Did God Kill David and Bathsheba's Child?

 Some excellent insight for my fellow "Vindicating God" apologists: 

2 Samuel 12:15 says, ".... the Lord struck the child that Uriah's wife bare unto David, and it was very sick." People are often perplexed by this passage because they feel that God punished an innocent child for King David's adultery.

This is ignorance of Scriptural language and how God is said to "strike" or "smite" someone (the Hebrew word for "struck" is also rendered "smite" in the KJV). 2 Chron. 13:15-20 tells how God "struck" King Jeroboam by DELIVERING him into the hands of his enemies. This means that Jeroboam forfeited God's protection. It does NOT mean that God personally harmed him.

The same is true in regards to David and Bathsheba's son. Because of David's sin, God could not protect the first child of this adultery. Edward Andrews, a Biblical apologist who has written many books, offers what I believe to be one of the best explanations I have read on this.

* Disclaimer: Whenever I quote from someone's book, it does not mean that I agree with EVERYTHING they teach.

“He did not step in and save the child, when he had the power to do so. However, he is not directly responsible, because he did not make King David and Bathsheba commit the acts that led to the child being born, nor did he bring an illness on the adulterine child, he just did not move in to protect the child, in a time that had a high rate of infant deaths.”

Andrews, Edward D. If God is Good: Why Does God Allow Suffering (Cambridge, Ohio: Christian Publishing House, 2015), pp. 6, 7