God Did Not Kill Bathsheba's First Child – A Vegan Interpretation by Dr Chapman Chen

Introduction: God did not “kill” Bathsheba’s innocent first child (2 Samuel 12) in order to punish King David and Bathsheba. Rather, the text reflects an ancient theological framework that wrongly attributes consequences of royal violence to God’s direct action. From a vegan theology perspective, this story exposes how human violence generates ripple effects that later theology falsely sacralises as divine punishment. God is not the killer here. David is; the royal system is; the sacrificial worldview is.

Full Text: https://www.vegantheology.net/post/god-did-not-kill-bathsheba-s-first-child-a-vegan-interpretation-by-dr-chapman-chen

1. Key Events in Bathsheba's Story:

Bathsheba was bathing on her rooftop when King David saw her from his palace. He committed adultery with her, and she became pregnant. To hide the pregnancy, David brought Bathsheba's husband, Uriah, home from battle, but Uriah refused to sleep with his wife while his comrades were in the field; David then arranged for Uriah to be killed in battle. After Uriah's death, David married Bathsheba. God sent the prophet Nathan to confront David. Subsequently, the first child born to David and Bathsheba became severely ill and died, despite David's fasting and prayers. After mourning, David comforted Bathsheba, and she later bore David another son, Solomon, who succeeded David as king. 

2. The Traditional Reading (and Its Moral Problem)

In 2 Samuel 12, after David commits adultery with Bathsheba and orchestrates Uriah’s death, the prophet Nathan confronts him. The text then says: “The LORD struck the child that Uriah’s wife bore to David, and it became ill.” (2 Sam 12:15)

Taken at face value, this suggests that God punishes David’s sin by killing an innocent baby who had no agency whatsoever. That reading creates a severe moral contradiction with other biblical passages, e.g., “The son shall not bear the guilt of the father” (Ezekiel 18). Deuteronomy 24:16 unequivocally forbids punishing children for parents’ sins. And Jesus later explicitly rejects this logic (John 9:1–3).

So either God contradicts His own justice, or the text reflects a limited, violent theology that needs prophetic correction. From a vegan theology standpoint, option (2) is the only coherent choice.

3. What Is Really Going On? (Historical–Theological Lens)

This narrative comes from royal court theology, where kings are God’s representatives; national or dynastic disasters are blamed on divine punishment; and innocent lives are routinely treated as expendable “collateral”.

In such a worldview, when power corrupts, when violence begets instability, when trauma enters the body and the womb, ancient writers say: “God did it.”

But this is the same logic that justified animal sacrifice, normalised slaughter as “atonement”, and later culminated in the idea that God needs innocent blood to forgive humans. You already know where this leads.

4. The Vegan-Theological Reinterpretation

(A) God as the Revealer of Truth, Not the Author of Death

Nathan’s role is not to announce a divine execution order. It is to unmask violence. Nathan exposes sexual coercion (debatable; maybe just seduction or mutual attraction), militarised masculinity, the expendability of women and children under patriarchy, and the cascading consequences of bloodshed. God is revealing sin, not performing it.

(B) Consequence ≠ Punishment

From a vegan theology perspective, violence carries consequences, but God is not the executioner. David’s actions create psychological trauma, stress during pregnancy, political instability, and a household built on blood guilt. Ancient people lacked medical language for miscarriage, infection, or infant mortality. They used theological shorthand: “God struck the child.” That is description, not divine intent.

(C) Innocent Blood Is NEVER God’s Will

Our core principle applies here:- God does not demand innocent life—animal or human—to pay for sin. The death of Bathsheba’s child is not atonement. It is a tragic exposure of what sin already does. This aligns perfectly with Hosea 6:6 – “I desire mercy, not sacrifice”; Isaiah 1 – God rejects blood offerings; Micah 6:8 – God requires only justice, mercy, humility to forgive sinners.

(D) Redemption Upon Repentance

After Nathan confronts David and David confesses, Nathan says: “The LORD has put away your sin; you shall not die.”— 2 Samuel 12:13.

Forgiveness is granted immediately upon repentance, not after suffering, not after a child’s death, and not after Solomon’s birth.

5. Why Solomon Still Matters

The birth of Solomon is not a “reward” replacing a “sacrifice”. Rather, it signals that God does not abandon broken people forever, that life can still emerge after repentance and truth-telling, and that God’s fidelity outlasts human sin. But note carefully that the text never says the first child had to die for Solomon to live.

That idea is later sacrificial theology projected backward.

6. Conclusion

From a vegan theology perspective, God did not kill Bathsheba’s child. The story reflects an ancient attempt to explain tragedy through punitive theology. Innocent suffering is never God’s instrument. This text belongs to the same violent worldview that justified animal sacrifice—and must be prophetically unmasked. In John 9, where Jesus heals an innately blind man, Jesus completes this correction, refusing to link suffering with divine punishment. #VeganChrist #VeganGod #VeganTheology