The Fallible · Synthetic · Study Bible
David’s Loss and Repentance
2 Samuel 12:13–23 — David’s Loss and Repentance. Each verse below carries the full apparatus: the Berean Standard Bible, the vocalized original (tap any word), and a parsed breakdown of every term transcribed from the interlinear. Synthesized commentary, canonical threads, and the reading of Christ gather at the end, over the whole unit.
13Then David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the LORD.” “The LORD has taken away your sin,” Nathan replied. “You will not die.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
dā·wiḏ way·yō·mer ’el- nā·ṯān ḥā·ṭā·ṯî lay·h·wå̄·hs Yah·weh he·‘ĕ·ḇîr ḥaṭ·ṭā·ṯə·ḵā nā·ṯān way·yō·mer ’el- dā·wiḏ gam- lō ṯā·mūṯ
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-said David unto Nathan: “I-have-sinned against-YHWH.” And-said Nathan unto David: “Also YHWH has-caused-to-pass-over thy-sin; not shalt-thou-die.”
Where the English smooths the original
In the original, two words are enough to revolutionise the man’s whole life, and to alter all his relations to the divine justice and the divine Friend.
True confession needs but few words. Cp. Luke 18:13 . There is no attempt to excuse or palliate the sin. Saul too could say “I have sinned” ( 1 Samuel 15:24 ; 1 Samuel 15:30 ), but he felt no real contrition, and his chief desire was to save his own reputation with the people: David is crushed by the sense of his guilt in the sight of God.
though he should die a corporeal death, yet not by the immediate hand of God, or by the sword of justice as a malefactor, a murderer, and adulterer, as he, according to the law, deserved to die; nor should he die a spiritual death, though his grace had been so low, and his corruptions had risen so high; nor an eternal death, the second deathGill reads the remission maximally, against Cambridge, who doubts the words could have carried a spiritual sense at the time. We record both and settle neither.
The Lord remitted the punishment of death, not so much because of his heartfelt repentance, as from His own fatherly grace and compassionK&D deliberately grounds the pardon in God's own character and the 2 Samuel 7 promise rather than in the quality of David's repentance.
14Nevertheless, because by this deed you have shown utter contempt for the word of the LORD, the son born to you will surely die.”
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
’e·p̄es kî- haz·zeh gam bad·dā·ḇār ni·’aṣ·tā ni·’êṣ ’eṯ- ’ō·yə·ḇê Yah·weh hab·bên hay·yil·lō·wḏ lə·ḵā mō·wṯ yā·mūṯ
Literal — word-for-word from the original
“Only, because scorning thou-hast-scorned the-enemies-of YHWH by-this-thing, also the-son the-one-born to-thee, dying he-shall-die.”
Where the English smooths the original
Hebrew, thou hast made the enemies of Jehovah to despise ; that is, to despise Jehovah's government, the theocracy, of which David was the visible head and earthly representative.
as if God were unholy, because the man after God’s own heart was so; and partial, in conniving at so great a crime, when Saul was cast off for a far less sinPoole is reconstructing the taunt, not endorsing it.
The far greater part of David’s sufferings were from what are called “the natural consequences” of his sin, i.e., from consequences which flowed from it under the immutable laws of the world’s moral government.
It must be observed, that the immediate infliction of this punishment was a certain token that Nathan was sent by God, and that the other threatenings which he had denounced would be executed.
15After Nathan had gone home, the LORD struck the child that Uriah’s wife had borne to David, and he became ill.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
nā·ṯān ’el- way·yê·leḵ bê·ṯōw Yah·weh ’eṯ- way·yig·gōp̄ hay·ye·leḏ ’ă·šer ’ū·rî·yāh ’ê·šeṯ- yā·lə·ḏāh lə·ḏā·wiḏ way·yê·’ā·naš
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-went Nathan unto his-house. And-struck YHWH the-child whom had-borne the-wife-of-Uriah to-David, and-he-became-mortally-sick.
Where the English smooths the original
The last-mentioned punishment was inflicted without delay. When Nathan had gone home, the Lord smote the child, so that it became very ill.
for so she was, and not David's wife, when this child was begotten of her
David patiently submitted to the will of God in the death of one child, and God made up the loss to his advantage, in the birth of another.Henry is commenting on the whole span 12:15-25 and is already looking ahead to Solomon; the consolation he draws is his own, not the narrator's.
16David pleaded with God for the boy. He fasted and went into his house and spent the night lying in sackcloth on the ground.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
dā·wiḏ ’eṯ- way·ḇaq·qêš hā·’ĕ·lō·hîm bə·‘aḏ han·nā·‘ar dā·wiḏ way·yā·ṣām ṣō·wm ū·ḇā wə·lān wə·šā·ḵaḇ ’ā·rə·ṣāh
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-sought David God on-behalf-of the-lad; and-fasted David a-fast, and-came-in and-passed-the-night and-lay ground-ward.
Where the English smooths the original
Such a prayer was not presumptuous, for God’s threatenings like his promises are conditional.
His great desire was to avert the stroke as a sign of the wrath of God, in the hope that he might be able to discern, in the preservation of the child, a proof of Divine favour consequent upon the restoration of his fellowship with God.Ellicott is here quoting O. von Gerlach (via Keil), and adds in his own voice that David's plain love for the child should not be written out of the scene.
His fasting does not imply that he took no food during this long interval, but that he abstained from the royal table, and ate so much only as was necessary to maintain life.
Supposing the threatening might be conditional, and so the execution of it prevented by prayer.
17The elders of his household stood beside him to help him up from the ground, but he was unwilling and would not eat anything with them.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
ziq·nê ḇê·ṯōw way·yā·qu·mū ‘ā·lāw la·hă·qî·mōw min- hā·’ā·reṣ wə·lō ’ā·ḇāh wə·lō- ḇā·rā ’it·tām lā·ḥem
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-arose the-elders of-his-house over-him, to-raise-him from the-ground; but-not he-consented, and-not did-he-eat with-them bread.
Where the English smooths the original
were the oldest and most confidential servants, "the most highly honoured of his servants, and those who had the greatest influence with himK&D is quoting Clericus inside his own note.
This excessive mourning did not proceed simply from the fear of the loss of the child; but from a deep sense of his sin, and from the Divine displeasure manifested herein; and particularly from a just apprehension of the injury which he had done to the child by his sin
Thinking by his constant prayer that God would have restored his child, but God had determined otherwise.The Geneva gloss states plainly what the narrative leaves in tension: the prayer was real, and the outcome was already fixed.
18On the seventh day the child died. But David’s servants were afraid to tell him that the child was dead, for they said, “Look, while the child was alive, we spoke to him, and he would not listen to us. So how can we tell him the child is dead? He may even harm himself.”
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
way·hî haš·šə·ḇî·‘î bay·yō·wm hay·yā·leḏ way·yā·māṯ ḏā·wiḏ ‘aḇ·ḏê way·yir·’ū lə·hag·gîḏ lōw kî- hay·ye·leḏ mêṯ kî ’ā·mə·rū hin·nêh ḇih·yō·wṯ hay·ye·leḏ ḥay dib·bar·nū ’ê·lāw wə·lō- šā·ma‘ bə·qō·w·lê·nū wə·’êḵ nō·mar ’ê·lāw hay·ye·leḏ mêṯ wə·‘ā·śāh rā·‘āh
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-it-was on-the-day the-seventh, and-died the-child. And-feared the-servants-of David to-tell him that the-child was-dead, for they-said: “Behold, while-the-child was-alive we-spoke unto-him and-not did-he-hear-in-our-voice; and-how shall-we-say to-him, ‘the-child is-dead’? then-he-will-do-harm.”
Where the English smooths the original
On the seventh day; either, 1. From the beginning of the distemper. Or rather, 2. From the day of his birth, which is the most usual way of computation of men’s days or yearsPoole's alternative reckoning conflicts with Benson's; the Hebrew supplies no starting point, so the disagreement is real and unresolved.
or should we acquaint him with it, "he will do mischief" (w) to himself, to his body; he will tear his flesh to pieces, and cut and kill himselfGill's vivid expansion goes beyond the Hebrew, which says only “he will do harm”; he supports it from the ancient versions he cites.
how should we say to him, now the child is dead, that he should do harm?" (i.e., do himself an injury in the depth of his anguish.
Thus was the first instance of the divine vengeance for David’s guilt speedily and rigidly executedBenson is quoting Delaney here and through the following catalogue of David's later griefs.
19When David saw that his servants were whispering to one another, he perceived that the child was dead. So he asked his servants, “Is the child dead?” “He is dead,” they replied.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
dā·wiḏ way·yar kî ‘ă·ḇā·ḏāw miṯ·la·ḥă·šîm dā·wiḏ way·yā·ḇen kî hay·yā·leḏ mêṯ dā·wiḏ ’el- way·yō·mer ‘ă·ḇā·ḏāw hay·ye·leḏ hă·mêṯ mêṯ way·yō·mə·rū
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-saw David that his-servants were-whispering-together, and-discerned David that the-child was-dead. And-said David unto his-servants: “Is-dead the-child?” And-they-said: “Dead.”
Where the English smooths the original
For they said the above to one another with a low voice, that he might not hear them, though in the same room with them
David saw at once what had happened from their whispering conversation, and asked whether the child was dead.
The deep feeling shown by David on this occasion is both an indication of his affectionate and tender nature, and also a proof of the strength of his passion for Bath-sheba.Barnes offers two motives at once, tenderness and passion; Ellicott, quoting von Gerlach at v. 16, argues instead that the grief was penitential. We do not adjudicate.
20Then David got up from the ground, washed and anointed himself, changed his clothes, and went into the house of the LORD and worshiped. Then he went to his own house, and at his request they set food before him, and he ate.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
dā·wiḏ way·yā·qām mê·hā·’ā·reṣ way·yir·ḥaṣ way·yā·seḵ way·ḥal·lêp̄ śim·lå̄·ṯō way·yā·ḇō ḇêṯ- Yah·weh way·yiš·tā·ḥū way·yā·ḇō ’el- bê·ṯōw way·yiš·’al way·yā·śî·mū le·ḥem lōw way·yō·ḵal
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-rose David from-the-ground, and-washed and-anointed and-changed his-garments, and-came-into the-house-of YHWH and-prostrated-himself; and-came unto his-house and-asked, and-they-set for-him bread, and-he-ate.
Where the English smooths the original
the custom in the East is to leave the nearest relative of a deceased person to the full and undisturbed indulgence of his grief, till on the third or fourth day at farthest (Joh 11:17).JFB's reconstruction of nineteenth-century eastern mourning practice is offered as background to a much older text; it explains the servants' astonishment well, but it is inference from custom, not from the Hebrew.
But David's sorrow was, as we have seen, that of penitence, and not that of natural affection.
Anointing the head and body with oil was and still is the regular practice in Eastern countries. It was believed to contribute to health and cleanliness. Its discontinuance was a mark of mourning.
Showing that our lamentations should not be excessive, but moderate: and that we must praise God in all his doings.
21“What is this you have done?” his servants asked. “While the child was alive, you fasted and wept, but when he died, you got up and ate.”
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
māh- had·dā·ḇār haz·zeh ’ă·šer ‘ā·śî·ṯāh ‘ă·ḇā·ḏāw ’ê·lāw way·yō·mə·rū ba·‘ă·ḇūr hay·ye·leḏ ḥay ṣam·tā wat·tê·ḇək wə·ḵa·’ă·šer hay·ye·leḏ mêṯ qam·tā wat·tō·ḵal lā·ḥem
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-said his-servants unto-him: “What is this-thing which thou-hast-done? For-the-sake-of the-child alive thou-didst-fast and-weep, and-when died the-child thou-didst-rise and-eat bread.”
Where the English smooths the original
they knew what was done, but they did not know the meaning of it, which is what they inquired after
As they who did not consider that God grants many things to the sobs and tears of the faithful.
God gives us leave to be earnest with him in prayer for particular blessings, from trust in his power and general mercy, though we have no particular promise to build upon.Henry states the principle the servants are missing, though his note covers the whole span 12:15-25 rather than this verse alone.
22David answered, “While the child was alive, I fasted and wept, for I said, ‘Who knows? The LORD may be gracious to me and let him live.’
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
way·yō·mer bə·‘ō·wḏ hay·ye·leḏ ḥay ṣam·tî wā·’eḇ·keh kî ’ā·mar·tî mî yō·w·ḏê·a‘ Yah·weh yə·ḥå̄n·na·nī hay·yā·leḏ wə·ḥay
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-he-said: “While the-child was-yet alive, I-fasted and-I-wept, for I-said: ‘Who knows? YHWH may-be-gracious-to-me, and-the-child shall-live.’”
Where the English smooths the original
and in hope of this he kept praying, fasting, and weeping; he could not tell but God might repent of the evil he had threatened, as in some cases he has done
The Heb. is Jehovah, not Elohim, as is indicated by the capital letters.A note on the Authorised Version's typography: where the older English prints GOD in capitals here, the Hebrew is the covenant name. Pulpit makes the identical observation.
This state of mind is fully explained in Psalm 51 , though his servants could not comprehend it.K&D's appeal to Psalm 51 rests on the superscription and on tradition, not on a computed link; see the flagged thread.
23But now that he is dead, why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I will go to him, but he will not return to me.”
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
wə·‘at·tāh mêṯ lām·māh zeh ’ă·nî ṣām ha·’ū·ḵal la·hă·šî·ḇōw ‘ō·wḏ ’ă·nî hō·lêḵ ’ê·lāw wə·hū lō- yā·šūḇ ’ê·lāy
Literal — word-for-word from the original
“But-now he-is-dead. Why this should-I fast? Am-I-able to-cause-him-to-return again? I am-going to-him, but-he shall-not return to-me.”
Where the English smooths the original
these words in his mouth can scarcely be anything else than an expression of confidence in a life of consciousness beyond the grave, and of the future recognition of those loved on earth.
A belief in the continued existence of the soul after death in a state of consciousness is necessarily implied though not expressly stated: but how far this falls short of the Christian hope of the Resurrection of the Body, and the Life Everlasting!Cambridge deliberately restrains the reading that Ellicott, Benson and Poole press; we print both and settle neither.
Into the state of the dead in which he is, and into heaven, where, I doubt not, I shall find him.Benson leans on Saurin and Delaney for the fuller hope; the confidence is theirs and his, not stated in the Hebrew.
is paraphrased very correctly by Clericus: "I shall go to the dead, the dead will not come to me.
The verse-by-verse work is done. What follows gathers the whole unit. All three layers below are machine-generated (⚙). Weigh them; they have no authority.
AI synthesis — woven from the public-domain voices above and the original text; generated and fallible.
The Hebrew of David's confession is two words: חָטָ֖אתִי לַֽיהוָ֑ה, ḥāṭāṯî laYHWH. Maclaren, who reckons a year had passed since the sin, says that in the original “two words are enough to revolutionise the man's whole life.” Cambridge makes the comparison that the narrative itself invites, with Saul, who said the same syllables at 1 Samuel 15:24 and meant them differently, and quotes Augustine to the point: the words the human ear heard were alike, the heart the divine eye saw was not. Pulpit and Benson both refuse to let the moment stand alone, tying it to Psalm 51 and to months of prior silence rather than to a single stab of shame. Nathan's answer turns on one Hifil, הֶעֱבִ֥יר (ʻâbar, H5674): YHWH has caused your sin to cross over. K&D, characteristically, locates the reason for the remission outside David altogether, “not so much because of his heartfelt repentance, as from His own fatherly grace and compassion,” and behind that the promise of 2 Samuel 7.
Verse 14 begins with אֶ֗פֶס (’epheṣ, H657), a noun meaning cessation doing the work of “nevertheless,” and it stops the pardon in its tracks. The charge is doubled for emphasis, נִאֵ֤ץ נִאַ֙צְתָּ֙, “scorning thou hast scorned”; Pulpit translates the object literally, “thou hast made the enemies of Jehovah to despise,” and identifies those enemies not as foreign nations but as Israelite unbelievers who would scoff at all religion. K&D includes both heathen and unbelieving Israelites. Cambridge frames the necessity of the sentence as a question of public justice: if the king could be “pardoned and retain the offence,” the law is a dead letter. Ellicott presses further and argues that most of what David suffers hereafter comes not by special decree but under “the immutable laws of the world's moral government.” Then the narrator names the striker without euphemism, וַיִּגֹּ֣ף יְהוָ֗ה (nâgaph, H5062), and names the mother as Uriah's wife, which Gill takes as deliberate: she was “not David's wife, when this child was begotten of her.”
David וַיְבַקֵּ֥שׁ (Piel of bâqash, H1245) God בְּעַ֣ד the lad, and fasts a fast. Cambridge defends the prayer on principle: “God's threatenings like his promises are conditional,” with Isaiah 38 and Jonah 3 as precedent, and Benson says the same in fewer words. Ellicott, quoting O. von Gerlach through Keil, argues the prayer sprang not from excessive love of a created object but from the hope of reading in the child's survival “a proof of Divine favour consequent upon the restoration of his fellowship with God,” and then adds, honestly, that David's love for the child should not be written out. Pulpit supplies the sober physical detail, that fasting here means abstaining from the royal table and eating only “so much only as was necessary to maintain life,” and reads the whole seclusion as a public act of self-abasement by a man who knew all Jerusalem had heard of Nathan's visit. The elders cannot raise him (qûwm, Hifil), and Geneva's gloss states the tension without flinching: he thought his constant prayer would win the child, “but God had determined otherwise.” On the seventh day the child dies, and the household is too frightened to say so; Poole and Benson cannot agree from what day the seven are counted, and the Hebrew does not tell them.
The servants' מִֽתְלַחֲשִׁ֔ים (lâchash, H3907, in only three verses in the canon) is the hinge: David discerns (bîyn, H995) the news he is not being told, asks a two-word question and gets a one-word answer. Then five consecutive verbs, every one of them an ordinary act: he rose, washed, anointed, changed his clothes, went into the house of YHWH and וַיִּשְׁתָּ֑חוּ, prostrated himself. JFB explains why this astonished the household by describing the eastern custom, where mourners are left alone until friends come on the third or fourth day to bathe and clothe them; David did for himself, and early, what should have been done for him, and late. Pulpit gives the reason: “But David's sorrow was, as we have seen, that of penitence, and not that of natural affection,” so when the penalty was paid there was nothing left to enact. Geneva draws the pastoral rule from it, that lamentation should be moderate and God praised in all his doings. Cambridge fills in the cultural fact that anointing was normal hygiene and its discontinuance a mourning sign.
The servants ask the obvious question, and Gill puts their confusion exactly: “they knew what was done, but they did not know the meaning of it.” David's answer has two halves. The first is a theology of prayer under a declared sentence: מִ֣י יוֹדֵ֔עַ, “who knows,” with the verb ḥânan (H2603), whose root sense is to stoop in kindness to an inferior. Gill notes that David kept praying in the hope that “God might repent of the evil he had threatened, as in some cases he has done,” citing Joel 2:13. The second half is a single root worked twice: can I cause him to return (Hifil of shûwb, H7725), and he will not return to me. Between them stands the participle הֹלֵ֣ךְ, “I am going,” a present, not a future. Ellicott insists these words in David's mouth “can scarcely be anything else than an expression of confidence in a life of consciousness beyond the grave”; K&D, with Clericus, keeps it minimal, “I shall go to the dead, the dead will not come to me”; and Cambridge grants the implication of continued conscious existence while asking how far it falls short of the Christian hope of resurrection. That disagreement is the most honest thing in the chapter's afterlife, and we do not settle it.
⚙ Our own reading, offered to be tested and not to be believed on our authority. This passage is usually read as a story about consequences, and it is that. But the grammar keeps pointing somewhere else. The verb of pardon is ʻâbar in the Hifil: God does not delete David's sin, he makes it cross over. A thing that crosses over arrives somewhere. The text will not say where, and in the very next verse a son who did nothing dies under the formula “dying he shall die,” which is the identical capital sentence lifted off the father one verse earlier. We do not think the narrative is claiming the infant atoned for David; K&D comes closest to saying so, and we think he says a sentence more than the Hebrew does. What the Hebrew does is leave a shape: guilt moved off a guilty man, a sentence landing on a son. The shape is unfinished here, and it stays unfinished until another Son of David is given the sentence that belonged to someone else. Meanwhile David does the one thing his servants cannot understand, which is to stop praying when praying is over, wash his face, and go and worship the God who had just struck his child. That is not resignation, and it is not indifference. It is a man who has learned that the God who says no is still the God worth prostrating before, and that grief which has a floor under it can get up. The line below is ours, a machine's sentence, not Scripture, and should never be quoted as a verse.
Forgiveness did not take the sentence away; it moved it.
AI-generated connections. Each carries a verification badge with a recorded basis; contested links are flagged.
The participle מִֽתְלַחֲשִׁ֔ים (lâchash, H3907) at 12:19 is the rarest word in the unit. The Verifier finds the lexeme in only three verses in the Hebrew Bible, and two of them are Psalms. At Psalm 41:7 it is the muttering of those who hate a sick man and calculate on his death; at Psalm 58:5 it is the murmured charm of the snake-charmer. Here the same rare sound is made by servants who love their king and are afraid of him. The link is lexical and verifiable; the contrast of sense is ours, and we claim no quotation in either direction.
Psalm 41:7 · Psalm 58:5
basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexeme H3907 lâchash, attested in only 3 verses in the canon (a genuinely rare word); the link is verbal in the strict lexical sense only, and neither text cites the other
At 12:14 the child is not named but described: הַבֵּ֛ן הַיִּלּ֥וֹד לְךָ֖, “the son, the one born to you.” Yillôwd (H3209) occurs in only five verses. The Verifier finds it again at 2 Samuel 5:14, the register of the sons born to David in Jerusalem, the same list that contains a son named Nathan (H5416), the prophet's own name. This unit's unnamed son belongs to the counter-register: born, struck, dead, never entered in the list.
2 Samuel 5:14
basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexemes H3209 yillôwd (in 5 vv, rare) and H5416 Nâthân (in 39 vv). The rare lexeme would permit a verbal tier; we downgrade deliberately, because yillôwd stands in 2 Samuel 5:14 inside a formulaic birth-register, so the honest basis is a shared formula and motif, not an allusion
tsûwm (H6684, to fast; root sense “to cover over the mouth”) is uncommon, appearing in 17 verses, and it clusters in scenes of national emergency: Israel fasting and weeping at Bethel after defeat (Judges 20:26), the men of Jabesh fasting seven days over Saul's bones (1 Samuel 31:13), Nehemiah fasting and weeping over the ruined city (Nehemiah 1:4), David and his men fasting and weeping over Saul and Jonathan (2 Samuel 1:12). Three of these pair the verb with bâkâh (H1058, to weep), exactly as 12:21-22 does. The oddity here is that David performs the emergency liturgy of a whole nation, alone, on his own floor, for one infant, and stops it at the moment the others would have begun.
2 Samuel 1:12 · Judges 20:26 · Nehemiah 1:4 · 1 Samuel 31:13
basis: Verifier: H6684 tsûwm (in 17 vv) shared with all four references; H1058 bâkâh (in 100 vv) shared with 2 Samuel 1:12, Judges 20:26 and Nehemiah 1:4, but NOT listed for 1 Samuel 31:13, which the Verifier links on tsûwm alone. A shared practice and motif, with no quotation claimed in either direction
The Verifier pairs this unit with 1 Kings 21:27 on tsûwm (H6684) plus shâkab (H7901, to lie down), the same two verbs that describe David fasting and lying on the ground at 12:16. There Ahab, told his house will be destroyed, tears his clothes, fasts, lies in sackcloth, and the announced judgment is postponed. Here David fasts, lies on the ground, and the announced judgment falls on schedule. The commentators in this unit supply the principle that makes both outcomes coherent: Cambridge, “God's threatenings like his promises are conditional.” Conditional does not mean revocable on demand. The comparison is ours; the lexical overlap is the Verifier's.
1 Kings 21:27
basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexemes H6684 tsûwm (in 17 vv) and H7901 shâkab (in 190 vv); the contrast of outcomes is an interpretive reading laid over a real verbal overlap, not a quotation
Isaiah 58:3-4 and Zechariah 7:5 are the canon's two great interrogations of fasting, and the Verifier links both to this unit through tsûwm / tsôwm (H6684, H6685; Zechariah 7:5 also shares shᵉbîyʻîy, H7637, the “seventh”). Those prophets attack fasts performed for the faster's own sake. David's fast is the opposite case and receives the same answer, no. Taken together they mark out what fasting is not: not leverage, not a transaction. Gill's note that David hoped God “might repent of the evil he had threatened, as in some cases he has done” keeps the hope honest without making it a mechanism.
Isaiah 58:3 · Isaiah 58:4 · Zechariah 7:5
basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexemes H6684 tsûwm (in 17 vv), H6685 tsôwm (in 22 vv), and with Zechariah 7:5 also H7637 shᵉbîyʻîy (in 94 vv); a shared theme of fasting and its answer, with no citation in either direction
Both Cambridge and K&D (the latter quoting the Berleburg Bible) read David's two-word confession against the tax collector of Luke 18:13, who also says almost nothing and is justified: “There is no excuse, no cloaking, no palliation of the sin.” This is a cross-Testament link, Greek against Hebrew, so no shared Strong's number can exist and none is claimed. What is shared is a form: a confession stripped of self-defence, and a verdict of mercy that follows immediately. The link is attested by two named commentators in this unit, not computed.
Luke 18:13
basis: Cross-Testament (Greek to Hebrew): shared Strong's lexemes are impossible by definition, so no verbal tier is available; the basis is a shared rhetorical form (a minimal confession met by immediate mercy) explicitly drawn by Cambridge and by K&D quoting the Berleburg Bible
Almost every commentator in this unit reads Psalm 51, and several also Psalm 32, as David's own account of the events narrated here: Benson, Poole, Gill, Henry, Barnes (“For a comment on David's words, read Psalm 51; Psalm 32:1-11”), Pulpit and K&D all do it. The connection rests on the superscription attached to Psalm 51 and on that near-unanimous tradition. It does not rest on any lexical link: the Verifier returned no shared-lexeme basis between this unit and either Psalm. Since the historical value of psalm superscriptions is disputed, we record this as a tradition worth following and a provenance worth checking, not as a demonstrated link.
Psalm 51:1 · Psalm 32:5
basis: No Verifier-computed lexical basis; the association rests on the Psalm 51 superscription and on commentator consensus (Benson, Poole, Gill, Henry, Barnes, Pulpit, K&D), and the historical reliability of psalm superscriptions is contested
AI-generated reading; weigh it against the text.
⚙ Nathan's word of pardon is a causative: הֶעֱבִ֥יר, God made your sin cross over (ʻâbar, H5674). K&D translates “hath let thy sin pass by.” Gill, reaching for images the verse does not give, says God cast it behind his back and into the depth of the sea. None of them can say where a transferred thing lands, because the verse does not. The wider canon answers with a bearer: the sin laid on another, the guilt borne away. That the pardon here is transfer rather than erasure is a plain grammatical observation; the identification of the bearer is the apostolic reading of the whole Old Testament sacrificial and substitutionary pattern, ancient and widely held. The particular observation that ʻâbar in this verse makes forgiveness a movement rather than a deletion is ours, and is the weaker half of the claim.
2 Samuel 12:13 · Isaiah 53:6
⚙ In one verse David hears “not shalt-thou-die,” and in the next the child hears מ֥וֹת יָמֽוּת, the doubled capital formula. K&D goes so far as to say the father “should atone for his adultery in the death of the son.” We think that overstates the Hebrew, and we decline it: nothing here calls the child a sacrifice, and the child is given no voice, no name, and no consent. What the text does leave is a shape the gospel later fills: a sentence that does not stay with the one who earned it, and a son of David under it. The line does not end with this child. It runs on through Bathsheba to Solomon, whom Nathan is sent to name Jedidiah, “beloved of Jehovah” (K&D on 12:24-25), and through that house to the Son whom Matthew's genealogy is careful to trace through “the wife of Uriah.” The typological reading is figural, and the type is broken at the decisive point: this son dies because of another's sin without willing it, and that is not yet the cross.
2 Samuel 12:14 · Matthew 1:6
⚙ David's last clause is built on one root used twice: he cannot cause him to return (Hifil of shûwb, H7725), and the child will not return. The one direction still open is David's own, and the participle is present tense: “I am going.” Ellicott takes this as real confidence in conscious life beyond the grave and in recognising the loved after death. Cambridge grants the implication but asks “how far this falls short of the Christian hope of the Resurrection of the Body, and the Life Everlasting!” K&D, with Clericus, keeps it to the bare minimum. Cambridge is right that the hope here is one-way traffic: the living go to the dead and the dead do not come back. The resurrection is exactly the reversal of the verb, the dead returning to the living, and the New Testament dates that reversal from a particular morning. That the grammar of 12:23 states the one-way rule is plain; that the rule is later broken is the apostolic claim, not this verse's.
2 Samuel 12:23 · 1 Corinthians 15:20
The biblical text is the Berean Standard Bible (BSB), public domain (CC0). Hebrew/Greek text, transliteration, morphology and Strong’s are transcribed from the Berean interlinear (CC0) + Strong’s lexicons (PD); the literal renderings, divergence notes, word notes and all synthesis are this tool’s own work (⚙) — fallible; verify them.
Named voices, quoted verbatim from public-domain works:
Text and sources for this unit, with what we could not settle. 1. At 12:14 the Hebrew reads אֹיְבֵ֣י יְהוָ֔ה, “the enemies of YHWH”; BSB prints “for [the word] of the LORD” with the bracket marking the supplement, since no word for “word” stands in the clause. Pulpit, Cambridge and K&D all translate “enemies,” and the commentators disagree about who they are (Pulpit: unbelieving Israelites; K&D: heathen and unbelieving Israelites alike; Benson and Poole: neighbouring nations, with the Ammonites specifically). We follow the Hebrew as printed and flag the supplement. 2. At 12:17 the verb בָרָ֥א is tagged H1254, whose only gloss in this brief's lexicon is “to create,” while the sense demanded by lechem is “to eat a meal.” We treat this as a homonym and do not build anything on the tag. 3. At 12:22 K&D records a Chethibh/Keri variant in יְחָנַּנִי, the written form being an imperfect Kal and the Masoretic reading a perfect with vav consecutive; the sense is unaffected. In the same verse the interlinear gloss column attaches “to me” to word 12 (hayyāleḏ, “the child”) and “and let him live” to word 13, an alignment artifact of the English rather than a feature of the Hebrew; the Hebrew clause is “and the child shall live.” 4. The starting point of the “seventh day” at 12:18 is not stated; Poole counts from the birth, Benson from the onset of the sickness, Gill from the birth. Unresolved. 5. Several commentary entries in the brief (Henry on 12:15-25, Barnes and JFB on 12:15-23) are block notes covering the whole span rather than single verses; where we anchor a voice from one of them, the quotation is verbatim but its original scope was wider than the verse it is attached to. Ellicott at 12:16 and K&D at 12:21 are both quoting O. von Gerlach; K&D at 12:13 quotes the Berleburg Bible and at 12:17 and 12:23 quotes Clericus; Benson at 12:18 quotes Delaney. Those are quotations inside quotations and are noted where used. 6. The Maclaren entry for 12:13 is capped in this brief (about 13,000 further characters unread); our use of it is limited to the portion supplied. 7. Thread bases are Verifier-computed shared Strong's lexemes except where the badge says otherwise; the Psalm 51 / Psalm 32 thread has no computed basis at all and is flagged accordingly.
✦ = human, public-domain source, quoted and named. ⚙ = machine synthesis, to be verified. Flagged cross-references are left visible on purpose — the verifier working in the open. “Search the Scriptures daily, whether those things were so.” (Acts 17:11)