man, at base. And in II Corinthians 13:5-6, it tells us that we need to be careful. We go to this scripture quite a bit during these times, but just notice this and plug it into David's life at this point.

II Corinthians 13:5-6 Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Prove [test] yourselves. Do you not know yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you are disqualified. [Have you gotten to that point where you have disqualified yourself?] But I trust that you will know that we are not disqualified.

God has not abandoned us. As long as we breathe, you still have a chance to repent and seek God's forgiveness and turn our lives back around. But David was at a point where this was coming into the picture because of his disqualifying sins. And all the while, throughout this chapter 11 here in II Samuel, Uriah—a Gentile—is showing David that he is a humble, loyal, restrained, sympathetic, self-sacrificial man.

In literature, we call this that he is the foil to David. A foil is a contrast or an antithesis. It is a character in literature who is usually the opponent or the antagonist, but his character heightens the main character's traits by their contrast. Usually it is the other way around; that the opponent, the antagonist is the bad guy, and the main character is the good guy and the bad guy's bad character makes the good guy's good character all the more good. But it has been flipped in this case. The guy you would think would be the good guy is the bad guy, and the guy you would think was the bad guy is the good guy. And it makes the "good guy," David, look really bad. Just absolutely wicked.

Let us go to chapter 12. I am going to have to read a lot again.

II Samuel 12:1-15 Then the Lord sent Nathan to David. And he came to him, and said to him: "There were two men in one city, one rich and the other poor. [This is David and Uriah in the parable.] The rich man had exceedingly many flocks and herds. But the poor man had nothing, except one little ewe lamb which he bought and nourished; and it grew up together with him and with his children. It ate of his own food and drank from his own cup and lay in his bosom; and it was like a daughter to him. And a traveler came to the rich man, who refused to take from his own flock and from his own herd to prepare one for the wayfaring man who had come to him; but he took the poor man's lamb and prepared it for the man who had come to him." Then David's anger was greatly aroused against the man, and he said to Nathan, "As the Lord lives [he is swearing here, this is an oath], the man who has done this shall surely die!" [He pronounced his own death sentence.] And he shall restore fourfold for the lamb, because he did this thing and because he had no pity."

Then Nathan said to David, "You are the man! Thus says the Lord God of Israel, 'I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you from the hand of Saul. I gave you your master's house, your master's wives into your keeping, and gave you the house of Israel and Judah. And if that had been too little, I would have given you much more! [God's providence is boundless.] Why have you despised the commandment of the Lord, to do evil in His sight? You have killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword; you have taken his wife to be your wife, and have killed him with the sword of the people of Ammon. Now therefore, the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised Me, and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife.' Thus says the Lord: 'Behold, I will raise up adversity against you from your own house; and I will take your wives before your eyes and give them to your neighbor, and he shall lie with your wives in the sight of this sun. For you did it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel, before the sun.'" Then David said to Nathan, "I have sinned against the Lord." And Nathan said to David, "The Lord also has put away your sin; you shall not die. 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." Then Nathan departed to his house. And the Lord struck the child that Uriah's wife bore to David, and it became very ill [and we know that it eventually died].

We have here Nathan confronting the king about his damnable deeds. And notice the child was already born. You know what this means? We can do the math. At least nine months had passed from the time that he had done what he had done and he had still not repented of his evil attitude and his evil actions. How far had he fallen that he would just say, "eh" over adultery and murder and all those things that he had done?

What we have here is an indication of long-term problems. He was thick-headed, he was stubborn, he was rebellious. He was so spiritually thick that Nathan had to tell him bluntly that he was the abusive rich man in the parable. He did not even get that from when it was told right to his face. Oh, he was eager to judge others and to take offense of others and pronounce the death penalty on others, but he was unable even to see his most egregious sins that everybody knew about. At least the people in the palace, they knew. David was proud and self-righteous. He believed himself unassailable as the chosen of God and my guess is that he thought himself to be guiltless. Because he was David.

I mean, think about it. He was God's chosen. He was the greatest in the land. God Himself had said that He had made him like all the great men of the world. He was personally promised by God an eternal dynasty. He seems to have thought that he had it made, he could do whatever he wanted. Now, certainly, the power of being the king of Israel had gone to his head and he had become a debauched dictator. He was catered to and as far as any other person in the country, he was above reproach. No one dared question him or correct him—because he was David. "Saul has slain his thousands and David his ten thousands." This really gives you a lot of respect for Nathan. He was a brave man. He could have come out there headless the way David was acting at the time. Or sent to the front lines to be killed like he had killed Uriah.

Note here that David judges the rich man deserving to die because he had committed the sins that he had committed and because he had no pity. It is very important. Pity, as you know, is sorrow and compassion caused by the suffering and distress of others. We have pity on people who have a hard time taking care of themselves who are going through severe trials and they are just about at their end.

The Hebrew word is hamal and it could be rendered as compassion, mercy, or an inclination to spare others. Think of that in terms of David. What was his inclination? He was not inclined to spare, he was more inclined to kill, at least in Uriah's case. But here, what it does is it shows that David did not have any softness in his heart anymore. His heart had hardened. We could go to Ezekiel 36:25-27 where it is talking about Israel and God says that He will give them His Spirit and it will change their heart from a heart of stone to a heart of flesh.

Well, at this point, David was going the opposite direction. His heart was hardening. And so he was one of those powerful people at this point who exploit and take liberties with those beneath them, seeing them as mere objects, as lesser than himself and expendable. What it shows is that he acted in contempt of people. And God's response implies that His blessings had gone to David's head. "I gave you all this and it's just basically made you a worse person?" He thought himself so great that he began to despise God's commandments. "These don't apply to me. I'm king. They're for lesser people. I am God's anointed. I can do what I want." That is the way it came out.

And then God says, "You've not only despised My commandments, you've also despised Me." Oh, now he is really in trouble. The Hebrew word underlying despise is bzh. It is one of those triplets there. It is pronounced bah-zah. It means to scorn or ridicule, or to show contempt for, to consider as despicable or worthless. What God said was, "David, you scorn Me, you ridicule Me, you show contempt for Me. You consider Me despicable and worthless." That is quite the indictment of how far David had fallen. And this accusation is actually elevated in chapter 12, verse 14, where the New King James reads, "You have given great occasion to enemies of the Lord to blaspheme." It is not exactly what it says in Hebrew. The Hebrew text literally reads, "You have despised despised, or you have scorned scorned the enemies of the Lord."

You know, in Hebrew when they double up the word, it means a superlative or it takes it to a different level. It makes it extreme, like the Holy of Holies or the Song of Songs. Well, this time it is used in a negative sense where it means utterly despised or utterly scorn. And most textual scholars believe that the inclusion of the phrase of "the enemies" there in verse 14, "You have given great occasion to the enemies of the Lord." They think that that was added by a later editor to make what David did less bad. That it was done out of respect for God because you just do not utterly scorn God. That is unthinkable. And David did that? That is unthinkable too. Because obviously David is one of the great men of Israel. Why would they have something in the Book that made him look so terrible and evil? But that was God's judgment.

The ESV has it better, I think, where they translate this: Nevertheless, because by this deed you have utterly scorned the Lord, the child who is born to you shall die." That was the real problem. His attitude toward God.

So in this very low, never-farther-from-God period that he went through, David showered his contempt on everyone, even God. He must have been a terrible person to live with at this point. Everything had gone to his head. David saw himself as great and noble, and everyone, even God, he saw as beneath him. Even God was worthy of scorn and disdain.

Now this has probably shocked you. It stunned me to see the depth of David's evil, of his terrible attitudes and his equally terrible behaviors. But this is why God pronounces a curse on his house. He says you are going to have internecine warfare. You are going to have the height of adversity, you are going to have public shame. I am not going to let you get away with this. I will forgive you. But you are going to have to bear the effects of this terrible sin. So, God was willing to give David anything, but because of his contempt others would soon take his blessings from him.

Only one verse in this whole thing is given over to his repentance. Verse 13 where he says, "I have sinned against the Lord." The verb here is what is called a performative perfect, meaning that he did not exactly say "I've sinned against the Lord." He basically says, "I am a sinner because I have sinned against the Lord." And what it implies is basically, I stand convinced of my sin against the Lord. Very interesting way of putting it. It took what Nathan did and God's pronouncement and God's judgment to finally get through to David that he had sinned and he was convinced that his sin was against God.

In other words, David accepts that his sin is ultimately against God, against God's commandments, and this showed the beginning step of a change of direction. It had finally got through his thick skull, "You can't do this, David. You can't sin against God. You can't behave as if the commandments do not exist. You, though you be king, though you be chosen, though you have all these things, still have to act and think like a son of God." Why he thought that he did not have to do this, I do not know, but something in his thinking got screwed up at some point and he began to think of himself as more than he actually was.

Nathan's reply after this is equally interesting. He literally says, when he says here, "The Lord also has put away your sin, you shall not die." He literally says, "The Lord has passed over your sin." Like Passover, like what happened in Egypt. Remember the blood was put on the doorposts and the lintel, the blood of the lamb, and God passed over the Israelites and did not kill them but killed the Egyptians. He wants you to get this idea in your head is that that is what He has done now with David. He had passed over his sin. So that implies then that God will atone for, or cause forgiveness for, or put away David's sin. It will cover it.

Now an alternate translation is also very interesting. "The Lord has transferred your sin." That is an interesting thought meaning that is He transferred that sin to another person. I could paraphrase that as "The Lord has laid on another the consequences of your sin," or the guilt of your sin. And it has a double meaning. The first part is that the child took the consequences of the sin and died. The second one is more important. It also looks forward to the greatest Son of David, Jesus of Nazareth, taking on the guilt of all, even David's, to atone for sin.

However, for our purposes, the crucial fact is that David repented. He sought forgiveness because he was convinced and accepted that his many sins had not only broken God's law, but they had ruptured and threatened to destroy the relationship with God. He was on a precipice between eternal life and the Lake of Fire. And yes, he had destroyed others' lives and done horrible things that made victims out of many people, but the most serious and foundational wrong was his proud contempt for God. If he had not shown scorn for God, none of the other sins would have happened. It was his contempt for God that was the source of his bad attitudes and bad behavior.

We act in sin when we ignore God, when we do not think of Him first. When we are in that position, we do what we want to do rather than defer to what God wants. Every decision needs to be prefaced with, what would God want me to do here? How would a godly man react? So, when we do not do that, when we say, what should I do?, we are in essence saying "I am God. I decide what is right and wrong. I decide what I'm going to do."

And we know he had this problem because I mentioned earlier with the Gibeonites, he asked God what was wrong and then did what he wanted to do in the situation, which was to give in to the Gibeonites rather than saying, "God, what do You want me to do?"

So we can now proceed to Psalm 51 in his prayer of repentance. Now let us, just for a minute before I finish, recall the introduction that I gave about the themes of Book Two. The first nine psalms are from the sons of Korah. You might want to turn to Psalm 42. It is followed by one from Asaph, and then we finally get to Psalm 51. But if you look at the psalms from 42 to 50, you see a progression. Here is Psalm 42. The superscription or the head says, Yearning for God in the Midst of Distresses, and this is talking about how we need to thirst for God. We need Him as the essence of our spiritual nourishment. And a repeated refrain is hope in God, hope in God, and I shall praise Him.

That goes into Psalm 43, where it is also in verse 5.

Psalm 43:3 Oh, send out Your light and Your truth! Let them bring me to Your holy hill and to Your tabernacle.

Remember, David wanted to build Him a house. The psalm says, "Lead me to Your tabernacle." Different.

Psalm 44 talks about being dishonored but having redemption from God. Psalm 45 talks about the relationship between the Messiah and the bride of Christ, how they are unified and loving toward one another. Psalm 46 is about God being a refuge and conquering our enemies. Psalm 47 is a praise to God that He rules the whole earth. He is in complete control over everything. Psalm 48 is a psalm of praising God for His glory. Psalm 49 is about how the wicked do not have their confidence in God. Even in the same psalm, he gets to verse 15 and the psalmist says he will not be one of the foolish wicked, "but God will redeem my soul from the power of the grave, for He shall receive me." Think about that. That our hope is in the resurrection, not like these fools who are hoping just in this world and what they can achieve here.

And then we get to Psalm 50. Psalm 50 is about God as judge. He is the one we have got to be worried about. He is the one we need to please. But it talks about how righteous His judgment is and how God has the power to change us, to give us the things that we need, and to bring us to His Kingdom ultimately.

But then Psalm 50 turns in verse 16. These are the last things that are said before David's psalm of repentance.

Psalm 50:16-23 But to the wicked God says: "What right have you to declare My statutes, or take My covenant in your mouth, seeing you hate instruction and cast My words behind you?" [Does that ring any bell with David's attitude?] When you saw a thief, you consented with him, and have been a partaker with adulterers. You gave your mouth to evil [he ordered a murder], and your tongue frames deceit. You sit and speak against your brother; you slander your own mother's son. These things you have done, and I kept silent. You thought that I was altogether like you; but I will reprove you, and set them in order before your eyes. Now consider this, you who forget God, lest I tear you in pieces, and there be none to deliver: Whoever offers praise glorifies Me; to him who orders his conduct aright I will show the salvation of God."

Psalm 51:1 Have mercy upon me, O God, according to Your lovingkindness.

Do you think David got the point? His eternal life hung by a thread. He had despised God, despised His commandments. And God says in these final verses of verse chapter 50, that He, as the perfect Judge, would rebuke him, which He did through Nathan and set his sins before him. "David, this is what you have done."

If David spurned God's attempt to get him to see his sinful nature, He says here at the end of Psalm 50, He would tear him in pieces. But if he repented, if he glorified God, if he ordered his conduct aright, He would redeem him and show him salvation.

That was David's choice when Nathan came and said, "You are the man!" And he chose right. He chose wisely as shown in Psalm 51. And we will consider its words next time.

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