(5) Save only in the matter of Uriah.--In this passage alone do we find this qualification of the praise of David. In the Vatican MS. and other MSS. of the LXX. it is omitted. Possibly it is a marginal note which has crept into the text, or a comment of the compiler of the book on the language of the annals from which he drew.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 5. Because [אֲֶשר, here causative for יַעַן אי. Comp. quod] David did that which was right in the eyes of the Lord, and turned not aside from anything that he commanded him all the days of his life, save only in the matter of Uriah the Hittite. [2 Samuel 2:4. But this last clause is not found in the LXX., and such a statement was more likely to be inserted by transcribers, having first appeared in the margin as a gloss, than to be omitted, had it ever formed part of the text. And in support of this view it may be alleged that

(1) the matter of Uriah was by no means David's only sin, and

(2) it is not the manner of our writer thus to qualify his words. See next verse.]

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

15:1-8 Abijam's heart was not perfect with the Lord his God; he wanted sincerity; he began well, but he fell off, and walked in all the sins of his father, following his bad example, though he had seen the bad consequences of it. David's family was continued as a lamp in Jerusalem, to maintain the true worship of God there, when the light of Divine truth was extinguished in all other places. The Lord has still taken care of his cause, while those who ought to have been serviceable thereto have lived and perished in their sins. The Son of David will still continue a light to his church, to establish it in truth and righteousness to the end of time. There are two kinds of fulfilling the law, one legal, the other by the gospel. Legal is, when men do all things required in the law, and that by themselves. None ever thus fulfilled the law but Christ, and Adam before his fall. The gospel manner of fulfilling the law is, to believe in Christ who fulfilled the law for us, and to endeavour in the whole man to obey God in all his precepts. And this is accepted of God, as to all those that are in Christ. Thus David and others are said to fulfil the law.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Because David did that which was right in the eyes of the Lord,.... With respect to worship: and turned not aside from anything that he commanded him all the days of his life; especially in matters of religion, nor even in his moral walk and conversation, deliberately, studiously, and with design:

save only in the matter of Uriah the Hittite; the killing of him, and other sins which led on to it, and were in connection with it; Abarbinel thinks, because the affair of Bathsheba is not mentioned, that was not reckoned to David as a sin; but no doubt it was, and is included here.

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