2 Samuel 12 · a question people ask
David's sin was put away. Why did the child still die?
Nathan's words come one after the other. "The LORD also has put away your sin. You will not die" (12:13). Then: "However, because by this deed you have given great occasion to the LORD’s enemies to blaspheme, the child also who is born to you will surely die" (12:14). The verse gives that reason, and the chapter doesn't explain it further. Christians read how 12:13 and 12:14 fit together in more than one way, and many hold the two views together. They agree on what the chapter says: David's own life was spared (12:13), 12:14 gives the reason it gives, David pleaded for the child while he lived (12:16, 12:22), and the chapter says nothing of any wrong done by the child.
How Christians read it
Where Christians differ, Favor sets out the main views side by side and doesn't pick one.
Forgiven, and the consequences stand
Those who read it this way point out that the word on David's house (12:10-12) was spoken before David said "I have sinned", and it isn't taken back after it; 12:14 begins "However". They set beside it the words the LORD proclaimed to Moses, which hold forgiving and not clearing together: "forgiving iniquity and disobedience and sin; and who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children" (Exodus 34:7). On this reading the sin is put away, so David himself does not die (12:13), and the child's death is a consequence of David's deed that remains, "because by this deed" (12:14).
2 Samuel 12:10-14 · Exodus 34:6-7
The father disciplined, not the child made guilty
Those who read it this way start from verses that say a child doesn't bear a father's guilt: "The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father" (Ezekiel 18:20), and the Law's "neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers. Every man shall be put to death for his own sin" (Deuteronomy 24:16). On this reading the child is not punished for David's sin; the death is the LORD dealing with David, the father, for the reason 12:14 gives, that his deed had given the LORD's enemies occasion to blaspheme. They set beside it the New Testament's "whom the Lord loves, he disciplines" (Hebrews 12:6).
Ezekiel 18:20 · Deuteronomy 24:16 · 2 Samuel 12:14 · Hebrews 12:6
The verses
“David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the LORD.” Nathan said to David, “The LORD also has put away your sin. You will not die. However, because by this deed you have given great occasion to the LORD’s enemies to blaspheme, the child also who is born to you will surely die.” Then Nathan departed to his house. The LORD struck the child that Uriah’s wife bore to David, and he was very sick. David therefore begged God for the child; and David fasted, and went in and lay all night on the ground.”
“He said, “While the child was yet alive, I fasted and wept; for I said, ‘Who knows whether the LORD will not be gracious to me, that the child may live?’”