2 Samuel 12:14

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However, because by this deed you have given great occasion to the enemies of the LORD to blaspheme, the child also that is born unto you shall surely die.

Verse 13 Read Chapter 12 Verse 15

Ambrose of Milan

AD 397

Are you ashamed, sir, to do as David did—David, the king and the prophet, the ancestor of Christ according to the flesh? He was told of the rich man who had a great number of flocks and yet, when a guest arrived, took the poor man’s one ewe lamb and killed it; and when he recognized that he was himself condemned by the story, he said, “I have sinned against the Lord.” Therefore do not take it ill, sir, if what was said to King David is said to you, “You are the man.” For if you listen with attention and say, “I have sinned against the Lord,” if you say, in the words of the royal prophet, “O come, let us worship and fall down, and weep before the Lord our Maker,” then it will be said to you also, “Because you repented, the Lord has put away your sin; you shall not die.” - "Letter 51.7"

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Augustine of Hippo

AD 430

Baptized people, though, who are deserters and violators of such a great sacrament, if they repent from the bottom of their hearts, if they repent where God can see, as he saw David’s heart, when on being rebuked by the prophet, and very sternly rebuked, he cried out after hearing God’s fearsome threats and said, “I have sinned,” and shortly afterward heard, “God has taken away your sin.” Such is the effectiveness of three syllables. “I have sinned” is just three syllables; and yet in these three syllables the flames of the heart’s sacrifice rose up to heaven. So those who have done genuine penance, and have been absolved from the constraints by which they were bound and cut off from the body of Christ, and have lived good lives after their penance, such as they ought to have lived before penance, and in due course have passed away after being reconciled, why, they too go to God, go to their rest, will not be deprived of the kingdom, will be set apart from the people of the devil. - "S... Read More

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Augustine of Hippo

AD 430

Similarity of words, dissimilarity of hearts. We may hear the similarity of the words with our ears, but we can only know the dissimilarity of hearts by the angel’s declaration. David sinned, and when he was rebuked by the prophet, he said, “I have sinned,” and was immediately told, “Your sin has been forgiven you.” Saul sinned, and when he was rebuked by the prophet, he said, “I have sinned,” and his sin was not forgiven, but the wrath of God remained upon him. What can this mean but similarity of words, dissimilarity of hearts? Human beings can hear words, God inspects hearts. - "Sermon 291.5"

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Augustine of Hippo

AD 430

But just as Matthew, presenting Christ the king as if descending for the assumption of our sins, thus descends from David through Solomon, because Solomon was born of her with whom David had sinned, so Luke, presenting Christ the priest as if ascending after the destroying of sins, ascends through Nathan to David, because Nathan the prophet had been sent, and by his reproof the penitent David obtained the annulling of his sin. - "On Eighty-three Varied Questions 61"

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Cyril of Jerusalem

AD 386

If you like, however, I will give you further examples relating to our condition. Come then to the blessed David, and take him for your example of repentance. Great as he was, he suffered a fall. It was in the afternoon, after his siesta, that he took a turn on the housetop and saw by chance what stirred his human passion. He fulfilled the sinful deed, but his nobility, when it came to confessing the lapse, had not perished with the doing of the deed. Nathan the prophet came, swift to convict, but now as a healer for his wound, saying, “The Lord was angry, and you have sinned.” So spoke a simple subject to his reigning sovereign. But David, though king and robed in purple, did not take it amiss, for he had regard not to the rank of the speaker but to the majesty of him who sent him. He was not puffed up by the fact that guardsmen were drawn up all around him, for the angelic host of the Lord came to his mind and he was in terror “as seeing him who is invisible.” So he answered and said... Read More

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George Leo Haydock

AD 1849

Occasion. Literally, "made "almost, in the same sense, as God threatened to do, what was effected by Absalom, ver. 12. David did not co-operate with the malice of infidels; but he was responsible for it: in as much as he had committed an unlawful action, which gave them occasion to blaspheme God, as if he had not been able to foresee this scandalous transaction. Thus God and religion are often vilified, on account of the misconduct of those who have the happiness to be well informed, but do not live up to their profession: but this mode of argumentation is very fallacious and uncandid. It ought, however, to be a caution to the servants of the true God, never to do any thing which may have such fatal consequences; and alienate the minds of weak men from the truth. Die. Thus infidels would see, that God did not suffer David to pass quite unpunished. (Haydock)

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Pacian of Barcelona

AD 391

May we by all means be filled with revulsion for sin but not for repentance. May we be ashamed to put ourselves at risk but not to be delivered. Who will snatch away the wooden plank from the shipwrecked so that he may not escape? Who will begrudge the curing of wounds? Does David not say, “Every single night I will bathe my bed, I will drench my couch in my tears.” And again, “I acknowledge my sin, and my iniquity I have not concealed” And further, “I said, ‘I will reveal against myself my sin to my God,’ and you forgave the wickedness of my heart” Did not the prophet answer [David] as follows when, after the guilt of murder and adultery for the sake of Bathsheba, he was penitent? “The Lord has taken away from you your sin.” - "Letter 1.5.3"

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Paulinus of Milan

AD 442

Indeed, to the penitent himself confession alone does not suffice, unless correction of the deed follows, with the result that the penitent does not continue to do deeds which demand repentance. He should even humble his soul just as holy David, who, when he heard from the prophet: “Your sin is pardoned,” became more humble in the correction of his sin, so that “he did eat ashes like bread and mingled his drink with weeping.” - "The Life of St. Ambrose 9.39"

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Salvian the Presbyter

AD 429

You see what instant judgment so great a man suffered for one sin. Immediate condemnation followed the fault, a condemnation immediately punishing and without reservation, stopping the guilty one then and there and not deferring the case to a later date. Thus he did not say, “because you have done this, know that the judgment of God will come and you will be tormented in the fire of hell.” Rather, he said, “You shall suffer immediate punishment and shall have the sword of divine severity at your throat.” And what followed? The guilty man acknowledged his sin, was humbled, filled with remorse, confessed and wept. He repented and asked for pardon, gave up his royal jewels, laid aside his robes of gold cloth, put aside the purple, resigned his crown. He was changed in body and appearance. He cast aside all his kingship with its ornaments. He put on the externals of a fugitive penitent, so that his squalor was his defense. He was wasted by fasting, dried up by thirst, worn from weeping and... Read More

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Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation - 2 Peter 1:20