Nathan declares that David has despised God’s word. There are two senses in which that is so. He has despised the kind of word that appears in the Ten Commandments, where God proscribes acts such as adultery and murder. While leaders in any society can think they can do what they like, in Israel the Torah places particular constraints around the king. David has ignored these. Yet his story has made more reference to another kind of word, God’s word of promise to him, which came in Nathan’s previous