2 Samuel 12:10 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
2 Samuel 12:10
Now therefore the sword shall never depart from thine house; because thou hast despised me, and hast taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be thy wife.
to turn off (literal or figurative) · verb, qal imperfect, 3rd person feminine singular
house
מִבֵּיתְךָ֖mi.bei.te.Kha
H1004
a house (in the greatest variation of applications · preposition + noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 2nd person masculine singular
because
עֵ֚קֶב'E.kev
H6118
a heel · noun, common masculine singular construct
despised
בְזִתָ֔נִיve.zi.Ta.ni
H959
to disesteem · verb, qal perfect, 2nd person masculine singular + pronominal suffix
taken
וַתִּקַּ֗חva.ti.Kach
H3947
to take (in the widest variety of applications) · conjunction + verb, qal sequential imperfect, 2nd person masculine singular
wife
אֵ֙שֶׁת֙'e.shet
H802
a woman · noun, common feminine singular construct
a woman · preposition + noun, common feminine singular absolute
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
2 Samuel 18:14-15 Then said Joab, I may not tarry thus with thee. And he took three darts in his hand, and thrust them through the heart of Absalom, while he…
Matthew 26:52 Then said Jesus unto him, Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.
Romans 2:4 Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repenta…
Genesis 20:3 But God came to Abimelech in a dream by night, and said to him, Behold, thou art but a dead man, for the woman which thou hast taken; for sh…
Numbers 11:20 But even a whole month, until it come out at your nostrils, and it be loathsome unto you: because that ye have despised the LORD which is am…
1 Samuel 2:30 Wherefore the LORD God of Israel saith, I said indeed that thy house, and the house of thy father, should walk before me for ever: but now t…
2 Samuel 13:28-29 Now Absalom had commanded his servants, saying, Mark ye now when Amnon’s heart is merry with wine, and when I say unto you, Smite Amnon; the…
2 Samuel 18:33 And the king was much moved, and went up to the chamber over the gate, and wept: and as he went, thus he said, O my son Absalom, my son, my…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on 2 Samuel 12:1-14
It seems to have been a great while after David had been guilty of adultery with Bath-sheba before he was brought to repentance for it. For, when Nathan was sent to him, the child was born (Sa2 12:14), so that it was about nine months that David lay under the guilt of that sin, and, for aught that appears, unrepented of. What shall we think of David's state all this while? Can we imagine that his heart never smote him for it, or that he never lamented it in secret before God? I would willingly hope that he did, and that Nathan was sent to him, immediately upon the birth of the child, when the thing by that means came to be publicly known and talked of, to draw from him an open confession of…
I gave thee thy master's house, and thy master's wives--The phraseology means nothing more than that God in His providence had given David, as king of Israel, everything that was Saul's. The history furnishes conclusive evidence that he never actually married any of the wives of Saul. But the harem of the preceding king belongs, according to Oriental notions, as a part of the regalia to his successor.
Adam Clarke on 2 Samuel 12:9
Thou hast killed Uriah - Thou art the Murderer, as having planned his death; the sword of the Ammonites was Thy instrument only.
John Gill on 2 Samuel 12:10
Now therefore the sword shall never depart from thine house,.... During his life, and as appeared in the slaughter of his sons Ammon and Absalom before his death, and of Adonijah quickly after, and in his posterity through their wars with the children of Israel, and other nations:
because thou hast despised me; his commandments, and that in effect was despising him the lawgiver:
and hast taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be thy wife; which being repeated shows that it was very displeasing to God, and a very heinous crime in his sight.
Keil & Delitzsch
The Church Fathers
Thus, the prophets' sayings are of three classes: one class refers to the earthly, a second to the heavenly Jerusalem, and a third to both simultaneously. It will be best to support this assertion with illustration. The prophet Nathan was sent to accuse King David of a grave sin and to foretell what evils were to befall him on this account. Now no one can fail to see that this prophecy refers to the earthly city. There are others like it, sometimes addressed to the people at large for their profit and well-being, and sometimes to an individual who merited a word from God to foreknow some event for the guidance of his temporal life.
But that you may clearly know that his censure and sacred considerations deal more with actions than with persons themselves, hear how God, the judge, who many times gave sentences favorable to his servant David, often gave decisions unfavorable to him. This happened in a transaction which did not involve many men, or perhaps, what would have aroused God more, in a transaction involving holy men. It happened in the instance of one man, a foreigner, where the action rather than the person demanded punishment.When Uriah the Hittite, a member of a wicked race and of an unfriendly nation, had been killed, the divine Word was immediately passed to David, "You have killed Uriah, the Hittite, with the sword and have taken his wife to be your wife, and have slain him with the sword of the children of Ammon. Therefore the sword shall never depart from your house. Thus said the Lord, 'Behold, I will raise up evil against you out of your own house; and I will take your wives before your eyes and give them to your neighbor. For you did it secretly: but I will do this thing in the sight of all Israel and in the sight of the sun.' " What do you say to this, you who believe that God does not judge our actions and who believe that he has no concern whatsoever for us? Do you not see that the eyes of God were never absent even from that secret sin through which David fell once? Learn from this that you are always seen by Christ, understand and know that you will be punished, and perhaps very soon, you, who, perhaps in consolation for your sins, think that our acts are not seen by God. You see that the holy David was unable to hide his sin in the secrecy of his inmost rooms; neither was he able to claim exemption from immediate punishment through the privilege of great deeds. What did the Lord say to him? "I will take your wives before your eyes, and the sword shall never depart from your house."
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
David — Beloved, the eighth and youngest son of Jesse, a citizen of Bethlehem. His father seems to have been a man in humble life. His mother’s name is not recorded. Some think she was the Nahash of 2 Sam.…
Nathan — Given. (1.) A prophet in the reigns of David and Solomon (2 Chr. 9:29). He is first spoken of in connection with the arrangements David made for the building of the temple (2 Sam. 7:2, 3, 17), and…
Solomon — Peaceful, (Heb. Shelomoh), David’s second son by Bathsheba, i.e., the first after their legal marriage (2 Sam. 12). He was probably born about B.C. 1035 (1 Chr. 22:5; 29:1). He succeeded his father…
Kings · Punished for transgressing the divine law — Punished for transgressing the divine law
Nathan · of Uriah — of Uriah
Prophets · Were sent to: Denounce the wickedness of kings — Were sent to: Denounce the wickedness of kings
Sword, The · Illustrative: (Not departing from one’s house,) of perpetual calamity — Illustrative: (Not departing from one’s house,) of perpetual calamity
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
on 2 Samuel 12:1-14
Sa2 12:1-4
Nathan's Reproof. - Sa2 12:1. To ensure the success of his mission, viz., to charge the king with his crimes, Nathan resorted to a parable by which he led on the king to pronounce sentence of death upon himself. The parable is a very simple one, and drawn from life. Two men were living in a certain city: the one was rich, and had many sheep and oxen; the other was poor, and possessed nothing at all but one small lamb which he had bought and nourished (יחיּה, lit. kept alive), so that it grew up in his house along with his son, and was treated most tenderly and loved like a daughter. The custom of keeping pet-sheep in the house, as we keep lap-dogs, is still met with among the Arab…
from this time on (literally forever): Contrast God’s gracious “forever” promises of 7:13-29. • The reminder of what David had done with the sword (12:9) and what role the sword would play in his family recalls David’s cavalier response to Joab’s report of the deaths of Uriah and other innocent Israelites (11:25).
Rashi on 2 Samuel 12:8
Your master's woman. Michal, the daughter of Shaul.
I will add on. I would add on for you.
