2 Samuel 12:2 - Printer Friendly

ESV: The rich man had very many flocks and herds,

NIV: The rich man had a very large number of sheep and cattle,

NASB: The wealthy man had a great many flocks and herds.

CSB: The rich man had very large flocks and herds,

NLT: The rich man owned a great many sheep and cattle.

KJV: The rich man had exceeding many flocks and herds:

NKJV: The rich man had exceedingly many flocks and herds.

Stories can be powerful tools for revealing great truths. One reason we find fiction so compelling is that it's in our nature to identify with the characters. We might resist the teaching of straightforward facts and ideas, but stories get behind the walls of our hearts and make us care.

Nathan is telling King David a parable about two men in another town (2 Samuel 12:1). One is rich and powerful. The other is poor. Wealth during this era was often measured by the number of animals owned. This man was rich in both flocks of sheep and herds of cattle. By the culture's definition of "rich," the man had far more than he needed. The foil of the story is a poor man. He's so poor he only has one little ewe lamb. But he's rich in love. He loves the lamb like a daughter. When the rich man steals her for a visitor's dinner, it's an outrageous injustice and cruelty (2 Samuel 12:3–4).

God sent Nathan to David to tell this story. Whether devised by God or Nathan, it's clever. David must understand his sin against Bathsheba and Uriah from his victims' point of view. The parable frames the incident in a world David knows well. For years, David protected sheep from powerful creatures that wanted to steal and kill them (1 Samuel 17:34–36). By the end of Nathan's story, David is as angry with the rich man as he would be with any lion or bear that threatened his own flock. He's been set up to accept that he is the predator in this tale (2 Samuel 12:7).

Second Samuel 12:1–6 exposes King David's hypocrisy. He slept with Bathsheba, murdered her husband, and married her to cover her pregnancy. He thinks no one of consequence knows the truth. He's forgotten about God. God sends a prophet, Nathan, to confront David with his sin. Nathan tells David a parable comparing the king to a rich man who steals a poor man's beloved lamb for dinner. David was a shepherd and he's outraged. Then Nathan reveals that David is the rich man and God's judgment is coming (2 Samuel 12:7–14).

In 2 Samuel 12, David learns the consequences of his sins against Bathsheba and Uriah (2 Samuel 11). David thought no one of consequence knew what he'd done. Nathan the prophet reveals that God knows; the Lord demands justice for David's victims. David's household will rebel, and Bathsheba's son will die. David humbly repents, and Bathsheba later conceives Solomon, the future king. Joab, about to defeat the Ammonites, calls David to finish the fight. In 2 Samuel 13, the seeds of the promised rebellion are sown. Psalm 51 is David's expression of remorse for his sins.

David begins to lose control of his seemingly perfect situation. While the respected soldier Uriah was fighting Ammonites with Joab (2 Samuel 10), David slept with Uriah's wife, Bathsheba. To cover her pregnancy, David arranged for Uriah to die in battle (2 Samuel 11). Nathan, the prophet, confronts David over his crimes. God takes the child's life and will allow David's household to rebel against him. This begins when David's son rapes his own half-sister, Tamar (2 Samuel 13), starting a series of events that will result in another son, Absalom, taking the throne from his father (2 Samuel 14—16).

Second Samuel continues the story of David, who will become king over Judah. The other tribes of Israel are resistant, eventually sparking a civil war. David wins and makes Jerusalem his capital. Early success is followed by moral failure and controversy in David's house. The book of 1 Kings will begin by detailing David's decline and death.