2 Samuel 11:22

11:14-27 Adulteries often occasion murders, and one wickedness is sought to be covered by another. The beginnings of sin are much to be dreaded; for who knows where they will end? Can a real believer ever tread this path? Can such a person be indeed a child of God? Though grace be not lost in such an awful case, the assurance and consolation of it must be suspended. All David's life, spirituality, and comfort in religion, we may be sure were lost. No man in such a case can have evidence to be satisfied that he is a believer. The higher a man's confidence is, who has sunk in wickedness, the greater his presumption and hypocrisy. Let not any one who resembles David in nothing but his transgressions, bolster up his confidence with this example. Let him follow David in his humiliation, repentance, and his other eminent graces, before he thinks himself only a backslider, and not a hypocrite. Let no opposer of the truth say, These are the fruits of faith! No; they are the effects of corrupt nature. Let us all watch against the beginnings of self-indulgence, and keep at the utmost distance from all evil. But with the Lord there is mercy and plenteous redemption. He will cast out no humble, penitent believer; nor will he suffer Satan to pluck his sheep out of his hand. Yet the Lord will recover his people, in such a way as will mark his abhorrence of their crimes, to hinder all who regard his word from abusing the encouragements of his mercy.

22 . The Sept. reads this verse as follows: “And Joab’s messenger went to the king to Jerusalem. And he came and told David all that Joab had told him, even all the things concerning the war. And David was wroth with Joab, and said unto the messenger, Wherefore did ye approach unto the city to fight? Knew ye not that ye would be struck from the wall? Who smote Abimelech the son of Jerubbaal? Did not a woman cast upon him a piece of a millstone from the wall, and he died in Thebez? Wherefore did ye approach unto the wall?” Such a repetition may have formed part of the original text. But it is somewhat strange that Joab should anticipate the illustration which the king would use: and it is possible that the reference to Abimelech originally occurred in David’s speech only, and was transferred by mistake to that of Joab also, and finally in the revision of the Hebrew text omitted in the second place, instead of in the first, as it should have been. 2 Samuel 11:22

49 . bringeth me forth ] The opposite of “shutting him up into the hand of his enemies” ( Psalm 31:8 ). Cp. 2 Samuel 22:20; 2 Samuel 22:37 . the violent man ] This may mean men of violence in general, but as Saul is named in the title, it is natural to see a definite reference to him in particular. Cp. Psalm 140:1 ; Psalm 140:4 ; Psalm 140:11 . 2 Samuel 22:49

2Sa 11:14-27. Uriah Slain. 14, 15. David wrote a letter to Joab, and sent it by the hand of Uriah … Set ye Uriah in the forefront of the hottest battle—The various arts and stratagems by which the king tried to cajole Uriah, till at last he resorted to the horrid crime of murder—the cold-blooded cruelty of despatching the letter by the hands of the gallant but much-wronged soldier himself, the enlistment of Joab to be a partaker of his sin, the heartless affectation of mourning, and the indecent haste of his marriage with Bath-sheba—have left an indelible stain upon the character of David, and exhibit a painfully humiliating proof of the awful lengths to which the best of men may go when they forfeit the restraining grace of God.

The messenger brought to David all the information with which Joab had charged him (שׁלח with a double accusative, to send or charge a person with anything), but he so far condensed it as to mention Uriah's death at the same time. "When the men (of Rabbah) became strong against us, and came out to us into the field, and we prevailed against them even to the gate, the archers shot at thy servants down from the wall, so that some of the servants of the king died, and thy servant Uriah the Hethite is dead also." The א in the forms המּוראים ויּראוּ instead of המּורים ויּרוּ is an Aramaic mode of writing the words.