2Sa 12:21 | KD | STEP | When his servants expressed their astonishment at all this, David replied, “As long as the boy lived, I fasted and wept: for I thought (said), Perhaps (who knows) the Lord may be gracious to me, that the child may remain alive. But now he is dead, why should I fast? can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he will not return to me.” On this O. v. Gerlach has the following admirable remarks: “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.” This state of mind is fully explained in Ps 51, though his servants could not comprehend it. The form יחנּני is the imperfect Kal , יחנּני according to the Chethibh , though the Masoretes have substituted as the Keri וחנּני, the perfect with vav consec .

‏ 2 Samuel 12:21

When his servants expressed their astonishment at all this, David replied, “As long as the boy lived, I fasted and wept: for I thought (said), Perhaps (who knows) the Lord may be gracious to me, that the child may remain alive. But now he is dead, why should I fast? can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he will not return to me.” On this O. v. Gerlach has the following admirable remarks: “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.” This state of mind is fully explained in Ps 51, though his servants could not comprehend it. The form יחנּני is the imperfect Kal, יחנּני according to the Chethibh, though the Masoretes have substituted as the Keri וחנּני, the perfect with vav consec.