2nd Samuel Chapter 12 verse 16 Holy Bible
David therefore besought God for the child; and David fasted, and went in, and lay all night upon the earth.
read chapter 12 in ASV
So David made prayer to God for the child; and he took no food day after day, and went in and, stretching himself out on the earth, was there all night.
read chapter 12 in BBE
And David besought God for the child; and David fasted, and went in, and lay all night on the earth.
read chapter 12 in DARBY
David therefore besought God for the child; and David fasted, and went in, and lay all night upon the earth.
read chapter 12 in KJV
David therefore besought God for the child; and David fasted, and went in, and lay all night upon the earth.
read chapter 12 in WBT
David therefore begged God for the child; and David fasted, and went in, and lay all night on the earth.
read chapter 12 in WEB
and David seeketh God for the youth, and David keepeth a fast, and hath gone in and lodged, and lain on the earth.
read chapter 12 in YLT
Pulpit Commentary
Pulpit CommentaryVerse 16. - David... went in. He went, not into the sanctuary, which he did not enter until after the child's death, but into some private room in his own house. There he remained, passing his nights stretched on the ground, and fasting until the seventh day. His fasting does not imply that he took no food during this long interval, but that he abstained from the royal table, and ate so much only as was necessary to maintain life. Now, what was the meaning of this privacy and abstinence? Evidently it was David's acknowledgment, before all his subjects, of his iniquity, and of his sorrow for it. The sickness of the child followed immediately upon Nathan's visit, and we may feel sure that news of his rebuke, and of all that passed between him and the king, ran quickly throughout Jerusalem. And David at once takes the position of a condemned criminal, and humbles himself with that thoroughness which forms so noble a part of his character. Grieved as he was at the child's sickness, and at the mother's sorrow, yet his grief was mainly for his sin; and he was willing that all should know how intense was his shame and self-reproach. And even when the most honourable of the rulers of his household (Genesis 24:2), or, as Ewald thinks, his uncles and elder brethren, came to comfort him, he persists in maintaining an attitude of heart stricken penitence.
Ellicott's Commentary
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(16) Besought God for the child.--It can hardly be necessary to say that this does not imply any want of submissiveness to God's will on David's part, nor an inordinate love for the child of his guilt. "In the case of a man whose penitence was so earnest and so deep, the prayer for the preservation of his child must have sprung from some other source than excessive love of any created object. His great desire was to avert the stroke as a sign of the wrath of God, in the hope that he might be able to discern, in the preservation of the child, a proof of Divine favour consequent upon the restoration of his fellowship with God. But when the child was dead, he humbled himself under the mighty hand of God, and rested satisfied with His grace, without giving himself up to fruitless pain" (O. von Gerlach, quoted by Keil). Yet David's deep love for the child is not to be overlooked altogether.
