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2 Samuel 7 · a question people ask

Was Nathan wrong to tell David, "Go, do all that is in your heart"?

In the text

The chapter doesn't say. Nathan said, "Go, do all that is in your heart, for the LORD is with you" (7:3). "That same night, the LORD’s word came to Nathan" (7:4), and afterward "Nathan spoke to David all these words, and according to all this vision" (7:17). The text reports what Nathan said and what the LORD said, and passes no judgment on Nathan. The LORD's word does say what Nathan's last words said: "I have been with you wherever you went" (7:9). And Solomon later tells what the LORD said to David about what was in his heart: "you did well that it was in your heart" (1 Kings 8:18).

The verses

“Nathan said to the king, “Go, do all that is in your heart, for the LORD is with you.” That same night, the LORD’s word came to Nathan, saying,”
2 Samuel 7:3-4 · World English Bible
“I have been with you wherever you went, and have cut off all your enemies from before you. I will make you a great name, like the name of the great ones who are on the earth.”
2 Samuel 7:9 · World English Bible
“Nathan spoke to David all these words, and according to all this vision.”
2 Samuel 7:17 · World English Bible
““Now it was in the heart of David my father to build a house for the name of the LORD, the God of Israel. But the LORD said to David my father, ‘Whereas it was in your heart to build a house for my name, you did well that it was in your heart.”
1 Kings 8:17-18 · World English Bible

From Favor's study of 2 Samuel 7

2 Samuel 7: The LORD will make you a house

David spoke of the house he lived in and the curtains God's ark was in; the LORD answered that he would make David a house. One Hebrew word, bayit, carries David's house of cedar, the house for the LORD's name and the house the LORD will make for David, 15 times in this one chapter, more than in any other chapter of 1 or 2 Samuel.

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Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Every answer cites the verses it rests on. What we believe · All Bible questions