Today, I am reading and commenting on  2 Samuel 12-13.

When confronted by Nathan concerning his sin with Bathsheba and to Uriah, David immediately confessed his sin.  Unlike Saul, he made no attempt to justify his sin, rather he acknowledged his guilt and accepted God’s judgement.  On the two occasions where Samuel confronted Saul over his failure to follow God’s will, Saul made excuses.  I want to take note that we often view the sins which David committed as much more serious than what Saul did, but the Bible is quite clear that God makes no distinction between failure to obey His commands.  On behalf of God, Nathan told David that God had forgiven him, had taken away his sin.  However, Nathan also told David that he would still suffer the consequences of his sin.  The rest of today’s passage describes some of the consequences of David’s sin.  If we look at Amnon’s rape of Tamar, how different is it really from David’s relationship with Bathsheba?  Except that David married Bathsheba, while Amnon wanted nothing to do with Tamar after he forced himself upon her.  We might say that David did not force himself upon Bathsheba, but the passage suggests that Tamar was willing to go to bed with Amnon, if he married her.  And while Absalom’s motives, and methods, were different, what he did to Amnon was not very different from what David did to Uriah.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.