2 Samuel 12:22 Meaning He Said

Anicca: Impermanence "While the child was yet alive" fences off a stretch of days that had its ending inside it from the first hour. Seven days of fasting fit within that stretch, and the fasting could last only as long as the breathing did. Anyone can sit up all night watching a candle and it still goes out; the watching does not lengthen the wax.

Soka: Sorrow David is weeping for a son conceived with Bathsheba, whose husband he had killed. He lay on the ground through the nights, and the elders of his house could not get him up or get food into him. Grief ran ahead of the death here, the way it does for anyone sitting beside a sick child who is still warm.

Padhāna: Exertion Fasting and weeping look like collapse, and David describes them as work: he did them so that the child might live. Effort belongs to the span where effort can still land, and he spent every hour of his there, on the floor, refusing bread. A farmer waters while there is still a season to water in.

Acinteyya: The imponderable "Who knows" is as far forward as anyone can see. How a deed ripens sits among the things the Buddha set aside as beyond working out by thinking, which is why a good act comes with no receipt. David never claims the fasting will save the child; he says it might, and a might was enough to keep him on the ground for a week.

Upekkhā: Equanimity He is answering servants who found his calm more shocking than his mourning, since he wept before the death and washed his face after it. Evenness is not coldness; it is the mind sitting down with what is now the case, and what is now the case is that the child is gone. The man leaning on a door that has finally shut stands up and goes to eat.