Some Actions Have Ramifications

Read 2 Samuel 11-12

2 Samuel 12:10  "Now therefore, the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised Me, and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife."

Some commentaries (cf. Bible Knowledge Commentary) suggest that Bathsheba was a gold digger who sought to entice David, but that is not necessary to understand the story.  It is just as likely, perhaps more likely, that David did not literally see Bathsheba unclothed, but knew what we was doing, enclosed on the roof.  Jerusalem was not that big, and David may have noticed Bathsheba before, and when a messenger comes and invites you to an audience with the king, you must come.  So Bathsheba may very well have been an unwilling adulteress.  David manages to have her husband killed, marries Bathsheba and keeps the whole thing discreet.  But the Lord was displeased, and the ramifications of these events, even though David would ultimately repent and be forgiven, would nonetheless lead to years of misery to David.  As Nathan the prophet would say, the sword will not leave David's house for the rest of his life.  David's family would break his heart for years to come.  That leaves us with the question; are there sins so severe that people suffer ramifications from them even after repentance and forgiveness?  In this case at least, it would seem so.

The Bible never explains how this worked, how the actions of David in his generation would influence the generation beyond.  I know that one theory is that a family's emotional interactions and relationship act like a system and can move from one generation to the next (Cf. Generation to Generation by Rabbi Edwin Friedman).  Another is the spiritual interactions of humans, angels and demons, and I don't propose to really understand that.  Unfortunately, David would face years of trouble from his family.  I believe that a family therapist could have a field day with the Old Testament, and the life of David is a great example of this.  Regardless, this episode with Bathsheba warns us that our actions, both against and in obedience to the will of God, impact others around us, and maybe even those yet to come.  Even in the genealogy of the Lord Jesus, Solomon's mother is Bathsheba and the father is David, but it still mentions that Bathsheba was married to Uriah the Hittite.