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[147]
With this marriage God was not well pleased, but was thereupon angry
at David; and he appeared to Nathan the prophet in his sleep, and complained
of the king. Now Nathan was a fair and prudent man; and considering that
kings, when they fall into a passion, are guided more by that passion than
they are by justice, he resolved to conceal the threatenings that proceeded
from God, and made a good-natured discourse to him, and this after the.
manner following: - He desired that the king would give him his opinion
in the following case: - "There were," said he, "two men inhabiting
the same city, the one of them was rich, and [the other poor]. The rich
man had a great many flocks of cattle, of sheep, and of kine; but the poor
man had but one ewe lamb. This he brought up with his children, and let
her eat her food with them; and he had the same natural affection for her
which any one might have for a daughter. Now upon the coming of a stranger
to the rich man, he would not vouchsafe to kill any of his own flocks,
and thence feast his friend; but he sent for the poor man's lamb, and took
her away from him, and made her ready for food, and thence feasted the
stranger." This discourse troubled the king exceedingly; and he denounced
to Nathan, that "this man was a wicked man who could dare to do such
a thing; and that it was but just that he should restore the lamb fourfold,
and be punished with death for it also." Upon this Nathan immediately
said that he was himself the man who ought to suffer those punishments,
and that by his own sentence; and that it was he who had perpetrated this
'great and horrid crime. He also revealed to him, and laid before him,
the anger of God against him, who had made him king over the army of the
Hebrews, and lord of all the nations, and those many and great nations
round about him; who had formerly delivered him out of the hands of Saul,
and had given him such wives as he had justly and legally married; and
now this God was despised by him, and affronted by his impiety, when he
had married, and now had, another man's wife; and by exposing her husband
to the enemy, had really slain him; 'that God would inflict punishments
upon him on account of those instances of wickedness; that his own wives
should be forced by one of his sons; and that he should be treacherously
supplanted by the same son; and that although he had perpetrated his wickedness
secretly, yet should that punishment which he was to undergo be inflicted
publicly upon him; "that, moreover," said he, "the child
which was born to thee of her shall soon die." When the king was troubled
at these messages, and sufficiently confounded, and said with tears and
sorrow that he had sinned, (for he was without controversy a pious man,
and guilty of no sin at all in his whole life, excepting those in the matter
of Uriah,) God had compassion on him, and was reconciled to him, and promised
that he would preserve to him both his life and his kingdom; for he said
that, seeing he repented of the things he had done, he was no longer displeased
with him. So Nathan, when he had delivered this prophecy to the king, returned
home.
Flavius Josephus. The Works of Flavius Josephus. Translated by. William Whiston, A.M. Auburn and Buffalo. John E. Beardsley. 1895.
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