2 Samuel 12:9
Wherefore hast thou despised the commandment of the Lord, to do evil in his sight? thou hast killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and hast taken his wife to be thy wife, and hast slain him with the sword of the children of Ammon.
Study Note
Study Note
Nathan's rebuke to David after the Bathsheba-Uriah affair articulates the sin's ultimate theological character: 'why have you despised the commandment of the Lord, to do evil in his sight?' The verb 'despised' (bazah) indicates not ignorance but contemptuous disregard — David knew the law and knowingly violated it. The charge of 'killing Uriah with the sword of the Ammonites' makes David complicit in a politically engineered murder, not merely guilty of arranging battle dispositions. David's response in Psalm 51 — 'against you, you only, have I sinned' (51:4) — picks up Nathan's framing: the ultimate offense is against God, even when the human harm is concrete and devastating. The passage is foundational for Christian theology of sin as the violation of the divine-human relationship, not merely social rules.
Other Translations
Wherefore hast thou despised the word of Jehovah, to do that which is evil in his sight? thou hast smitten Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and hast taken his wife to be thy wife, and hast slain him with the sword of the children of Ammon.
`Wherefore hast thou despised the word of Jehovah, to do the evil thing in His eyes? Uriah the Hittite thou hast smitten by the sword, and his wife thou hast taken to thee for a wife, and him thou hast slain by the sword of the Bene-Ammon.
Why then have you had no respect for the word of the Lord, doing what is evil in his eyes? You have put Uriah the Hittite to death with the sword, and have taken his wife to be your wife; you have put him to death with the sword of the children of Ammon.
Cross References
And surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it, …
Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man.
Thou shalt not kill.
Thou shalt not commit adultery.
But the soul that doeth ought presumptuously, whether he be born in the land, or a stranger, the same reproacheth …
Because he hath despised the word of the Lord, and hath broken his commandment, that soul shall utterly be cut …
Wherefore then didst thou not obey the voice of the Lord, but didst fly upon the spoil, and didst evil …
For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because thou hast rejected the …
And David sent messengers, and took her; and she came in unto him, and he lay with her; for she …
And it came to pass in the morning, that David wrote a letter to Joab, and sent it by the …