15 After Nathan went home, God afflicted the child that Uriah's wife bore to David, and he came down sick. 16 David prayed desperately to God for the little boy. He fasted, wouldn't go out, and slept on the floor. 17 The elders in his family came in and tried to get him off the floor, but he wouldn't budge. Nor could they get him to eat anything. 18 On the seventh day the child died. David's servants were afraid to tell him. They said, "What do we do now? While the child was living he wouldn't listen to a word we said. Now, with the child dead, if we speak to him there's no telling what he'll do." 19 David noticed that the servants were whispering behind his back, and realized that the boy must have died. He asked the servants, "Is the boy dead?" "Yes," they answered. "He's dead."
Matthew Henry's Commentary on 2 Samuel 12:15-19
Commentary on 2 Samuel 12:15-25
(Read 2 Samuel 12:15-25)
David now penned the 51st Psalm, in which, though he had been assured that his sin was pardoned, he prays earnestly for pardon, and greatly laments his sin. He was willing to bear the shame of it, to have it ever before him, to be continually upbraided with it. God gives us leave to be earnest with him in prayer for particular blessings, from trust in his power and general mercy, though we have no particular promise to build upon. David patiently submitted to the will of God in the death of one child, and God made up the loss to his advantage, in the birth of another. The way to have creature comforts continued or restored, or the loss made up some other way, is cheerfully to resign them to God. God, by his grace, particularly owned and favoured that son, and ordered him to be called Jedidiah, Beloved of the Lord. Our prayers for our children are graciously and as fully answered when some of them die in their infancy, for they are well taken care of, and when others live, "beloved of the Lord."