Why was David forgiven so often, and not King Saul and others? Was DAvid more popular in spite of his wickedness?

Well, I think David repented, Saul didn't; David was humble, Saul wasn't, and the people sensed this.

Thank you Roseangela for pointing out the burden Bathsheba carried. Although scripture speaks of David's remorse and repentance, Bathsheba must have suffered immensely. And despite her personal remorse and conflicting feelings towards David, she carefully parented her son, Solomon.

Apparently David had four sons with Bathsheba, this seems to be more then with any other wife.

1 Chronicles 3 (King James Version)

1Now these were the sons of David, which were born unto him in Hebron; the firstborn Amnon, of Ahinoam the Jezreelitess; the second Daniel, of Abigail the Carmelitess:

2The third, Absalom the son of Maachah the daughter of Talmai king of Geshur: the fourth, Adonijah the son of Haggith:

3The fifth, Shephatiah of Abital: the sixth, Ithream by Eglah his wife.

4These six were born unto him in Hebron; and there he reigned seven years and six months: and in Jerusalem he reigned thirty and three years.

5And these were born unto him in Jerusalem; Shimea, and Shobab, and Nathan, and Solomon, four, of Bathshua the daughter of Ammiel:

6 Ibhar also, and Elishama, and Eliphelet,

7And Nogah, and Nepheg, and Japhia,

8And Elishama, and Eliada, and Eliphelet, nine.

9These were all the sons of David, beside the sons of the concubines, and Tamar their sister.

Yes, I was thinking that Bathsheba must have done the parenting. It is my impression from the behavior of some of David's other sons, that he must not have been to involved in the raising of his children and may have tended to spoil them.

We had a visitor from Israel who said that back in the days of King David, it was a tradition that married soldiers before going out to war divorced their wives for their wives sake.

Has anybody heard anything about this?

Anyway, the Scriptures are very clear about the fact that Bathsheba was still considered to be the wife of Uriah, therefore, we concluded that, even if this tradition idea had any merit to it, this obviously wasn't the case between Bathsheba and Uriah.

Partly thanks to our discussions here we had quite an informative discussion in our Sabbath School today. Than you

I didn't have time to post it this morning before the forum was closed down but, having as a basis Crater's information that Bathsheba gave four sons to David (Solomon, Shimea, Shobab and Nathan), I found an interesting piece of information: two of Bathsheba's sons were ancestors of Jesus' earthly parents. Joseph descended from Solomon and Mary descended from Nathan, so both Mary and Joseph descended from David through Bathsheba (1 Chron. 3:5; Matt. 1:6, 16; Luke 3:23, 31).

It goes to show how God can still use a repentant sinner as King David certainly was after being confronted by the prophet Nathan.

Maybe the name of Bathsheba's son Nathan was given in homage to the prophet Nathan.