What Does 2 Samuel 12:15 Mean?
And Nathan went to his house. And the LORD struck the child that Uriah's wife bore to David, and it fell very sick.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And Nathan departed unto his house. And the LORD struck the child that Uriah’s wife bare unto David, and it was very sick.THE KEY
The verse directly names the LORD as the one who strikes the child and brings on his grave illness.
THE MEANING
The verse confronts you with a direct claim: the LORD strikes the child, and the child becomes gravely ill. The harm falls on the child himself; the sentence makes no effort to soften the blow or the sickness.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the reading that the child’s illness is presented as an accident: the verse names the LORD as the one who strikes him.
THE ROOT
וַיִּגֹּף
wayyiggōp
GROWS FROM
נגף
n-g-p
To strike or smite; also to cause a stumble.
“struck” in this verse is wayyiggōp. The verb makes the LORD the direct agent of the blow. Its root also names plague and stumbling, widening the word’s reach from an individual strike to affliction and being brought down.
ALSO GROWS
maggēphāh: A plague or epidemic.
מַגֵּפָה
The same root describes a widespread calamity as a strike, extending the force of the verb beyond a single blow.
niggaph: A person or people receiving a blow or defeat.
נִגַּף
This form puts the focus on the one struck; here, that is the child.
וַיֵּאָנַשׁ
wayyeʾānash
GROWS FROM
אנש
ʾ-n-sh
To be weak, ill, or incurably sick.
“sick” in this verse is wayyeʾānash. This verb belongs to the same word family as terms for the mortal human and for illness described as incurable. It presses the child’s bodily vulnerability into view; the verb itself does not say that he dies.
ALSO GROWS
ʾĕnôsh: A human being viewed as mortal or frail.
אֱנוֹשׁ
The shared root places the child’s illness in the language of human vulnerability.
ʾānush: Gravely or incurably sick.
אָנֻשׁ
This branch echoes the severity in “very sick” without making the verse itself say that the illness is incurable.
THE PATTERN
These passages present divine judgment as a strike that brings bodily harm or death.
For the LORD will cross through to strike the Egyptians; and when he sees the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts, the LORD will leap over the opening, and will not give the ruiner leave to come into your houses to strike you.And he struck down the men of Beth-shemesh, because they had looked into the ark of the LORD, and of the people he slew fifty thousand and seventy men. And the people mourned, because the LORD had struck down among the people a great blow.And at once the messenger of the LORD struck him, because he did not give God the weight, and he was eaten by worms and breathed out his last.THE THREAD
For the LORD will cross through to strike the Egyptians; and when he sees the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts, the LORD will leap over the opening, and will not give the ruiner leave to come into your houses to strike you.The Hebrew verb translated “struck” here shares the root נגף (n-g-p), meaning “to strike,” with “smite” in Exodus 12:23. In both verses, the text names the LORD as the agent of a bodily blow.
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