2 Samuel 11:25
Then David said unto the messenger, Thus shalt thou say unto Joab, Let not this thing displease thee, for the sword devoureth one as well as another: make thy battle more strong against the city, and overthrow it: and encourage thou him.
The verse belongs to the account in which David arranged Uriah's death by having Uriah himself carry the order to place him in the fiercest fighting and withdraw support, so that Uriah fell to the Ammonites' sword. In the verse David answers the news of Uriah's death by telling Joab not to be distressed or troubled, since the sword in battle devours one person as readily as another, and urges him to make the battle stronger against the city, overthrow it, and encourage the troops. His reassuring words to Joab conceal his own responsibility for arranging Uriah's death. His command to bring about Uriah's death was contrary to God's law, so Joab sinned by obeying the king rather than God, for authority received from God does not make it right to obey a command that breaks God's law. The verse belongs to conduct in which David turned from God's teachings and thereby stained a once-noble reputation.
Idleness helped leave David open to temptation and led to Uriah's murder, and useful, purposeful work would have guarded him from that evil. Indulgence of appetite and passion led David in this account to incur God's displeasure. The verse belongs to a heinous sin that God did not excuse, for David was rebuked through Nathan and was punished even after he repented and confessed. It belongs to David's crime against Uriah and Bath-sheba, which was heinous before God and which God did not excuse or justify, with Nathan rebuking David with a severe denunciation and his wrongdoing bringing punishment and calamity. The verse is part of the faithful record of David's sin, showing that even a man entrusted with great responsibility by God could be overcome by temptation and do wrong, and the record of failure is preserved as a warning and lesson, while the failures of believers encourage others by showing that people who fall can take heart again and conquer through God's grace.