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David fasted and prayed for seven days while his infant son lay sick. When the child died, his servants were afraid to tell him because they feared what he might do. David rose, washed, anointed himself, and ate. His explanation: "While the child was yet alive, I fasted and wept: for I said, Who can tell whether GOD will be gracious to me, that the child may live? But now he is dead, wherefore should I fast? can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me" (2 Samuel 12:22–23). The grief was real. The confidence was specific. The child was somewhere.
Get These Verses Daily — Free“But now he is dead, wherefore should I fast? can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me.”
David's confidence after his infant's death was specific: 'I shall go to him.' Not a vague comfort but a directional certainty — the child is somewhere David would reach. His grief was real. His hope was also real, and it was grounded in knowing God.
“But Jesus said, Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven.”
Jesus explicitly received children. He rebuked the disciples who were turning them away. An infant who died is received by the one who said this — there is no age threshold for the kingdom Jesus described as belonging to children.
“Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee.”
God chose the most visceral human bond — a nursing mother and her infant — as the comparison for his attachment to his people. Then said his attachment exceeds even that. The infant you lost is not forgotten by the one who made this comparison.
“Thus saith the LORD; A voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation, and bitter weeping; Rahel weeping for her children refused to be comforted for her children, because they were not.”
God records inconsolable grief over lost children without correcting it. The refusal to be comforted is not a failure of faith. God honors it before he speaks a word of future hope into it. Your grief is allowed here.
“The LORD is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit.”
The Hebrew qarov — 'nigh' — means physically near, close enough to touch. God's proximity is specifically to the shattered heart, not only to those whose grief is composed. The grief of losing an infant is exactly the kind of shattering this verse addresses.
Isaiah 49:15 asks the most pointed question in the Old Testament about God's care: "Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb?" The expected answer is no — a nursing mother does not forget her infant. Then God says: even if she could forget, he cannot. The most visceral form of human attachment — a mother's care for an infant she is nursing — is the comparison God chooses to describe his own attachment. An infant who has died is not forgotten by the one who made this comparison.
Romans 8:38–39 exhausts every conceivable category of separation from God's love and says none of them work: "neither death, nor life... shall be able to separate us from the love of God." Death is the first item on Paul's list. The love that reaches across infant death is the same love that Paul says nothing — absolutely nothing — can interrupt.
Commentary is from a charismatic Protestant perspective, drawing on KJV text and public-domain sources including Spurgeon, Andrew Murray, and Matthew Henry.
Jeremiah 31:15–17 pairs Rachel's inconsolable weeping for her children with a direct word of future hope from God. The weeping is honored — God does not tell Rachel to stop or trust more. Then: "Refrain thy voice from weeping... for thy work shall be rewarded... and there is hope in thine end." The hope does not erase the grief. It coexists with it, announced after the weeping is acknowledged as real. God named the grief before he named the hope.
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