prophetic speech of judgment, David does not need to deal with the problem, and perhaps cannot deal with it. Thus Nathan is the voicing of the relentless, unvoiced agony of a failed child of Torah. He doesn’t say anything new to David; he says what was already known but waiting to be voiced again—and indeed, that is why David caught the parable and confessed so quickly. Nathan seems like a harsh judge, but in fact, his work is to relieve David, to unburden him (albeit in costly ways), so that even