The King Who Needs a Savior

2 Samuel 10–12 (Psalm 51)

Main Idea: David took God’s blessing for granted and as a result fell into sin. The passage tells the story of the king who needs a Savior.

1. A Shift toward Shame (10:1-9)
2. Slavery of Slaveries: David’s Captivity to Sin (11:1-5)
   1. David was blessed.
   2. David was disengaged.
   3. David was in a place where he could be tempted.
3. The Road to Destruction: David’s Cover-up of Sin (11:6-27)
4. Gospel-Centered Repentance: David’s Confession of Sin (12:1-31 and Ps 51)
   1. Gospel-centered repentance makes its sole hope the mercy of God.
   2. Gospel-centered repentance owns that the sin we committed is deeply inherent in who we are.
   3. Gospel-centered repentance is directed first toward God.
   4. Gospel-centered repentance cries out for the gospel.

A Shift toward Shame

2 Samuel 10:1-19

The story in 2 Samuel 10 reveals a subtle move away from the overarching power and honor of David we saw in 2 Samuel 5–9. David is king and in covenant with Yahweh; he exerts his authority over all rivals. David defeats Saul and is the chief leader and worshiper of God’s people. He brings honor to Mephibosheth in 2 Samuel 9, a magnanimous gesture that shows David’s rule will be kind and generous, bringing honor to the shamed. In many ways it is a picture of what Christ does for those who place their faith in Him: He gives beauty for ashes, life out of death, and a song of praise where there was only the sound of mourning.

But something changes in 2 Samuel 10. The old allegiances erode after the Ammonite king, Nahash, dies. Nahash’s son, Hanun, decides that David is untrustworthy and so instigates a war with the people of Israel. This leads, of course, to a battle between Ammon and Israel, which of course Israel wins. Ammon conscripted some Aramean soldiers to their aid (10:6-10). In the long run the rebellion against David and the people of God was ill conceived folly. However, for the alert reader, the shift to highlight the shame brought on David and his house signals something is about to change for David.

This chapter exposes the honor-shame social structure mentioned in the introduction (pp. 15–17), as Hanun shaves half of the beards of Israel’s emissaries and cuts their clothes in half (10:4). David recognizes that this act was designed to shame both the Israelite emissaries and the Davidic house because David encourages the emissaries to remain in Jericho until their beards grow back and their honor is restored. The honor-shame dynamic is important because, if God’s people had seen David’s emissaries shamed, then they would know that David’s honor and power in the wider world was diminished. The people would not see this because David commanded the emissaries to stay in Jericho. However, as readers we see this reality: shame has been brought on David and his house.

Consider the shift between chapter 9 and chapter 10. In 2 Samuel 9, David is kind to the son of Jonathan, Mephibosheth. As we have seen, Mephibosheth was lame or deformed in both of his legs, an unnatural condition in that day. The name “Mephibosheth” is related to the concept of shame, as bosheth in Hebrew means “shame.” So David’s magnanimous behavior in chapter 9 of bringing honor out of shame is contrasted with chapter 10, in which shame is brought to David’s honorable actions. The winds of favor in David’s reign are going to shift direction, and shame will reign instead.

As we have seen in the structure of the book, 2 Samuel 10 launches a fundamental change in the narrative of David. This chapter tells a story of sin that leads to the exile of David. The great king, as good as he was, was not the One who would provide the ultimate peace and rest God’s people desired. God would provide this coming King “when the time came to completion” (Gal 4:4), and His name would be Jesus, for He would save His people from their sins. David was not, and could not be, that salvation. In reality the great king David still needed the Savior.

Growing up, I (J. D.) remember an old country preacher who used to come to our youth group and warn us about the dangers of sin. A favorite tactic of his was to point his finger at us and shout, “Sin ain’t fun!” I never corrected him, but even at the time I thought, Well, if sin ain’t fun, you ain’t doing it right.

Let’s be honest: sin can be a lot of fun. We don’t rush toward sin because it’s painful but because it’s so promising. Sin almost always begins with a thrill, with a rush, with fun. And the more we Christians talk about sin, the more we risk sounding like that old country preacher, warning people about sin because we want to ruin other people’s fun.

But we have to warn people. Why? Because while sin starts off with the excitement of endless possibility, it always leads to the same place: brokenness, agony, disappointment, and despair. And what is true of sin generally is especially true of sexual sin. Sexual sin is so powerful, so destructive—and yet so easy to access—that it can bring the strongest believer to utter ruin. After all, it did so for David, a man after God’s own heart.

In David we see sin in all its predictable ugliness—its capacity to enslave us and to motivate us to cover it up. But we also see the possibility of renewal through confession. We’ll get to the renewal. But first we have to walk the dark road with David for a few paces, into the captivity of sin.

The Slavery of Slaveries: David’s Captivity to Sin

2 Samuel 11:1-5

Sin doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It takes place in specific times and in specific ways. But Satan isn’t as creative as God, so by taking a look at David’s temptation and sin in 11:1-5, we see a paradigm for all temptation and sin. I see three relevant details.

David Was Blessed

Life is actually pretty good for David at this point. The kingdom is established; everyone loves him. Go back and read 2 Samuel 10, and you’ll see that David has just emerged the victor of a whole slew of battles. If there were stock in David, Inc., it would be through the roof. In short, David was living a blessed life.

It may seem surprising to us that David’s sin comes at a moment of extreme blessing. In times of adversity, sure, sexual sin is appealing. It acts like a savior, an escape, something to give us the quick fix we think we need. But what’s so dangerous about blessing?

The danger in blessing is that we tend to forget just how dependent we are on God. When life showers us with goodness, we assume we have caused it. So God gets pushed to the periphery. This is why the author of Proverbs 30 prays to God, “Give me neither poverty nor wealth,” but rather “feed me with the food I need. Otherwise, I might have too much and deny You, saying, “Who is the Lord?’” (Prov 30:8-9). The more self-sufficient we feel, the closer we are to disaster. As the apostle Paul says, “So, whoever thinks he stands must be careful not to fall” (1 Cor 10:12).

David Was Disengaged

It’s no random detail that David had just sent Joab and the whole army out to battle. But where was David? At the time of year when kings go out to battle, David was back at home. David the warrior had become David the vacationer, and his lack of engagement made him susceptible to cheap thrills.

The way to successfully resist the enticements of this world isn’t merely to have a strong will to say no. It’s to be busy with a higher purpose. For many people their lives are so empty, so pointless, so devoid of something more, that the excitement of sex promises a fulfillment they desperately crave. It’s not always that sin is incredibly alluring; it’s often that we’re so unbelievably bored.

We simply weren’t designed to live our lives on the sidelines. God created us to engage in battle, to pursue His ministry with zeal and courage. Only a vision of what God wants to do in you will give you a sense of purpose strong enough to free you from the boredom that leads to sin. Only a vision of what God has done for you in the gospel will keep you from giving your souls away to idols. If we had that perspective, sure, we’d still sin, but we’d find so much less space for it. Bathsheba sure is tempting if we’re sitting around, staring off into space. David would have found it a bit more difficult to sleep with her if he had been 50 miles away, in Rabbah with his troops.

David Was in a Place Where He Could Be Tempted

David is wandering around on the roof, alone, peering over at one roof after another. This is the ancient equivalent to staying up late and browsing the Internet. Is it any surprise what happens next? David had put himself in a place where he could be tempted. Deep down he wanted to be tempted.

One thing I (J. D.) have learned, from painful experience and through years of ministry, is this: it is far easier to avoid temptation than it is to resist sin. Don’t get me wrong: resisting sin is important, immensely so. We must cultivate a habit of coming face-to-face with temptation and still resisting sin. But the world throws enough temptation our way; do we really need to go seek out more of it?

Dietrich Bonhoeffer says it perfectly:

In our members there is a slumbering inclination toward desire which is both sudden and fierce. With irresistible power, desire seizes mastery of the flesh. All at once, a secret smoldering fire is kindled. The flesh burns and is in flames. In this moment, God is quite unreal to us. And Satan does not here fill us with hatred of God, but with a forgetfulness of God. The lust thus aroused envelops the mind and the will in deepest darkness. It is here that everything in me rises up against the word of God.

Therefore the Bible teaches that in times of temptation to our flesh there is one command—flee. Flee youthful lust. Flee worldly temptation. If you’re feeling under pressure and on the verge of something—an emotion is welling up within you—what does the Bible say? Run. No human being has within them the strength to resist such overpowering emotions. (Temptation, 116–17)

Some people will call this legalism. I just call it knowing the power of sin and the weakness of me. I know the consequences of toying with temptation, and I’m just not willing to play Russian roulette with my soul and my family.

In verses 3-5 David’s dark road continues. His descent into sin wasn’t immediate, and even here we see how he was given a chance to escape. “This is Eliam’s daughter,” someone tells him. “This is Uriah’s wife.” Why these details? This is the author pointing out to us—even if David didn’t catch it—that Bathsheba wasn’t just an object. She was someone’s wife, someone’s daughter. The anonymous person who answered David was trying to say, ever so subtly, “David, I know what you’re thinking. And someone is going to get hurt.”

It doesn’t matter what the venue is. It doesn’t matter what the sin is. Sin hurts people. It affects someone’s mother, someone’s daughter, someone’s son—even if that someone is just you. God’s rules, we have to remember, are never arbitrary. They are given to us for our good, to show us the most life-giving way of interacting with others. God doesn’t want to keep us from sinning because He’s out to ruin our fun. He wants to keep us from sinning because He knows how deeply it will wound us. Sin disintegrates. It wounds. Every time. Without fail.

One last point: note the hypocrisy of religion in this passage. Bathsheba had been “purifying herself.” That was part of the Levitical law, a religious observance. It’s as if she and David are able to ignore their adultery because they are going through the motions religiously. Don’t we do the same? Aren’t we tempted to think God is willing to overlook what we do on Saturday night as long as we show up for church on Sunday? God doesn’t want our religiosity. He wants our hearts, our repentance. We’ll get to that in a moment. But things are about to get much worse before they get better.

The Road to Destruction: David’s Cover-up of Sin

2 Samuel 11:6-27

Second Samuel 11:6-27 records David at his most ingenious . . . and his most devious. David hatches a series of plans in order to hide the result of his sin. Plan A is an obvious one but a tricky one to accomplish: David attempts to trick Uriah into thinking the baby is his (vv. 6-11).

At any other time of year, this might not have seemed too difficult. But Uriah, you’ll recall, is miles away fighting David’s battles. So David needs to “create a moment.” He invites Uriah home from battle, asks for a briefing on the war, and then sends him home. Uriah hasn’t seen his wife in a while, and we already know she’s a knockout. So David thinks he’s got it covered.

Wrong. Uriah is a noble guy, and he’s thinking of all his comrades sleeping in the field. They don’t have the pleasure of sleeping in their own bed and enjoying their wives. So Uriah camps out with the palace guards for a night. Imagine how convicting that could have been for David if his conscience was not already suppressed.

David, however, isn’t a quitter. He plots Plan B, which is really just an upgrade on Plan A (vv. 12-13). It now includes a previous step of getting Uriah hammered. Uriah, apparently, despite his nobility, likes a good Corona and walks right into David’s plot. Uriah was just a few short steps away from his house (and David just a few short steps away from apparent freedom) when the alcohol overcame him. He passed out right there on his front lawn. Strike two for David.

So David starts Plan C (vv. 14-27). By this point he’s desperate. He writes a note to Joab that tells him to put Uriah in the front of the battle and to abandon him. It’s a death sentence for Uriah, and Uriah himself carries the plan to Joab. In the end David’s plan succeeds. Uriah dies in battle, and it looks like David is going to get away with it.

But then comes the chilling end to the chapter: “However, the Lord considered what David had done to be evil” (v. 27). No one else may have seen what truly happened. David himself may have convinced himself that it was all behind him. But God’s eyes were watching. They always are.

And David’s life, from this point forward, begins to unravel. His family starts to fall apart. His newborn son dies. His children rebel against him. All because of sin. What does this show us but that sin has an enormous capacity to destroy?

Sin can always be forgiven. As we will see in a moment, David came to God and received healing for what he had done. But we can’t always undo the damage caused when we freely walk into sin. Sin is a plague: by its very nature it destroys.

I hesitate to hammer this point too heavily because I never want people in sin to feel condemned. But some of you are on the brink of making an enormously foolish decision, running headlong into a situation you know you shouldn’t touch. It might be an adulterous affair. It might be pornography. It might be cheating in school, or dishonest business practices, or a grudge you’ve been nursing that is consuming your heart. Whatever it is, you need to know that sin’s whispers that promise joy are lies and that the end of that road is disaster. As John Owen said, “Be killing sin, or it will be killing you.”

Gospel-Centered Repentance: David’s Confession of Sin

2 Samuel 12 and Psalm 51

For the choir director. A Davidic psalm, when Nathan the prophet came to him after he had gone to Bathsheba.

Be gracious to me, God,

according to Your faithful love;

according to Your abundant compassion,

blot out my rebellion.

Wash away my guilt

and cleanse me from my sin.

For I am conscious of my rebellion,

and my sin is always before me.

Against You—You alone—I have sinned

and done this evil in Your sight.

So You are right when You pass sentence;

You are blameless when You judge.

Indeed, I was guilty when I was born;

I was sinful when my mother conceived me.

Surely You desire integrity in the inner self,

and You teach me wisdom deep within.

Purify me with hyssop, and I will be clean;

wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.

Let me hear joy and gladness;

let the bones You have crushed rejoice.

Turn Your face away from my sins

and blot out all my guilt.

God, create a clean heart for me

and renew a steadfast spirit within me.

Do not banish me from Your presence

or take Your Holy Spirit from me.

Restore the joy of Your salvation to me,

and give me a willing spirit.

Then I will teach the rebellious Your ways,

and sinners will return to You. (Ps 51:1-13)

Few of us have sinned as egregiously as David did, in open adultery and murder. But we all sin. And every one of us is capable of David’s heinous crimes. I know this because that’s the nature of unconfessed sin. It changes us. When confronted with the results of our sin—as David was when Bathsheba got pregnant (11:5)—we can hide it, rationalize it, or shift blame. And that may work for a season. But there’s only one true remedy for sin, and that is to repent. The question is not, Do you sin? The question is, What do you do after you sin? The answer to that question is a matter of life and death.

Fortunately for David, God chose to expose what David had covered up (ch. 12). He sent the prophet Nathan to remind David that although he thought he had gotten away with everything, God wouldn’t let it end there. And in a moment of profound humility, David finally came clean. The result was one of the most beautiful and exemplary songs in Scripture: Psalm 51. In this psalm David shows us four keys to gospel-centered repentance and confession.

Gospel-Centered Repentance Makes Its Sole Hope the Mercy of God

David begins precisely where he should, by centering on God’s grace. He prays “according to Your faithful love” and “according to Your abundant compassion.” This is actually a rather risky thing to say. What if God decides not to be merciful? Shouldn’t we make our case with God first? At least this is how many of us approach God.

But that’s not repentance. Repentance begins where blame-­shifting, bargaining, and rationalization end. Nothing in this prayer suggests that David comes to God looking to make a deal. He’s not bargaining with God, trying to commute his sentence. He’s not reminding God of all the great things he did in the past (“Remember Goliath?”). He’s not trying to explain away his sin. He’s not even promising to do better in the future. No, David appeals to God on the only ground that won’t crumble, the ground of God’s grace.

This is the heart of the gospel, and the reason so many people turn away from it. Religions, after all, are good at teaching people to seek mercy. Do this, say this, pray this, avoid this . . . and maybe God will be merciful to you. But only the gospel says, “I will rely on the mercy of God based on nothing about me.” That can be a scary place to be, but here’s the good news: no one who has ever made the mercy of God the sole basis of their plea has ever been turned away. Jesus turned many people away and for many reasons. He never turned someone away for trusting Him too deeply and relying too exclusively on His grace.

Gospel-Centered Repentance Owns That the Sin We Committed Is Deeply Inherent in Who We Are

When we’re caught in our sin, our natural inclination is to explain it away. “I’m not really as bad as all that,” we want to say. “It was just a moment of weakness.” But David goes the complete opposite direction. “I am conscious of my rebellion,” he says. “It isn’t a mistake I made; it’s at the core of who I am.” In verse 5, he takes this about as far as it will go: “Indeed, I was guilty when I was born; I was sinful when my mother conceived me.” In other words, “Hey, you think I’m bad? You don’t know the half of it. This sin stuff? It’s in my blood.”

The theological term for this is “original sin.” Our culture hates the idea, of course, and is deeply afraid to ever say anything like this. We try to convince ourselves that we’re basically good people who make mistakes from time to time. The entire idea of having “deeply inherent” sin seems backward, repressive, and unhealthy. It’s actually the only healthy way to live, as we’ll see in a moment. But as G. K. Chesterton put it, original sin is “the only part of Christian theology which can really be proved.”

This is the truth about all of us, if we’d ever admit it. No one ever taught me, for instance, how to be a lying, cheating, manipulative, selfish jerk. I’m just naturally good at all that. Or take, for example, our children. Children are precious, yes, but any parent will tell you that they are just plain good at sin. We don’t need to send them to “sin camp” to pick it up. Their favorite words are usually no and mine, symbols of defiance and willfulness. And while we grow more sophisticated as we grow up, we don’t naturally grow less rebellious. Every one of us is born a rebel against authority, especially against God’s authority.

Gospel-Centered Repentance Is Directed First toward God

We might need to take off our Sunday school hats for a second to realize how bizarre verse 4 is: “Against You—You alone—I have sinned,” David says. Really? Against God alone? What about Bathsheba? Or Uriah, for crying out loud? On the face of it, this doesn’t make sense, but it’s actually the heart of David’s entire prayer. David’s sin really was primarily a sin against God for two reasons.

First, David realizes that his sin began as a sin against God. What was it about Bathsheba that David wanted? Was it the feeling of power? her beauty? a moment of physical pleasure? Ultimately, David wasn’t swept away because he wanted something specific. David was seduced by Bathsheba’s beauty because he was no longer captivated by God’s.

All our sin starts as a dissolution in our relationship with God. It begins as we grow dissatisfied with what God has given us, as we doubt His goodness toward us. So we start to feel God’s boundaries as restrictive, not life-giving. This means the way to deal with sin in our lives isn’t merely to suppress the sin; it’s to increase our delight in God so that we love Him more than we love the sin. The only way to overcome sinful urges is not by learning to love them less but by learning to love God more.

Second, David realizes that God was the most significant One he had offended. What he did to Bathsheba was shameful; what he did to Uriah was despicable; but what he did to God was the most heinous of all. God had created David, had raised him up from the position of shepherd to that of a king, had given him every good thing in his life. In light of God’s goodness toward him, as David reflects on his sin, all he can say is, “God, have I really done this . . . to You? After all You’ve done for me, this is my response?”

I fear that many of us don’t realize how large and majestic is our God. But think: the bloody cross was the price for our sin. Jesus didn’t have to die because of what we did to one another, but because of what we did to God. Have you ever sensed how much He has done to create you, to save you? He took you and me, His enemies, and brought us close to Himself, calling us His friends. That should change how we think of sin against God—not merely as treason against a mighty king but as a betrayal of a close friend’s trust.

We need to see afresh the hammer in our own hands, driving nails into Christ’s hands and feet. We need to hear our voices joining with the crowds, yelling, “Crucify!” We need to feel upset not just because of sin’s consequences but because of what our sin has done to God. Until we do, our repentance will only be a smoke screen.

Gospel-Centered Repentance Cries Out for the Gospel

Throughout this psalm David points out that our repentance needs to flow from the heart. But there’s a problem: our hearts are wicked. We can’t change them, and David knows it. So he cries out for God to cleanse him: “Purify me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.” Hyssop is only mentioned two other times in Scripture: once in the Exodus story, as the Jews were supposed to dip hyssop in a lamb’s blood and spread that blood on their doorposts; and once as a means of cleansing leprosy. To a Jewish reader the connection David was making here would have been obvious. David is saying he needs something to free him from sin’s slavery (like the slavery in Egypt), something to heal him from sin’s disease (like the leprous disease). But literal hyssop wouldn’t be enough. What David is crying out for is the hope of the gospel.

David needed someone who could “blot out all [his] guilt.” That someone was Jesus, the true Passover Lamb, dying in our place so God’s wrath would pass us by. David needed someone to “create a clean heart” for him. That someone was Jesus, who came to cleanse our leprous souls, souls so deeply sick that no amount of reformation or incentive could cure them. David needed someone to “renew a steadfast spirit” within him. That someone was Jesus, who imparted His Spirit to us as a sign of God’s grace toward us.

Here’s what is so beautiful about the gospel. David was crying out to God, asking God to purge him and cleanse him. But he also knew how deep his sin was. To be truly purged, truly cleansed, he would need to pay far more than what he possessed. The penalty for his sin—and ours—was death. But in the gospel God takes the penalty of our sin on Himself, absorbing it in the cross. The cross is God’s promise to us that there is no sin so heinous, no heart so wicked, that He cannot cleanse it. And the resurrection is God’s promise that there is no situation so dead that He cannot renew and restore it.

Reflect and Discuss

1. How does this passage help you understand God?
2. How does this passage of Scripture exalt Jesus?
3. How does this passage transition the story toward David’s failure as king?
4. Why is it important to recognize that David is not the perfect king?
5. Why is it often so much easier to identify the sin of others and blame them rather than owning up to sin ourselves? Write down your thoughts.
6. In what ways do you understand that God supremely is the offended party by our sin? Write down your thoughts and be specific.
7. Does the point above somehow let us off the hook in our accountability and confession to others?
8. Identify the major ways you set yourself in places to be tempted. Be specific. Why do you think you set yourself in those places?
9. We have asked this before, but is your satisfaction in God alone? Why or why not?
10. In what ways do you think ease and comfort create a terrible context for temptation?