2 Samuel 12:19
But when David saw that his servants whispered, David perceived that the child was dead: therefore David said unto his servants, Is the child dead? And they said, He is dead. But when David saw that his servants whispered, David perceived that the child was dead: therefore David said unto his servants, Is the child dead? And they said, He is dead.
This moment stands within the history of David's adultery and his murder of Uriah, in which David sent a letter by Uriah himself ordering Joab to place Uriah at the front of the fiercest fighting and then withdraw from him so he would be struck down and die, Joab carried out the order, and Uriah fell by the sword of the Ammonites. Before this fall David had administered judgment and justice to all his people with an integrity that won confidence and loyalty, but he then departed from God and yielded to the wicked one, becoming for a time an agent of Satan while still holding the position and authority God had given him. Power is given by God to be used only in harmony with divine law, so when a ruler commands what is contrary to God's law it becomes sin to obey; Joab, whose loyalty was to the king rather than to God, broke God's law because the king ordered it, and his course warns that civil powers, though ordained by God, must not be obeyed against God's law and leaders are to be followed only as they follow Christ. The verse belongs to the account of David's violation of God's will and the retribution that followed, showing that forsaking God's Word brings consequences and can stain even a once-fair reputation.
While the child was still alive David pleaded for its life with fasting and deep humiliation, laying aside his royal robes and crown and lying night after night on the ground in heartbroken grief to intercede for the innocent one suffering for his guilt, refusing to be lifted up by the elders of his house. He persevered in this pleading because judgments pronounced against persons and cities had often been turned aside by humiliation and repentance, and he hoped that a merciful God who is swift to pardon would grant peace. Once David perceived from his servants' whispering that the child was dead, he quietly submitted to God's decree, stopped pleading for the child's life, and rose from his prostrate position instead of continuing to mourn. Learning of the death ended David's hope for the child's recovery as the first stroke of the retribution he himself had declared just, yet in trusting God's mercy he was not left without comfort. David's rising after the death teaches not to bind oneself to grief over the dead, since such clinging can harm the living without helping the one who has died.