1 Chronicles 21

At least seventy-three of the psalms in the book of Psalms are assigned to David, but his last one is found only here in 2 Samuel 23. The phrase “the last words of David” means “his last inspired written words from the Lord.” The psalm may have been written during the closing days of his life, shortly before he died. Since the theme of the psalm is godly leadership, he may have written it especially for Solomon, but it has much to say to all of God’s people today.

The privileges of leadership (vv. 1–2). David never ceased to marvel that God would call him to become the king of Israel, to lead God’s people, fight God’s battles, and even help to write God’s Word. It was through David’s descendants that God brought the Messiah into the world. From the human point of view, David was a “nobody,” a shepherd, the youngest of eight sons in an ordinary Jewish family; nevertheless, God selected him and made him to become Israel’s greatest king. The Lord had given David skillful hands and a heart of integrity (Ps. 78:70–72) and equipped him to know and do His will. As the son of Jesse, David was a member of the royal tribe of Judah, something that was not true of his predecessor Saul. (See Gen. 49:10.)

David didn’t promote himself to achieve greatness; it was the Lord who chose him and elevated him to the throne (Deut. 17:15). The Lord spent thirty years training David, first with the sheep in the pastures, then with Saul in the army camp, and finally with his own fighting men in the Judean wilderness. Great leaders are trained in private before they go to work in public. “Talents are best nurtured in solitude,” wrote Goethe; “character is best formed in the stormy billows of the world.” David had both. He had been faithful in private as a servant, so God was able to elevate him publicly to be a ruler (Matt. 25:21). The Lord followed the same procedure when He prepared Moses, Joshua, Nehemiah, the apostles, and even His own Son (Phil. 2:5–11; Heb. 5:8). Dr. D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones used to say, “It is a tragic thing when a young man succeeds before he’s ready for it.” David was ready for the throne.

God empowers those whom He calls, and He anointed David with His Spirit (1 Sam. 16:12–13). Dr. A. W. Tozer said, “Never follow any leader until you see the oil on his forehead,” which explains why so many gifted men came to David and joined his band. It takes more than talent and training to be an effective leader and to be able to recruit and train other leaders. Jesus reminded His disciples, and reminds us, “Without Me, you can do nothing” (John 15: nkjv). Religious leaders who follow the principles of what the world calls “success” rarely accomplish anything permanent that glorifies God. “He who does the will of God abides forever” (1 John 2: nkjv). It’s good to be educated by men, but it’s even more important to be trained by the Lord. “Our Lord was thirty years preparing for three years’ service,” wrote Oswald Chambers. “The modern stamp is three hours of preparation for thirty years of service.”

But the Spirit not only empowered David for battle, He also inspired him to write beautiful psalms that still minister to our hearts. When you think of the trials that David had to endure in order to give us these psalms, it makes you appreciate them even more. David made it clear that he was writing the Word of God, not just religious poetry. Peter called David “a prophet” (Acts 2:30) and at Pentecost quoted what David wrote about the Messiah’s resurrection and ascension (Acts 2:24–36). When you read the Psalms, you are reading the Word of God and learning about the Son of God.

The responsibilities of leadership (vv. 3–7). God didn’t train David just to put him on display, but because He had important work for him to do; and so it is with every true leader. David was to rule over God’s own people, “the sheep of his pasture” (Ps. 100:3), which is an awesome responsibility. It demands character and integrity (“just” = righteous) and a submissive attitude toward the Lord (“the fear of God”). Without righteousness and the fear of God, a leader becomes a dictator and abuses God’s people, driving them like cattle instead of leading them like sheep. David was a ruler who served and a servant who ruled, and he had the welfare of his people on his heart (24:17). It encourages me today to see that even secu- D

Honoring his mighty men—23:8–38 lar business specialists are comparing effective leaders to shepherds who care.

David used a beautiful metaphor to picture the work of the leader: rain and sunshine that together produce useful fruit instead of painful thorns (vv. 4–7). David exemplified this principle in his own life, for when he came to the throne it meant the dawning of a new day for the nation of Israel. In this, he reminds us of what happened when Jesus came to earth (see Ps. 72:5–7; Isa. 9:2; 58:8, 60:1, 19; Mal. 4:1–3; Matt. 4:13–16; Luke 2:29–32). With the coronation of David, the storms that Saul had caused in the land were now over and the light of God’s countenance was shining on His people. Under David’s leadership, there would be a harvest of blessing from the Lord.

With God’s help, leaders must create such a creative atmosphere that their colaborers will be able to grow and produce fruit. Ministry involves both sunshine and rain, bright days and cloudy days, but a godly leader’s ministry will produce gentle rain that brings life and not storms that destroy. What a delight it is to follow a spiritual leader who brings out the best in us and helps us produce fruit for the glory of God! Unspiritual leaders produce thorns that irritate people and make progress very difficult (vv. 6–7).

In his song, David went beyond the principles of leadership to celebrate the coming of Messiah (v. 5). David mentioned the covenant the Lord made with him (2 Sam. 7), a covenant that guaranteed him a dynasty forever and a throne forever, a covenant that was fulfilled in Jesus Christ (Luke 1:32–33, 68–79). The statements in verse 5 are best read as questions: “Is not my house right with God? Has he not made with me an everlasting covenant, arranged and secured in every part?” (niv). The first question doesn’t suggest that all of David’s children were godly, for we know that they were not. It only declares that David’s house (dynasty) was secure because of God’s covenant promises. Nothing could change this covenant; it was everlastingly secured by the character of God.

In verse 5, David again used the image of fruit: “Will he not bring to fruition my salvation and grant me my every desire?” (niv). David’s desire was that God would fulfill His promise and send the Messiah, who would be born from David’s descendants. The throne of Judah ended historically in 586 BC with the reign of Zedekiah, but that wasn’t the end of David’s family or the nation of Israel. The Lord providentially preserved Israel and David’s seed so that Jesus Christ could be born in Bethlehem, the City of David. The nation was small and weak, but the Messiah came just the same! “A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit” (Isa. 11: niv; see 4:2, 6:13, and 53:2). However, one day the evil people of the earth will be uprooted like thorns and burned (vv. 6–7; see Matt. 3:10, 12; 13:40–42).

At least seventy-three of the psalms in the book of Psalms are assigned to David, but his last one is found only here in 2 Samuel 23. The phrase “the last words of David” means “his last inspired written words from the Lord.” The psalm may have been written during the closing days of his life, shortly before he died. Since the theme of the psalm is godly leadership, he may have written it especially for Solomon, but it has much to say to all of God’s people today.

The privileges of leadership (vv. 1–2). David never ceased to marvel that God would call him to become the king of Israel, to lead God’s people, fight God’s battles, and even help to write God’s Word. It was through David’s descendants that God brought the Messiah into the world. From the human point of view, David was a “nobody,” a shepherd, the youngest of eight sons in an ordinary Jewish family; nevertheless, God selected him and made him to become Israel’s greatest king. The Lord had given David skillful hands and a heart of integrity (Ps. 78:70–72) and equipped him to know and do His will. As the son of Jesse, David was a member of the royal tribe of Judah, something that was not true of his predecessor Saul. (See Gen. 49:10.)

David didn’t promote himself to achieve greatness; it was the Lord who chose him and elevated him to the throne (Deut. 17:15). The Lord spent thirty years training David, first with the sheep in the pastures, then with Saul in the army camp, and finally with his own fighting men in the Judean wilderness. Great leaders are trained in private before they go to work in public. “Talents are best nurtured in solitude,” wrote Goethe; “character is best formed in the stormy billows of the world.” David had both. He had been faithful in private as a servant, so God was able to elevate him publicly to be a ruler (Matt. 25:21). The Lord followed the same procedure when He prepared Moses, Joshua, Nehemiah, the apostles, and even His own Son (Phil. 2:5–11; Heb. 5:8). Dr. D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones used to say, “It is a tragic thing when a young man succeeds before he’s ready for it.” David was ready for the throne.

God empowers those whom He calls, and He anointed David with His Spirit (1 Sam. 16:12–13). Dr. A. W. Tozer said, “Never follow any leader until you see the oil on his forehead,” which explains why so many gifted men came to David and joined his band. It takes more than talent and training to be an effective leader and to be able to recruit and train other leaders. Jesus reminded His disciples, and reminds us, “Without Me, you can do nothing” (John 15: nkjv). Religious leaders who follow the principles of what the world calls “success” rarely accomplish anything permanent that glorifies God. “He who does the will of God abides forever” (1 John 2: nkjv). It’s good to be educated by men, but it’s even more important to be trained by the Lord. “Our Lord was thirty years preparing for three years’ service,” wrote Oswald Chambers. “The modern stamp is three hours of preparation for thirty years of service.”

But the Spirit not only empowered David for battle, He also inspired him to write beautiful psalms that still minister to our hearts. When you think of the trials that David had to endure in order to give us these psalms, it makes you appreciate them even more. David made it clear that he was writing the Word of God, not just religious poetry. Peter called David “a prophet” (Acts 2:30) and at Pentecost quoted what David wrote about the Messiah’s resurrection and ascension (Acts 2:24–36). When you read the Psalms, you are reading the Word of God and learning about the Son of God.

The responsibilities of leadership (vv. 3–7). God didn’t train David just to put him on display, but because He had important work for him to do; and so it is with every true leader. David was to rule over God’s own people, “the sheep of his pasture” (Ps. 100:3), which is an awesome responsibility. It demands character and integrity (“just” = righteous) and a submissive attitude toward the Lord (“the fear of God”). Without righteousness and the fear of God, a leader becomes a dictator and abuses God’s people, driving them like cattle instead of leading them like sheep. David was a ruler who served and a servant who ruled, and he had the welfare of his people on his heart (24:17). It encourages me today to see that even secu- D

Honoring his mighty men—23:8–38 lar business specialists are comparing effective leaders to shepherds who care.

David used a beautiful metaphor to picture the work of the leader: rain and sunshine that together produce useful fruit instead of painful thorns (vv. 4–7). David exemplified this principle in his own life, for when he came to the throne it meant the dawning of a new day for the nation of Israel. In this, he reminds us of what happened when Jesus came to earth (see Ps. 72:5–7; Isa. 9:2; 58:8, 60:1, 19; Mal. 4:1–3; Matt. 4:13–16; Luke 2:29–32). With the coronation of David, the storms that Saul had caused in the land were now over and the light of God’s countenance was shining on His people. Under David’s leadership, there would be a harvest of blessing from the Lord.

With God’s help, leaders must create such a creative atmosphere that their colaborers will be able to grow and produce fruit. Ministry involves both sunshine and rain, bright days and cloudy days, but a godly leader’s ministry will produce gentle rain that brings life and not storms that destroy. What a delight it is to follow a spiritual leader who brings out the best in us and helps us produce fruit for the glory of God! Unspiritual leaders produce thorns that irritate people and make progress very difficult (vv. 6–7).

In his song, David went beyond the principles of leadership to celebrate the coming of Messiah (v. 5). David mentioned the covenant the Lord made with him (2 Sam. 7), a covenant that guaranteed him a dynasty forever and a throne forever, a covenant that was fulfilled in Jesus Christ (Luke 1:32–33, 68–79). The statements in verse 5 are best read as questions: “Is not my house right with God? Has he not made with me an everlasting covenant, arranged and secured in every part?” (niv). The first question doesn’t suggest that all of David’s children were godly, for we know that they were not. It only declares that David’s house (dynasty) was secure because of God’s covenant promises. Nothing could change this covenant; it was everlastingly secured by the character of God.

In verse 5, David again used the image of fruit: “Will he not bring to fruition my salvation and grant me my every desire?” (niv). David’s desire was that God would fulfill His promise and send the Messiah, who would be born from David’s descendants. The throne of Judah ended historically in 586 BC with the reign of Zedekiah, but that wasn’t the end of David’s family or the nation of Israel. The Lord providentially preserved Israel and David’s seed so that Jesus Christ could be born in Bethlehem, the City of David. The nation was small and weak, but the Messiah came just the same! “A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit” (Isa. 11: niv; see 4:2, 6:13, and 53:2). However, one day the evil people of the earth will be uprooted like thorns and burned (vv. 6–7; see Matt. 3:10, 12; 13:40–42).

Second Samuel 24: states that God incited David to number the people, while 1 Chronicles 21: names Satan as the culprit. Both are true: God permitted Satan to tempt David in order to accomplish the purposes He had in mind. Satan certainly opposed God’s people throughout all of Old Testament history, but this is one of four instances in the Old Testament where Satan is named specifically and seen openly at work. The other three are when he tempted Eve (Gen. 3), when he attacked Job (Job 1—2), and when he accused Joshua the high priest (Zech. 3).

A proud king (vv. 1–9; 1 Chron. 21:1–6). There was nothing illegal about a national census, if it was done according to the rules laid down in Exodus 30:11–16 (and see Num. 3:40–51). The half shekel received at the census was used to pay the bills for the sanctuary of God (Ex. 38:25–28). As a good Jewish citizen, Jesus paid his temple tax (Matt. 17:24–27), even though He knew that much of the ministry at the temple in that day was corrupt and had been rejected by His Father (Matt. 23:37–24:1). The phrase “the people” used in 2 Samuel 24:2, 4, 9, 10 refers to the Jewish military forces and is used this way in the Authorized Version of 1 Samuel 4:3, 4, 17. But the census that David ordered wasn’t to collect the annual temple tax; it was a military census to see how big his army was, as verse 9 makes clear. But there had been military censuses in Israel in the past and the Lord hadn’t judged the nation (Num. 1 and 26). What was there about this census that was wrong?

Joab and his captains were against the project (v. 4) and Joab’s speech in verse 3 suggests that David’s command was motivated by pride. The king wanted to magnify his own achievements rather than glorify the Lord. David may have rationalized this desire by arguing that his son Solomon was a man of peace who had no military experience. David wanted to be certain that, after his death, Israel would have the forces needed to preserve the peace. Another factor may have been David’s plan to organize the army, the government, and the priests and Levites so that Solomon could manage things more easily and be able to build the temple (1 Chron. 22—27).

Whatever the cause, the Lord was displeased (1 Chron. 21:7), but He permitted Joab and his captains to spend the next nine months and twenty days counting the Israelites twenty years old and upward who were fit for military service. Sometimes God’s greatest judgment is simply to let us have our own way. The census takers left Jerusalem, traveled east across the Jordan, and started counting at Aroer in the vicinity of the Dead Sea. Then they moved north through Gad and Gilead to Israel’s northernmost border, where David had conquered the territory and expanded his kingdom (2 Sam. 8). The men then went west to Tyre and Sidon and then south to Beersheba in Judah, Israel’s farthest border city.

From Beersheba, they returned to Jerusalem, but they didn’t count the Levites (who were exempted from military duty, Num. 1:49; 2:33) and the men of Benjamin. The tabernacle was located at Gibeon in Benjamin (1 Chron. 16:39–40; 21:29) and Joab may have thought it unwise to invade holy territory on such a sinful mission. Anyway, Saul had come from Benjamin and there may still have been pockets of resistance in the tribe. Benjamin was too close to home and Joab didn’t want to take any chances. The incomplete total was 1,300,000 men.

A convicted king (24:10–14; 1 Chron. 21:7–13). Realizing that he had been foolish in pursuing the project, David confessed his sin and sought the Lord’s face. At least six times in Scripture we find David confessing “I have sinned” (2 Sam. 12:13; 24:10, 17; Ps. 41: and 51:4; 1 Chron. 21:8). When he confessed his sins of adultery and murder, David said, “I have sinned”; but when he confessed his sin of numbering the people, he said, “I have sinned greatly” (italics mine). Most of us would consider his sins relating to Bathsheba far worse than the sin of numbering the people, and far more foolish, but David saw the enormity of what he had done. David’s sins with Bathsheba took the lives of four of David’s sons (the baby, Amnon, Absalom, and Adonijah) plus the life of Uriah, but after the census, God sent a plague that took the lives of seventy thousand people. The Lord must have agreed with David that he had indeed sinned greatly.

David’s sin with Bathsheba was a sin of the flesh, a yielding to lust after an afternoon of laziness (11:2; Gal. 5:19), but the census was a sin of the spirit (see 2 Cor. 7:1), a willful act of rebellion against God. It was motivated by pride, and pride is number one on the list of the sins that God hates (Prov. 6:16–17). “Pride is the ground in which all the other sins grow,” wrote William Barclay, “and the parent from which all the other sins come.” Both Scripture and civil law make a distinction between sudden sins of passion and willful sins of rebellion and treat the guilty parties differently (Deut. 19:1–13; Ex. 21:12–14). The census was willful rebellion, and David sinned against a flood of light. Furthermore, God gave David over nine months’ time to repent, but he refused to yield. In the various scenes in David’s history, Joab doesn’t come across as a godly man, but even Joab was opposed to this project, and so were his officers. David should have heeded their counsel, but he was determined to have a census.

God in His grace forgives our sins when we confess them (1 John 1:9), but in His righteous government, He allows us to reap the consequences. In this case, the Lord even gave David the privilege of choosing the consequences. Why? Because David’s disobedience was a sin of the will, a deliberate choice on David’s part, so God allowed him to make another choice and name the punishment. Gad gave the king three choices and told him to consider them, make a decision, and give his answer when the prophet returned.

Between the first and second visits, David must have sought the face of the Lord, for God lowered the famine period from seven years to three years, which explains the seeming discrepancy between 2 Samuel 24: and 1 Chronicles 21:12. In His mercy, God shortened the days of the suffering for His chosen people (Matt. 24:22). The three punishments are named in God’s covenant with Israel (Deut. 28), so David shouldn’t have been surprised: famine—28:23–24, 38–40; military defeat—28:25–26, 41–48; pestilence—28:21–22, 27–28, 35, 60–61. In Jewish law, the unintentional sin of the high priest was equivalent to the sin of the entire congregation (Lev. 4:1–3, 13–14), so how much more would the penalties apply to a king who had sinned intentionally! Knowing the mercy of the Lord, David wisely chose pestilence for his punishment.

A repentant king (24:15–25; 1 Chron. 21:14–30). The plague started the next day at morning and continued for the appointed three days, with the judgment angel ending his work at Jerusalem, just as Joab and his men had done (v. 8). David’s shepherd’s heart was broken because of this judgment and he pleaded with the Lord to punish him instead. Why would God kill seventy thousand men and yet keep David alive? We must note that 24: says that God was angry with Israel and not with David, so He must have been punishing the people for some sin they had committed. It’s been suggested that this plague took the lives of the Israelites who had followed Absalom in his rebellion and didn’t want David as their king. This may be so, but the text doesn’t tell us.

God permitted David to see the judgment angel hovering over Jerusalem near the threshing floor of Araunah (Ornan), a Jebusite. The Jebusites were the original inhabitants of Jerusalem, so Ornan had submitted to David’s rule and become a reputable citizen of Jerusalem. We aren’t told that David heard God’s command to the angel to cease plaguing the people, but David knew that God was merciful and gracious, so he begged for mercy for “the sheep of his pasture” (Ps. 100:3). The elders of Israel were with David (1 Chron. 21:16) and with him fell to the ground in humble contrition and worship. It was David’s sin that precipitated the crisis, but perhaps they realized that the nation had also sinned and deserved to feel God’s rod of discipline.

Once again, the prophet Gad appeared on the scene, this time with a message of hope. David was to build an altar on Ornan’s threshing floor and there offer sacrifices to the Lord, and the plague would cease. As king, David could have appropriated the property (1 Sam. 8:14) or even borrowed it, but he insisted on purchasing it. David knew the high cost of sinning, and he refused to give the Lord something that had cost him nothing. For fifty shekels of silver he purchased the oxen for sacrifices and the wooden yokes for fuel, and for six hundred shekels of gold, he purchased the entire threshing floor (24:24; 1 Chron. 21:25). When the priest offered the sacrifices, God sent fire from heaven to consume them as a token of His acceptance (1 Chron. 21:26; Lev. 9:24).

Knowing that the king was well able to purchase his property, why was Ornan so anxious to give it to David absolutely free? Or was his offer just another instance of traditional Eastern courtesy in the art of bargaining? (See Gen. 23.) Perhaps Ornan remembered what happened to Saul’s descendants because of what Saul did to the Gibeonites (21:1–14) and he didn’t want the lives of his sons threatened (1 Chron. 21:20). The King James translation of verse 23 is a bit awkward and gives the idea that Ornan himself was a king, so the NIV or NASB should be consulted.

The land that David purchased was no ordinary piece of property, for it was the place where Abraham had put his son Isaac on the altar (Gen. 22) and where Solomon would build the temple (1 Chron. 22:1; 2 Chron. 3:1). After the plague had ceased, David consecrated the site to the Lord (Lev. 27:20–21) and used it as a place of sacrifice and worship. The altar and tabernacle were at Gibeon, but David was permitted to worship at Jerusalem. The land was sanctified and would one day be the site of God’s temple. David announced, “This is the house of the Lord God, and this is the altar of the burnt offering for Israel” (1 Chron. 22:1), and from that time began to get everything ready for Solomon to build the temple.

If you were asked to name David’s two greatest sins, you would probably reply, “His adultery with Bathsheba and his numbering of the people,” and you would be right. But out of those two great sins, God built a temple! Bathsheba gave birth to Solomon and God chose him to succeed David on the throne. On the property David purchased and on which he erected an altar, Solomon built the temple and dedicated it to the glory of God. What God did for David is certainly not an excuse for sin (Rom. 6:1–2), because David paid dearly for committing those sins. However, knowing what God did for David does encourage us to seek His face and trust His grace when we have disobeyed Him. “But where sin abounded, grace abounded much more” (Rom. 5:20). What a merciful God we serve!

Second Samuel 24: states that God incited David to number the people, while 1 Chronicles 21: names Satan as the culprit. Both are true: God permitted Satan to tempt David in order to accomplish the purposes He had in mind. Satan certainly opposed God’s people throughout all of Old Testament history, but this is one of four instances in the Old Testament where Satan is named specifically and seen openly at work. The other three are when he tempted Eve (Gen. 3), when he attacked Job (Job 1—2), and when he accused Joshua the high priest (Zech. 3).

A proud king (vv. 1–9; 1 Chron. 21:1–6). There was nothing illegal about a national census, if it was done according to the rules laid down in Exodus 30:11–16 (and see Num. 3:40–51). The half shekel received at the census was used to pay the bills for the sanctuary of God (Ex. 38:25–28). As a good Jewish citizen, Jesus paid his temple tax (Matt. 17:24–27), even though He knew that much of the ministry at the temple in that day was corrupt and had been rejected by His Father (Matt. 23:37–24:1). The phrase “the people” used in 2 Samuel 24:2, 4, 9, 10 refers to the Jewish military forces and is used this way in the Authorized Version of 1 Samuel 4:3, 4, 17. But the census that David ordered wasn’t to collect the annual temple tax; it was a military census to see how big his army was, as verse 9 makes clear. But there had been military censuses in Israel in the past and the Lord hadn’t judged the nation (Num. 1 and 26). What was there about this census that was wrong?

Joab and his captains were against the project (v. 4) and Joab’s speech in verse 3 suggests that David’s command was motivated by pride. The king wanted to magnify his own achievements rather than glorify the Lord. David may have rationalized this desire by arguing that his son Solomon was a man of peace who had no military experience. David wanted to be certain that, after his death, Israel would have the forces needed to preserve the peace. Another factor may have been David’s plan to organize the army, the government, and the priests and Levites so that Solomon could manage things more easily and be able to build the temple (1 Chron. 22—27).

Whatever the cause, the Lord was displeased (1 Chron. 21:7), but He permitted Joab and his captains to spend the next nine months and twenty days counting the Israelites twenty years old and upward who were fit for military service. Sometimes God’s greatest judgment is simply to let us have our own way. The census takers left Jerusalem, traveled east across the Jordan, and started counting at Aroer in the vicinity of the Dead Sea. Then they moved north through Gad and Gilead to Israel’s northernmost border, where David had conquered the territory and expanded his kingdom (2 Sam. 8). The men then went west to Tyre and Sidon and then south to Beersheba in Judah, Israel’s farthest border city.

From Beersheba, they returned to Jerusalem, but they didn’t count the Levites (who were exempted from military duty, Num. 1:49; 2:33) and the men of Benjamin. The tabernacle was located at Gibeon in Benjamin (1 Chron. 16:39–40; 21:29) and Joab may have thought it unwise to invade holy territory on such a sinful mission. Anyway, Saul had come from Benjamin and there may still have been pockets of resistance in the tribe. Benjamin was too close to home and Joab didn’t want to take any chances. The incomplete total was 1,300,000 men.

A convicted king (24:10–14; 1 Chron. 21:7–13). Realizing that he had been foolish in pursuing the project, David confessed his sin and sought the Lord’s face. At least six times in Scripture we find David confessing “I have sinned” (2 Sam. 12:13; 24:10, 17; Ps. 41: and 51:4; 1 Chron. 21:8). When he confessed his sins of adultery and murder, David said, “I have sinned”; but when he confessed his sin of numbering the people, he said, “I have sinned greatly” (italics mine). Most of us would consider his sins relating to Bathsheba far worse than the sin of numbering the people, and far more foolish, but David saw the enormity of what he had done. David’s sins with Bathsheba took the lives of four of David’s sons (the baby, Amnon, Absalom, and Adonijah) plus the life of Uriah, but after the census, God sent a plague that took the lives of seventy thousand people. The Lord must have agreed with David that he had indeed sinned greatly.

David’s sin with Bathsheba was a sin of the flesh, a yielding to lust after an afternoon of laziness (11:2; Gal. 5:19), but the census was a sin of the spirit (see 2 Cor. 7:1), a willful act of rebellion against God. It was motivated by pride, and pride is number one on the list of the sins that God hates (Prov. 6:16–17). “Pride is the ground in which all the other sins grow,” wrote William Barclay, “and the parent from which all the other sins come.” Both Scripture and civil law make a distinction between sudden sins of passion and willful sins of rebellion and treat the guilty parties differently (Deut. 19:1–13; Ex. 21:12–14). The census was willful rebellion, and David sinned against a flood of light. Furthermore, God gave David over nine months’ time to repent, but he refused to yield. In the various scenes in David’s history, Joab doesn’t come across as a godly man, but even Joab was opposed to this project, and so were his officers. David should have heeded their counsel, but he was determined to have a census.

God in His grace forgives our sins when we confess them (1 John 1:9), but in His righteous government, He allows us to reap the consequences. In this case, the Lord even gave David the privilege of choosing the consequences. Why? Because David’s disobedience was a sin of the will, a deliberate choice on David’s part, so God allowed him to make another choice and name the punishment. Gad gave the king three choices and told him to consider them, make a decision, and give his answer when the prophet returned.

Between the first and second visits, David must have sought the face of the Lord, for God lowered the famine period from seven years to three years, which explains the seeming discrepancy between 2 Samuel 24: and 1 Chronicles 21:12. In His mercy, God shortened the days of the suffering for His chosen people (Matt. 24:22). The three punishments are named in God’s covenant with Israel (Deut. 28), so David shouldn’t have been surprised: famine—28:23–24, 38–40; military defeat—28:25–26, 41–48; pestilence—28:21–22, 27–28, 35, 60–61. In Jewish law, the unintentional sin of the high priest was equivalent to the sin of the entire congregation (Lev. 4:1–3, 13–14), so how much more would the penalties apply to a king who had sinned intentionally! Knowing the mercy of the Lord, David wisely chose pestilence for his punishment.

A repentant king (24:15–25; 1 Chron. 21:14–30). The plague started the next day at morning and continued for the appointed three days, with the judgment angel ending his work at Jerusalem, just as Joab and his men had done (v. 8). David’s shepherd’s heart was broken because of this judgment and he pleaded with the Lord to punish him instead. Why would God kill seventy thousand men and yet keep David alive? We must note that 24: says that God was angry with Israel and not with David, so He must have been punishing the people for some sin they had committed. It’s been suggested that this plague took the lives of the Israelites who had followed Absalom in his rebellion and didn’t want David as their king. This may be so, but the text doesn’t tell us.

God permitted David to see the judgment angel hovering over Jerusalem near the threshing floor of Araunah (Ornan), a Jebusite. The Jebusites were the original inhabitants of Jerusalem, so Ornan had submitted to David’s rule and become a reputable citizen of Jerusalem. We aren’t told that David heard God’s command to the angel to cease plaguing the people, but David knew that God was merciful and gracious, so he begged for mercy for “the sheep of his pasture” (Ps. 100:3). The elders of Israel were with David (1 Chron. 21:16) and with him fell to the ground in humble contrition and worship. It was David’s sin that precipitated the crisis, but perhaps they realized that the nation had also sinned and deserved to feel God’s rod of discipline.

Once again, the prophet Gad appeared on the scene, this time with a message of hope. David was to build an altar on Ornan’s threshing floor and there offer sacrifices to the Lord, and the plague would cease. As king, David could have appropriated the property (1 Sam. 8:14) or even borrowed it, but he insisted on purchasing it. David knew the high cost of sinning, and he refused to give the Lord something that had cost him nothing. For fifty shekels of silver he purchased the oxen for sacrifices and the wooden yokes for fuel, and for six hundred shekels of gold, he purchased the entire threshing floor (24:24; 1 Chron. 21:25). When the priest offered the sacrifices, God sent fire from heaven to consume them as a token of His acceptance (1 Chron. 21:26; Lev. 9:24).

Knowing that the king was well able to purchase his property, why was Ornan so anxious to give it to David absolutely free? Or was his offer just another instance of traditional Eastern courtesy in the art of bargaining? (See Gen. 23.) Perhaps Ornan remembered what happened to Saul’s descendants because of what Saul did to the Gibeonites (21:1–14) and he didn’t want the lives of his sons threatened (1 Chron. 21:20). The King James translation of verse 23 is a bit awkward and gives the idea that Ornan himself was a king, so the NIV or NASB should be consulted.

The land that David purchased was no ordinary piece of property, for it was the place where Abraham had put his son Isaac on the altar (Gen. 22) and where Solomon would build the temple (1 Chron. 22:1; 2 Chron. 3:1). After the plague had ceased, David consecrated the site to the Lord (Lev. 27:20–21) and used it as a place of sacrifice and worship. The altar and tabernacle were at Gibeon, but David was permitted to worship at Jerusalem. The land was sanctified and would one day be the site of God’s temple. David announced, “This is the house of the Lord God, and this is the altar of the burnt offering for Israel” (1 Chron. 22:1), and from that time began to get everything ready for Solomon to build the temple.

If you were asked to name David’s two greatest sins, you would probably reply, “His adultery with Bathsheba and his numbering of the people,” and you would be right. But out of those two great sins, God built a temple! Bathsheba gave birth to Solomon and God chose him to succeed David on the throne. On the property David purchased and on which he erected an altar, Solomon built the temple and dedicated it to the glory of God. What God did for David is certainly not an excuse for sin (Rom. 6:1–2), because David paid dearly for committing those sins. However, knowing what God did for David does encourage us to seek His face and trust His grace when we have disobeyed Him. “But where sin abounded, grace abounded much more” (Rom. 5:20). What a merciful God we serve!

The death of King David is not recorded in 2 Samuel, but in 1 Kings 2:1–12. However, 2

Samuel 23–24 record his last psalm, the names of his greatest soldiers, and the sad account of his sin of numbering the people. Chapters 21–24 serve as an “appendix” to 2 Samuel and seem to focus on the divine and human sides of leadership. A leader’s decisions may have serious consequences, as proved by the sins of Saul (chap. 21) and David (chap. 24). Leaders must depend on the Lord and give Him the glory, as David’s two psalms declare, and no leader can do the job alone, as indicated by the list of David’s mighty men. Second Samuel 23–24 give us three portraits of David that illustrate the greatness and the humanness of this leader’s life.

The death of King David is not recorded in 2 Samuel, but in 1 Kings 2:1–12. However, 2

Samuel 23–24 record his last psalm, the names of his greatest soldiers, and the sad account of his sin of numbering the people. Chapters 21–24 serve as an “appendix” to 2 Samuel and seem to focus on the divine and human sides of leadership. A leader’s decisions may have serious consequences, as proved by the sins of Saul (chap. 21) and David (chap. 24). Leaders must depend on the Lord and give Him the glory, as David’s two psalms declare, and no leader can do the job alone, as indicated by the list of David’s mighty men. Second Samuel 23–24 give us three portraits of David that illustrate the greatness and the humanness of this leader’s life.