NATHAN REPROVING DAVID.

DAVID having become enamoured of the wife of an officer in his army which was then besieging Rabbah, a chief city of the Ammonites, had criminal intercourse with her during her husband's absence, and concluded by sending private orders to his general, Joab, to have the husband slain. Accordingly, in an assault upon the Ammonitish city, being abandoned by the soldiers, as had been preconcerted between them and their general, the deserted Hittite was immediately surrounded by the enemy and slain. As soon as Uriah was dead, his wife made a show of mourning for him, though her sorrow was shortly "turned into joy" by her becoming the spouse of her sovereign upon the expiration of the days of her mourning. The happiness of the royal criminal and the adultress, whose husband he had caused to be murdered, was soon interrupted by God sending a prophet to announce to David the penalty which he had incurred by this grievous crime. Nathan having represented to him in a beautiful parable a picture of his iniquity, induced the king, before he was conscious of the application of this parable to his own crimes, to pronounce himself deserving of the most exemplary chastisement. No sooner had Nathan obtained this admission from the royal offender, than with the sacred privilege which his prophetic office conferred upon him, he "said to David, thou art the man!" and concluded by foretelling at considerable length the miseries that would eventually befall his family, which would be preceded by the death of the issue of his criminal intercourse with the wife of Uriah. In the illustration, the king appears cowering under the awful denunciation of the prophet, who stands before him exercising the authority of a delegate of the Most High.