2 Samuel 12:13

I have sinned against theLord] True confession needs but few words. Cp. Luke 18:13. There is no attempt to excuse or palliate the sin. Saul too could say "I have sinned" (1 Samuel 15:24; 1 Samuel 15:30), but he felt no real contrition, and his chief desire was to save his own reputation with the people: David is crushed by the sense of his guilt in the sight of God. Cp. Psalms 32:5; Psalms 51:4. Cp. August. c. Faustum, xxii. 67. "In simili voce quam sensus humanus audiebat, dissimile pectus erat quod divinus oculus discernebat." "Though the words heard by the human ear were alike, the heart seen by the eye of God was unlike."

See Keble's poem for the Sixth Sunday after Trinity in the Christian Year.

thou shalt not die The sentence which he had pronounced on himself (2 Samuel 12:5) should not be executed, though he deserved to die as an adulterer and murderer (Leviticus 20:10; Leviticus 24:17). The punishment of death would certainly not have been inflicted on the king, who was supreme in the state, by any human authority: but God might Himself have inflicted it. The context shews that temporal death is primarily meant, and though we may now read in the words a reference to spiritual life and death, it may be doubted whether they could be so understood at the time.