Scripture Daily

Context No. 4077 of 4322 · 2 Samuel

Context · Reflection

2 Samuel 12:1-6: in context

1The LORD sent Nathan to David. He came to him, and said to him, “There were two men in one city: the one rich, and the other poor. 2The rich man had very many flocks and herds, 3but the poor man had nothing, except one little ewe lamb, which he had bought and raised. It grew up together with him and with his children. It ate of his own food, drank of his own cup, and lay in his bosom, and was like a daughter to him. 4A traveler came to the rich man, and he didn’t want to take of his own flock and of his own herd to prepare for the wayfaring man who had come to him, but took the poor man’s lamb and prepared it for the man who had come to him.” 5David’s anger burned hot against the man, and he said to Nathan, “As the LORD lives, the man who has done this deserves to die! 6He must restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing and because he had no pity!”

The prophet Nathan comes to David after his sin with Bathsheba and the murder of Uriah, and instead of accusing him directly, he tells a story: a rich man with many flocks, to feed a guest, seized and slaughtered the one beloved lamb of a poor man. David, hearing it, is furious; his anger burns against the rich man, and he declares that such a man deserves to die and must repay fourfold.

He passes swift and severe judgment, without realizing that he has just condemned himself. It is a piercing revelation of a common human blindness. David, who had done far worse than the man in the story, taking another man's wife and arranging his death, was quick to see and condemn the injustice when it was framed as someone else's sin, while remaining blind to his own. We are often like this: harsh in judging in others the very faults we excuse or fail to see in ourselves. The very faults that stir our indignation in others may be faults we ourselves commit and excuse.

Am I quick to condemn in others faults that I excuse or fail to see in myself, and will I let the judgments I pass so readily on others become a mirror in which I examine my own heart?

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