Monday 28th October
Read 2 Samuel 12:1-5
“The Lord sent Nathan to David. When he came to him, he said, ‘There were two men in a certain town, one rich and the other poor. 2 The rich man had a very large number of sheep and cattle, 3 but the poor man had nothing except one little ewe lamb that he had bought. He raised it, and it grew up with him and his children. It shared his food, drank from his cup and even slept in his arms. It was like a daughter to him.
4 ‘Now a traveller came to the rich man, but the rich man refrained from taking one of his own sheep or cattle to prepare a meal for the traveller who had come to him. Instead, he took the ewe lamb that belonged to the poor man and prepared it for the one who had come to him.’” (NIVUK)
We know that ‘the thing’ David had done displeased the Lord. After some time has passed, the Lord decided to act. The same prophet who announced to David that the Lord would establish his house forever is sent to David. The skill of the author in bringing the stories together is exceptional. David spent much of the previous episode sedentary, using his authority and power to ‘send’ people everywhere, instructing them to come to him, or go from him. Now the One with true authority ‘sends’ Nathan to David.
The story Nathan tells David weaves together the language of the promises God made to David (2 Samuel 7) with the key words from the Bathsheba episode (2 Samuel 11). The author intends for us to have both stories in our minds for how the promises to David survive the betrayal, adultery and murder is essential to the future of the world.
The story emphasises the gifts received by the ‘rich man’ with the struggles of the ‘poor man’ who, despite his dire straits is generous to a fault. The ‘rich man’ is the recipient of grace, he simply ‘had’ enormous livestock wealth (v2). The ‘poor man’ had nothing, and his prized possession he had to buy – it was not gifted (v3). The lamb ‘slept in his arms’ (like Bathsheba) (v3), like a daughter (Hebrew ‘bath’!). As David ‘took’ Bathsheba, the ‘rich man’ ‘took’ the lamb (v4).
The one chosen and blessed graciously and generously responds with selfish greed. Who thought generosity revealed so much about character?
