Like Father like Son

Life may repeat itself if we don’t learn from it.

Sometimes even to the next generation.

I have completed reading the book of 2nd Samuel. The turning point (dy/dx = 0; d2y/dx2 = +ve, ) of King David’s life is in 2Sam 11. Up to this point, he has done everything right with God. So just in case we think that the king has every right to take a man’s wife and killed the husband who is one of his trusted and mighty soldier (2Sam 23:39), the narrator’s spoke for God in the last verse of 2Sam 11: “But the thing that David had done displeased the LORD”.
This is a very important view of the narrator’s.

To what extent was God not please with David? Let’s look at the structure of the story’s after this chapter:


What followed after 2Sam 11 till the end of the book and into 1Kings bear a reflection to that act (sex & murder) :

David + Bathsheba - > killing of Uriah
Amnon + Tamar -> killing of Amnon
Absalom + David’s concubine -> killing of Absalom
(Adonijah + Abishag) -> killing of Adonijah
(bracket to indicate to some extent)

This analogus structure reflects the narrator’s view in these individual stories of David’s sons (rape of Amnon; rebellion of Absalom; usurp/struggle of throne of Adonijah) teaches us that our sins will catches up. David is forced to see how the same vices of sex and murder to which he succumbed re-emerge in his sons, causing disaster and great suffering. So much for a man after God’s heart.

Here lies a very stern warning to every man and father:

A godly man does not equate to a godly father. Just like Prophet Samuel,



A great king, very great king but sad finishing.