February 09, 2014 | David Crosby
Passage: 2 Samuel 12:1-10
The Prophet Nathan uses a story to help David see his sin. The story is about a rich man and a poor man. It compares Bathsheba to a lamb, a poor man’s only lamb.
The metaphor is economic and political. David’s wives are possessions, virtually, in this patriarchal age. He is the monarch. He crafts political alliances for economic advantage through marriages. His son, Solomon, will take marrying to the level of the ridiculous with 700 wives and 300 concubines.
This is not God’s will for marriage, of course. From the beginning it was not so, the Lord Jesus said. Instead, the man and woman form a new family unit and become one flesh. The polygamy, adultery, and sexual sin of the Old Testament is recorded because it is the truth. And it lets us know that even heroes of faith have feet of clay
