For you did it secretly: but I will do this thing before all Israel, and before the sun.
All Commentaries on 2 Samuel 12:12 Go To 2 Samuel 12
Salvian the Presbyter
AD 429
But that you may clearly know that his censure and sacred considerations deal more with actions than with persons themselves, hear how God, the judge, who many times gave sentences favorable to his servant David, often gave decisions unfavorable to him. This happened in a transaction which did not involve many men, or perhaps, what would have aroused God more, in a transaction involving holy men. It happened in the instance of one man, a foreigner, where the action rather than the person demanded punishment.
When Uriah the Hittite, a member of a wicked race and of an unfriendly nation, had been killed, the divine Word was immediately passed to David, “You have killed Uriah, the Hittite, with the sword and have taken his wife to be your wife, and have slain him with the sword of the children of Ammon. Therefore the sword shall never depart from your house. Thus said the Lord, ‘Behold, I will raise up evil against you out of your own house; and I will take your wives before your eyes and give them to your neighbor. For you did it secretly: but I will do this thing in the sight of all Israel and in the sight of the sun.’ ”
What do you say to this, you who believe that God does not judge our actions and who believe that he has no concern whatsoever for us? Do you not see that the eyes of God were never absent even from that secret sin through which David fell once? Learn from this that you are always seen by Christ, understand and know that you will be punished, and perhaps very soon, you, who, perhaps in consolation for your sins, think that our acts are not seen by God. You see that the holy David was unable to hide his sin in the secrecy of his inmost rooms; neither was he able to claim exemption from immediate punishment through the privilege of great deeds. What did the Lord say to him? “I will take your wives before your eyes, and the sword shall never depart from your house.”
