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When David's infant son died, his servants were confused by what he did next. During the illness, he fasted and prayed. After the child died, he rose, washed, and ate. They asked why. His answer is one of the most theologically direct statements about death and reunion in the Old Testament: "Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me" (2 Samuel 12:23). David did not say the child was simply gone. He said he would go to where the child was. That small phrase carries the full weight of his hope — not a vague comfort, but a specific expectation of a specific reunion.
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 did not say the child was simply gone. He said 'I shall go to him' — a confident expectation of reunion somewhere specific. This is not therapeutic comfort. It is a theological statement from a man who knew God.
“But Jesus said, Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven.”
Jesus rebuked those who kept children from him and received them physically into his arms. The God who said this does not turn children away in death. The child you lost was brought to the one who opened his arms to every child.
“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 a mother's inconsolable grief without correcting it. The refusal to be comforted is not a failure of faith — it is the honest state of a parent whose child is gone. God allows it before he speaks into it.
“The LORD is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit.”
The Hebrew 'nigh' — qarov — means physically close. The broken heart of a parent burying a child is specifically where God draws near. Not to explain. Not to comfort prematurely. To be close.
“And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.”
Death itself is categorized as a 'former thing' — part of an age that is ending. The intimacy of the gesture — God personally wiping away tears — is face-to-face, close. The grief of child loss is among the tears this verse was written to address.
Jeremiah 31:15–17 sets up one of Scripture's most unusual sequences. Rachel is depicted weeping for her children — inconsolably, refusing comfort — and God does not correct her. He acknowledges the grief, honors it, and then speaks into it: "Refrain thy voice from weeping, and thine eyes from tears: for thy work shall be rewarded... and there is hope in thine end." The hope is announced after the grief, not instead of it. God names the grief before he names the future.
Matthew 19:14 is Jesus' rebuke of his disciples who were turning children away from him: "Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven." He received children specifically, physically. The God who said this and demonstrated this does not turn children away in death. The child you have lost was received by the one who opened his arms to every child brought to him.
Commentary is from a charismatic Protestant perspective, drawing on KJV text and public-domain sources including Spurgeon, Andrew Murray, and Matthew Henry.
Psalm 22 — which Jesus quoted from the cross — contains a statement in verse 24 that is easy to read past: "he hath not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted; neither hath he hidden his face from him; but when he cried unto him, he heard." The language of not hiding the face is the language of relational presence. In the deepest grief of child loss, the face of God is not turned away. He heard the cry. He hears yours.
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