“What is this you have done?” his servants asked. “While the child was alive, you fasted and wept, but when he died, you got up and ate.”
Nathan, having delivered his message, staid not at court, but went home, probably to pray for David, to whom he had been preaching. God, in making use of him as an instrument to bring David to repentance, and as the herald both of mercy and judgment, put an honour upon the ministry, and magnified his word above all his name.
Commenting on 2 Samuel 12:15-25
And he said, while the child was yet alive,.... And so there was hope it might be continued: I fasted and wept; or sought the Lord by prayer, and fasting, and weeping, that the threatening might not take place, that the child's life might be spared: for I said; within himself, thus he reasoned in his own mind: who can tell whether God will be...
Then said his servants unto him, What thing [is] this that thou hast done? thou didst fast and weep for the child, [while it was] alive; but when the child was dead, thou didst rise and eat bread. (m) As they who did not consider that God grants many things to the sobs and tears of the faithful.