Catholic Commentary
The Birth of Solomon and God's Favor
24David comforted Bathsheba his wife, and went in to her, and lay with her. She bore a son, and he called his name Solomon. Yahweh loved him;25and he sent by the hand of Nathan the prophet, and he named him Jedidiah, for Yahweh’s sake.
In 2 Samuel 12:24–25, David comforts Bathsheba and they conceive a son named Solomon, whom God loves unconditionally and whom the prophet Nathan names Jedidiah, meaning "beloved of Yahweh," signifying divine favor granted through grace rather than human merit. The passage marks a theological turning point where the prophetic messenger of judgment becomes the herald of God's mercy and restoration.
God does not restore the penitent to their former state — He blesses them forward, giving their children names of beloved-ness they did nothing to earn.
2 Samuel 12:24 — Comfort, Union, and a New Birth
The verse opens with a quietly powerful phrase: "David comforted Bathsheba his wife." The Hebrew root נָחַם (niḥam) carries a weight that goes beyond emotional consolation — it is the same root used of God "repenting" or "relenting," and of the comfort promised to mourners. David is now acting as a true husband rather than the predatory king of chapter 11; he turns toward Bathsheba in tenderness after the death of their first son. The narrative underscores Bathsheba's dignity by calling her "his wife" — she is no longer merely a woman taken; she is a spouse properly acknowledged.
Their union produces a son whom David names Solomon (Hebrew: Shelomoh). The name is almost certainly derived from שָׁלוֹם (shalom) — peace — and carries rich irony given that David's house was told by Nathan in 12:10–12 that "the sword shall never depart from your house." Out of the very household marked by violence comes the child whose name means peace, who will build what David's war-stained hands could not: the Temple of the LORD (cf. 1 Chr 22:8–10). The name also evokes wholeness and restoration — the peace that follows genuine repentance.
The final clause of verse 24 is abrupt and absolute in its force: "Yahweh loved him." There is no condition, no qualification, no list of merits. The Hebrew way-yeʾĕhābēhû YHWH simply states a sovereign, unconditional divine affection for this child from the moment of his birth. In a narrative world still shadowed by the consequences of David's sin, God's love breaks in unannounced. This is not a reward for David's behavior, nor for Bathsheba's suffering — it is pure divine initiative. Catholic exegesis recognizes here a foreshadowing of that love which is bestowed on the sinner not after purgation is complete, but precisely within the process of healing.
2 Samuel 12:25 — Nathan Returns: Not Judgment but a Name
The last time Nathan appeared (vv. 1–15), he came to pronounce judgment. Now he returns — and this return is itself theologically significant. The same prophetic instrument of condemnation becomes the messenger of endearment. God "sent by the hand of Nathan the prophet," using the identical prophetic channel for mercy as for rebuke, reminding the reader that the prophet's office is oriented not toward destruction but toward the covenant relationship.
Nathan gives the child a second name: Jedidiah (יְדִידְיָה), meaning "beloved of Yahweh" or "friend of Yahweh." This is a throne name, a throne-room name, a hidden name — known to God and declared by the prophet but never appearing again in the biblical narrative. Solomon is his public name; Jedidiah is his sacred identity. The distinction matters: before Solomon becomes the builder of temples, the author of Proverbs, the recipient of divine wisdom — even before he does anything — God names him "beloved." His identity before God precedes and grounds all his achievements.
The phrase "for Yahweh's sake" (ba'ăbûr YHWH) at the close of verse 25 ties the entire event to divine initiative rather than human merit. Everything here — the consolation, the new birth, the love, the name — flows from God's own purposes. Typologically, Solomon as "beloved of the LORD" points forward to Jesus Christ, the true Son of David, of whom the Father declares at the Baptism and Transfiguration: "This is my beloved Son" (Matt 3:17; 17:5), using the identical relational category of divine beloved-ness.
Catholic tradition reads these two verses as a luminous instance of what the Catechism calls the "superabundance of grace" — that God does not merely restore a sinner to the prior state but actually elevates and blesses beyond what existed before the fall (CCC §412, §1994). David and Bathsheba's union, born in sin and baptized in sorrow, becomes the providential origin of Israel's greatest king and the ancestor of the Messiah (Matt 1:6).
St. Augustine, reflecting on David's story in City of God (Book XVII), sees in David's repentance and God's continued favor a type of the Church herself: wounded by sin, yet beloved, called to build the house of God not by her own righteousness but by divine election. For Augustine, it is precisely through the prophet — through the Word spoken from outside — that grace is mediated, a model of the sacramental structure of the Church.
St. Thomas Aquinas in the Summa Theologiae (I-II, q. 113, a. 2) distinguishes between the remission of guilt and the ongoing movement of grace. These verses illustrate exactly that distinction: the guilt was forgiven at David's confession (v. 13), but the grace present in Solomon's birth and divine naming represents the positive momentum of justification — God actively moving the soul and its history toward the good He intends.
The name Jedidiah resonates with the Church's theology of Baptism: before any work, any merit, any achievement, the baptized person receives an identity — "beloved child of God" — that grounds all subsequent Christian life (CCC §1265–1266). The prophetic naming of Solomon thus anticipates the theological structure of Christian initiation. Pope Benedict XVI, in Deus Caritas Est §9, describes God's love as preceding all human response — these verses enact exactly that priority of divine agapē.
These verses speak with particular force to Catholics who carry the weight of past sins whose consequences have not fully dissolved. David and Bathsheba do not escape all consequences — the sword does depart the house, rivalries erupt, Absalom rises — yet God does not withhold love from what is born in the aftermath of repentance. For Catholics who fear that their past sins have permanently diminished what God can do through them or their families, Solomon's birth is a corrective: God is capable of bringing forth "beloved" children — vocations, healing, new beginnings — precisely from the ground that was broken by failure and restored by confession.
Concretely, this passage invites the Catholic to revisit the grace of sacramental Reconciliation not as a legal transaction that merely wipes a slate but as a genuine renewal of relationship in which God, like the Nathan of verse 25, returns not to condemn but to give a new name. Ask: what name is God speaking over the areas of your life you consider most damaged by sin? Solomon was named "beloved" before he built anything. So are you.
Commentary