Bible Commentaries

2 Samuel 11:27

Such is the solemn qualification which the Holy Scriptures append to a record of successful wickedness. The words afford a testimony to the perfect insight of God into our hearts and lives, and to His concern in them, His present observation of them, His judgment upon them, both present and future.

I. Every single thing that we say and do either pleases or displeases God. If it has no other value, it is made pleasing to Him by a pervading spirit of faith, by an habitual regard to Him, on the part of him who does it; or displeasing, whatever its apparent merit, by the absence of this spirit.

II. When it is said that "the thing which David had done displeased the Lord," it is quite plain that all the prayers and all the praises of that whole year went for nothing with Him to whom they were addressed. This is one part of the condition of him who has displeased the Lord. His prayers are unheard.

III. It is not only upon our intercourse with God that this deplorable condition acts so fatally; it puts our lives all wrong. It is impossible that anything can be in its place; it is impossible that any duty can be discharged healthily; it is only such as are superficial and mechanical that can be discharged at all.

IV. This state is not necessarily, nor perhaps commonly, a temporary state. It is the tendency of such a state to prolong, to perpetuate itself; it contains in itself a blinding, a searing, a deadening power; only a miracle of grace can ever terminate it.

V. God grant that as we have resembled His servant David in his fall, so we also may be like him in his rising again.

C. J. Vaughan, Harrow Sermons, 2nd series, p. 454.

References: 2 Samuel 11:27.—F. W. Krummacher, David the King of Israel, p. 356. 2Sam 11—Parker, vol. vii., p. 153.