EXPOSITION
This very important chapter in David's history is the parallel of 2 Samuel 24:1-25, which contains some details not found here, e.g. the route taken by those who went to number Israel (2 Samuel 24:5-8), and omits others. This chapter furnishes one of the clearer proofs (in respect of what it supplies, not found in Samuel) that its indebtedness is not to that book, but to a work open as well to the compiler of Chronicles as to the writer of Samuel. Its contents fall into five sections.
1. David's command to number the people, with Joab's remonstrances (2 Samuel 24:1-6).
2. The means taken to rouse David to a sense of his sin, and his confession thereof (2 Samuel 24:7, 2 Samuel 24:8).
3. The choice between punishments presented to him and his prayer under the drawn sword of the angel for the sparing of the people (2 Samuel 24:9-17).
4. The accepted propitiatory sacrifices and offerings of David, and the consequent stay of the plague (2 Samuel 24:18 -27).
5. David's grateful establishment of that same spot as the place of sacrifice (verses 28-30).
1 Chronicles 21:1
Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel. This remarkable sentence takes the place of the statements in the parallel, "And again the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he moved David against them to say, Go, number Israel and Judah." Our own passage seems to confine the temptation and sin to David. David also seems to be spoken of as the object of malignant attack on the part of Satan, though Israel is spoken of as the object of malignant envy and animosity. It is also to be noticed that in 1 Chronicles 21:17 David takes all the blame to himself, and speaks of the people as "innocent sheep." A people and whole nation have, indeed, often suffered the smart of one ruler's sin. Yet here the light thrown upon the whole event by the account in the Book of Samuel must be accepted as revealing the fact that there had been previously something amiss on the part of the people—perhaps something of illest significance lurking in their constitution. This alone could "kindle the auger of the Lord against Israel." It is the opposite of this which kindles the anger of Satan—when he witnesses excellence, surpassing excellence, as when he witnesses "the weakest saint," yet in that strongest position, "on his knees." The apparent inconsistency in Satan being spoken of as resisting Israel, and the anger of the Lord being spoken of as kindled against Israel, is but apparent and superficial. In the first place, these histories do only purport to state the facts overt. And in this sense either alternative statement gives the prima facie facts. Either is true, and both may be true in different chronological order. And further, that the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel is no disproof that Satan will see and seize his opportunity. It looks the contrary way. There was a time and an occasion in Eden when Satan thought he saw an opportunity, tried it, and found it, when the anger of the Lord was not kindled against Adam and Eve for certain. But much more prompt will be the executive of Satan at another and less doubtful time. The paths in written history are often awhile rugged and broken up; the written history of Scripture is no exception. And in thus being the more in analogy with history itself, those unevennesses and breaks are the better attestation of both the reality of the Scripture history and the veracity of its writers. The word ( שָׂטַן) occurs twenty-four times in the Old Testament. On all occasions of its occurrence in the Book of Job and in the prophecies of Zechariah, it shows the prefixed definite article; in all other places it is, with the present passage, unaccompanied by the article. Its translation here might appear strictly as that of a proper name. But this cannot be said of the other instances of its use, when without the article (Numbers 22:22, Numbers 22:32; 1 Samuel 29:4). This constitutes with some the ground of the very opposite opinion and opposite translation. If we regard the name as utterly expressing the personality of Satan, the passage is very noteworthy, and will be most safely regarded as the language of the compiler, and not as copied from the original source. The signification of the word "Satan," as is well known, is "adversary," or "accuser." The sin of David in giving the order of this verse was of a technical and ceremonial character, in the first place, whatever his motives were, and however intensified by other causes of a moral and more individual complexion. We learn (Exodus 30:12-16) the special enactments respecting what was to be observed when "the sum of the children of Israel after their number" was to be taken. However, the same passage does not say, it fails to say, when such a numbering would be legitimate or when not. It is left us, therefore, to deduce this from observation. And we notice, in the first place, that, on the occasion of its undoubted rightness, it is the work of the distinct commandment of God (Numbers 1:1-3; Numbers 26:1-4). Next, we notice the religious contribution, "the ransom," that was required with it (Exodus 30:12-16; Exodus 38:25, Exodus 38:26; Numbers 31:48 -55). Again, we notice that the numberings narrated both in the beginning of the Book of Numbers (1.) and toward the close (26.) had specific moral objects as assigned by God—among them the forcible teaching of the loss entailed by the successive rebellions of the people (Numbers 26:64, Numbers 26:65; Deuteronomy 2:14, Deuteronomy 2:15). And though last, not least, all these indications are lighted up by the express and emphatic announcements in God's original promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, that their seed should become past numbering, multitudinous as the stars, and as the sands of the seashore. From all which we may conclude that only that numbering was held legitimate which was for God's service in some form, and as against human pride and boastfulness—by God's command as against a human king's fancy—and which was attended by the payment of that solemn "ransom" money, the bekah, or half-shekel (Exodus 30:12). Other numbering had snares about it, and it was no doubt because it had such intrinsically that it was divinely discountenanced, and in this case severely punished. It seems gratuitous with some to tax David with having other motives than those of some sort of vanity now at work, sinister designs of preparing, unaided and unpermitted, some fresh military exploits, or stealing a march on the nation itself in the matter of some new system of taxation. The context offers no corroboration of either of these notions, while several lesser indications point to the simplest explanation (1 Chronicles 27:23).
1 Chronicles 21:2
And to the rulers of the people. So Numbers 1:4, "And with you there shall be a man of every tribe; every one head of the house of his fathers" (see also 1 Chronicles 27:22-24; 2 Samuel 24:4, 2 Samuel 24:5).
1 Chronicles 21:3
But my lord the king, are they not all my lord's servants? The place of this perfectly intelligible sentence, indicating that Joab discerned the object of David in desiring the numbering of the people, is occupied in the Book of Samuel by the words, "And that the eyes of my lord the king may see it;" which some for no very evident reason prefer. It was, no doubt, a very radical element of David's sin in this matter that he was thinking of the nation too much as his own servants, instead of as the servants of his one Master. The Lord ever knoweth who are his, and numbereth not only them and their names, but their every sigh, tear, prayer. A cause of trespass. This clause may be explained as though trespass was equivalent to the consequences, i.e. the punishment of trespass. This. however, rather tends to explain away than to explain a phrase. More probably the deeper meaning is that, in the fact of the numbering, nation and king would become one in act, and would become involved together in indisputable sin. Though there were no unfeigned assent and consent in the great body of the nation to the numbering, yet they would become participators in the wrong-doing. It would further seem evident, from Joab addressing these words to the king, that it was a thing familiarly known and thoroughly understood that the course David was now bent on following was one virtually, if not actually, prohibited, and not one merely likely to be displeasing to God on account of any individual disposition in David to be boastful or self-confident. Otherwise it would be scarcely within the province of Joab either to express or suppose this of his royal master.
1 Chronicles 21:4
Wherefore Joab departed, and went throughout all Israel, and came to Jerusalem. This short verse stands in the place of all the five verses of 2 Samuel 24:4-8, with their interesting contents, giving the route which Joab and his assistants took, and the time occupied (nine months and twenty days) to their return.
1 Chronicles 21:5
The report of the numbers as given in this verse does not tally with that of the parallel place. Here they are three hundred thousand more for Israel, and thirty thousand fewer for Judah, than there. No really satisfactory explanation of these discrepancies has yet appeared. The somewhat ingenious suggestion that the Chronicle-compiler counted in the standing army (two hundred and eighty-eight thousand, 1 Chronicles 27:1-15) for Israel, and omitted from Judah a supposed "thirty thousand," under the head of "the thirty" of our 1 Chronicles 11:1-47.; while the writer of the Book of Samuel did exactly the converse,—can scarcely pass muster, although it must be noticed that it would meet in the main the exigencies of the case. A likelier suggestion might be found in a comparison of the statements of our 1 Chronicles 11:6 compared with 1 Chronicles 27:22-24. Indeed, the last sentence of this last-quoted verse (1 Chronicles 27:24) may possibly contain the explanation of all (cutup. Numbers 1:47-50; Numbers 2:33). That Joab utterly refused to number Levi, because this was a thing most distinctly prohibited (and further because it was not material to David's presumable objects), was quite to be expected. And though Joab is said in the following verse not to have numbered Benjamin, it is possible enough that he may have known this number (1 Chronicles 7:6-11). Yet see what follows.
1 Chronicles 21:6
Averse to his task as Joab was, he may have been indebted to the memory of the exemption of Levi from census for the idea of enlarging upon it and omitting Benjamin as well. The important contents of this short verse are not found in Samuel, so that we can borrow no light thence. But Benjamin was "the least of the tribes" ( 21:1-23), and Peele has suggested that God would not permit the numbers of either of these tribes to be lessened, as he foresaw that they would be faithful to the throne of David on the division of the kingdom. Others think that the omission of these tribes in the census may have been due to Joab's recall to Jerusalem before the completion of the work, and to the king's repentance in the interim cutting off the necessity of completing it. This little agrees, however, with the resolute tone and assigned reason contained in this verse. Peele's explanation, meantime, explains nothing in respect of the statement that the king's word was abominable to Joab.
1 Chronicles 21:7
Smote Israel. These two words serve simply to summarize in the first instance what the compiler is about to rehearse at greater length. The parallel place shows, "And David's heart smote him after that he had numbered the people." Some better power occasioned that smiting. Reflection brought to David's heart and conscience (1 Samuel 24:5), as often to those of others, restored vitality. The exact circumstances or providences, however, which roused into action the conscience of David are not stated. The second clause of our verse cannot refer to any preliminary smiting, but to the oncoming visitation of pestilence. It is noticeable, if only as a coincidence, that the eleventh verse of the parallel passage (2 Samuel 24:11) opens with a similarly ambiguously placed clause, "For when David was up in the morning, the word of the Lord came to the Prophet Gad," although this is explainable simply as our insufficient Authorized Version rendering. However, failing any external cause, the beginning of 1 Chronicles 21:10 in this same parallel place may intimate the adequate account of all in the spontaneous stirring of David's conscience "the bitter thoughts of conscience born." In these two verses we suddenly come upon the name "God" instead of "the Lord," i.e. Jehovah.
1 Chronicles 21:9
Gad, David's seer. The parallel place says, "The Prophet Gad ( הֲנָּבִיא), David's seer" (2 Samuel 24:11). The Hebrew word here used in both passages for "seer," is חֹזֶה, in place of the word of higher import, הָרֹאֶה, the use of which is confined to Samuel, Hanani, and to the person spoken of in Isaiah 30:10. In this last passage our Authorized Version translates "prophet" while in 1 Chronicles 29:29 our Authorized Version translates both Hebrew names in the very same verse by the one English word "seer." Gad was, perhaps, a pupil of David (2 Samuel 22:8), and was the successor of Samuel (1 Chronicles 9:22) in this office.
1 Chronicles 21:12
Three years' famine. The parallel place has, in our Hebrew text, "seven" instead of "three." But the Septuagint indicates this to be but a corruption of a later text; for it reads" three," as here. The parallel place shows no mention of the destroying angel here spoken of. The three inflictions of famine, sword, pestilence, are found not unfrequently elsewhere in Scripture (see Deuteronomy 28:21-25; Ezekiel 14:21; Revelation 6:4-8). Now … advise thyself. The simple text is" Now see," in place of "Now know and see" of the parallel passage.
1 Chronicles 21:13
It is in such answers as these—answers of equal piety and practical wisdom, that the difference is often visible between the man radically bad, and the man good at heart and the child of grace, even when fallen into the deepest depth of sin.
1 Chronicles 21:14
So the Lord sent pestilence upon Israel. This sentence is followed in the parallel place by "from the morning even to the time appointed." It has been suggested that "the time appointed" may mean the time of the evening sacrifice, and that God shortened thus the three days to a short one day. There seems nothing sufficient to support the suggestion, unless it might lie in the "repenting" of the Lord, and his "staying" of the angel's hand, in 1 Chronicles 21:15. There fell of Israel seventy thousand men. The whole number of Israel, including women, must have reached near to five millions. On this assumption, the sacrifice of life for Israel would be something like 14 per cent; or fourteen in the thousand.
1 Chronicles 21:15
And God sent an angel. It is at this point first that any mention of an angel is found in the parallel place, but then not in the present form, but in a sentence which would seem to presuppose the knowledge of the agency of an angel on the occasion: "And when the angel stretched out his hand upon Jerusalem to destroy it, the Lord repented him of the evil" (2 Samuel 24:16). Stood by the threshing-floor of Ornan. The verb "stood" is employed here quite generically. It does not imply that the angel stood on the ground; for see next verse, in which it is said that he "stood between the earth and the heaven," the Hebrew verb being exactly the same. Ornan is the uniform form and spelling of the name in Chronicles. In Samuel, however, the name appears as אֲרַנְוָה (2 Samuel 24:20), or Araunah. Yet in 1 Chronicles 21:16, of the same chapter the Kethiv inverts the order of the resh and vau, prefixing the article, or what looks like it, and again in 1 Chronicles 21:18 the Kethiv shows the form אֲרַנְיָה. Ornan, then, or Arauuah, was a descendant of the old Jebusite race to whom the fort of Zion once belonged. And the present narrative finds him living on the Hill of Moriah. The threshing-floor. The primitive threshing-floors of the Israelites still essentially obtain. They were level spots of stamped and well-trodden earth, about fifty feet in diameter, and selected in positions most exposed to the wind, in order to take the advantage of its help in the separating of the grain from the chaff. On these circular spots of hard earth the sheaves of grain, of whatever kind, were distributed in all sorts of disorder. Oxen and other cattle trod them. And sometimes these beasts were driven round and round five abreast. The stalk of the grain was, of course, much bruised and crushed, and the method is described still as of a very rough and wasteful kind. Instruments were also employed, as the "flail" (Ruth 2:17; Isaiah 28:27, Isaiah 28:28); the "sledge," to which possibly reference is made in 8:7, 8:16, under the name barkanim (Authorized Version, "briers"). These sledges were of two kinds:
1 Chronicles 21:16, 1 Chronicles 21:17
These verses offer instances, especially the former, of the shorter narratives not being with Chronicles, but with Samuel And the longer narrative being with Chronicles is found uniformly in the cases in which reference is had, whether more or less directly, to the ecclesiastical or permanent institution of the Israelites.
1 Chronicles 21:18
The angel. The Hebrew shows no article (see Numbers 22:34, Numbers 22:35; 1 Kings 13:18; 1 Kings 19:5; Zechariah 1:9). The place where the altar was now about to be erected was that made famous by the sacrifice of Abraham (Genesis 22:2, Genesis 22:9), and, though less certainly, that known to the priesthood of Melchizedek (Genesis 14:17-20).
1 Chronicles 21:20
This verse is not found in the parallel place. The Septuagint reading of "king" in this verse, in place of "angel," is no doubt an error. The drift of this and the following verse is plain and continuous. Ornan and his sons had hidden themselves on the apparition of the angel, but came out on the advent of David, to welcome him.
1 Chronicles 21:22
The place of this threshing-floor; i.e. the place on which the threshing-floor was made. It was the level summit of the middle elevated ground of the eastern ridge on which Jerusalem was situate (1 Chronicles 11:4-7).
1 Chronicles 21:23
Ornan's offer to David of the threshing-floor and all its belongings, as a gift, reminds of Ephron's offer to Abraham (Genesis 23:11). Ornan's prompt offer of gift was, perhaps, all the prompter from the desire to render every assistance to the staying of the plague. For burnt offerings … for the meat offering. The whole code of regulations for offerings—sin offering, trespass offering, peace offering, burnt offering, meat and drink offering—is to be found in Leviticus 1-7. As regards the burnt offering, see Leviticus 1:1-17.; Leviticus 6:8-13. It was called עֹלָה, from its "ascending" accepted to heaven, or else from its being put up or raised up (Hiph. conjugation) on the altar; and sometimes כָּלִיל, from being "wholly" consumed. The sin and trespass offerings were for special sins, but this was of a more comprehensive kind and of much greater dignity, as standing for the "purging of the conscience." The entire consuming of the sacrifice signified the unqualified self-surrender of him who brought the sacrifice. It was a voluntary offering, the offerer laid his hand on the head of the victim, and the blood of the victim was sprinkled round about the altar. The meat offering ( מִנְחָה) is fully described in Leviticus it.; Leviticus 6:14-23. It was an offering without blood, and therefore was an accompaniment of an offering of blood. It was composed of flour or cakes, prepared with salt, oil, and frank-incense—the salt emblematic of non-decay; the oil, of spiritual grace; and the frankincense, of acceptable fragrance. A portion of this offering was to be burnt, and a portion eaten by the priests in the court, unless it was for a priest himself, when all must be burnt. Meantime a drink offering of wine was, in fact, a part of the meat offering itself (Exodus 29:40, Exodus 29:41; Leviticus 23:13; Numbers 15:4-7, Numbers 15:9, Numbers 15:10). The material of the meat offering might be the green or fresh-gathered ears of corn. The Septuagint translates δῶρον; Luther, speis-opfer; and it need scarcely be said that our Authorized Version meat offering exhibits only the generic employment of the word "meat" for food.
1 Chronicles 21:25
Six hundred shekels of gold by weight. The only way to reconcile this statement with that of the parallel place, which (2 Samuel 24:24)speaks of "fifty shekels of silver" (i.e. taking the shekel at 2s. 8d; equal to about f6 13s. 4d.) as the price of "the threshing-floor and the oxen," is to suppose that the fifty shekels speak of the purchase money of the oxen indeed, but not of the floor itself, which was valuable, not only for size and situation, but also for its prepared construction; or again, keeping to the literal language of Samuel, that "the floor and the oxen" are intended, while our expression, "the place," may designate the whole hill. The value of gold as compared with silver was as sixteen to one. If this be the solution, we should have again an instance of the compiler of this book seizing for perpetuation the point of greatest and most permanent interest, i.e. the purchase of the whole place.
1 Chronicles 21:26
He answered him from heaven by fire. There is no doubt significance in the fact that the compiler of Chronicles records this answer by fire, unmentioned in the Book of Samuel. He would give prominence to this great token, as determining, or going a great way towards determining, the site of the temple. The answer by fire was given on critical and special occasions (Le 1 Chronicles 9:24; 1 Kings 18:24, 1 Kings 18:38).
1 Chronicles 21:28
David saw that the Lord had answered him in the threshing-floor. David "saw" this by the fire on the altar, and by the fact that God, at the voice of the angel (1 Chronicles 21:18), had not misdirected him, but had guided him aright. He sacrificed there. This means to say that he thenceforward "sacrificed there;" and established there the service of sacrifices. David was so impressed "at that time," by the answer given in fire from heaven, that he began systematically to sacrifice on the site of this threshing-floor, instead of going to the high place at Gibeon, where the altar of burnt offering still stood. To have attempted to go thither would not only have meant a long and wasteful delay, but would also have meant the neglecting of the august omen of the angel present. An awful sanction is thus given to "this place," Moriah, and it becomes "the house of the Lord God," and the place of lawful and established sacrifice.
HOMILETICS
1 Chronicles 21:1-30.-Typical, sin, suffering, sorrow, sacrifice.
The study of the narrative before us, together with its parallel, leads, with little room for hesitation, to the conclusion that there must have been symptoms in the national character of Israel at this time calling for some severe check or peremptory visitation. Failing this supposition, we cannot satisfactorily get over the language of the opening verse in the parallel record of 2Sa_24:1-25. It is, however, undeniable that in both places the history lays the whole head and front of the offending upon David, and that the offending was his is corroborated by his own forcible confession in the seventeenth verse of the present chapter. The brunt of the suffering, on the other hand, falls upon the people, who were cut down by the pestilence, and upon those who, from the ties of nature, to say none other, mourned their loss. This is so entirely the tenor of the history, that our exposition has no choice but to follow its lead. And we shall therefore unfold the moral and spiritual significance of the section from the standpoint of David, counting him the sinner, holding him responsible for the suffering, watching him in his struggle to emerge from the consequences of his conduct, and to lift his people out after him, and observing the sanctified result to which all was turned by the over- and ever-ruling providence of God. Let us notice —
I. THE SIN OF DAVID IN NUMBERING THE PEOPLE. (2 Samuel 24:1-6.)
1. Whatever was the exact nature of this offence, we are not at liberty to discount it in allowing anything for the consideration already supposed, that Israel was ripe for some punishment, and stood in need of some severe visitation. This may have been true enough. Yet their leader, their shepherd, their king, should have been the first to watch each symptom of the kind, to study them anxiously, to counteract them in place of neglecting them or of co-operating with them, above all of becoming the actual exponent of them. It is for the shepherd to warn, to watch, to keep the flock. For every station in life there are its own proper duties, and for every increased and more exalted privilege of life there are its own proportioned opportunities and responsibilities. This is a moral canon of human life and society, always, everywhere, and that cannot be escaped in its solemn obligation. But how far David practically forgot it appears from this history. It is Scripture that represents it thus to us, that Satan knew the readiness of Israel to fall, designed disastrous damage to the flock, but that he saw and used his opportunity with no miscalculation, "scattering the flock" actually through and by aid of the shepherd. Once this way ascertained to be practicable in this instance, and Satan knew too well for Israel that it was the readiest way, the method most trenchant—easiest for himself, and most humiliating to those for whom he designed harm. A man's own sphere, special privilege, particular duty, will always have it in it to reveal the possibilities of sin, to find the occasion for sin, to enhance the triumph of sin, and to make it burn with fiercer blaze and more lurid glare. Many difficulties have been made out of such detail as the language of Scripture contains here, and in places of similar kind. But Scripture traverses all these, simply ignoring the sceptic's misuse of them. Scripture keeps in the tracks of the undoubted analogies of fact. Israel was ready to go wrong. Granted; but so also was he whose highest work and highest honour it was to watch and to know and to guard Israel from going wrong.
2. David's sin was the further removed from excuse, in that those who were second to him in place and authority put him in mind, and remonstrated with him, and evidently with that earnest, nervous feeling which should have been at once as good as conviction to him. The offence was deliberate, determined, and would not brook expostulation. For so it is written, "The word of the king prevailed against that of Joab and the captains of the host." It is the same thing as to say that the word of intolerant and arbitrary authority was encouraged to override the "Law and the testimony," the suggestions of memory, the remonstrances of conscience, and the kindly spoken, courteous advice of friendly and constitutional counsellors. The man who has it in him to set at nought certain kinds of expression of disapproval, that tell tales so true to nature's touch, has it in him also, so far at least as that humour is concerned, to set anything at nought. And the impression cannot be resisted that it was just so with David at this crisis.
3. The offence of David in numbering the people, unrelieved as it was by any external considerations, offers also a peculiar kind of evidence of the large infusion of the moral element. It is not, indeed, that the record of Scripture fails to furnish the grounds on which his action stood condemned; yet it may be admitted that we feel them to be wanting in some measure in precision. Considering all that resulted from the offence, this very thing proves the larger presence of no technical, no mere ceremonial fault, but of deeper moral fault. Is David condemned by the letter? He is condemned tenfold by the spirit. On the evidence, we are bound to find him guilty on the counts of principle rather than of the violation of positive commandment. Why, for instance, does not Joab in his ill-disguised disgust (which even grew with his task, 2 Samuel 24:6) quote the commandment, give chapter and verse for his intense disapproval and indignation? Oh yes, there are sins of the heart, of the subtle undergrowth of pride and ambition, and trust of self, which far surpass all others in significance and heinousness. Surely it were enough for the quondam shepherd-boy, now King of Israel, to be vicegerent of the King of kings? But David has slipped the charm of modest love and reverent fear and devoted religious service, and aims to be ruler in his own right. He does this just as really as Judas Iscariot, the disciple, thought it was open to him to compass and supersede the Master if he could. This constitutes the essence of what seems to he held up to view as the unparalleled offence of David, that he forgets his subordinate place, and presumes to try to steal an advantage on his own supreme Master. Does David wish to know the number of his fighting men? It is perhaps in part matter of pure vanity, probably in greater part in order to estimate the strength of his own supposed resources; in other words, to calculate how far he may afford to dispense with simple, trustful, humble, daily dependence—dependence on the Lord his God. Nor was the calculating less or less pernicious, that it was unacknowledged, unconscious.
II. THE SUFFERING ENTAILED BY THE ONE SINFUL DETERMINATION OF ONE MAN. (2 Samuel 24:14, 2 Samuel 24:15.)
1. We have to credit David with causing now one of the most dreadful forms of human suffering. The state of mind which is filled with apprehension of suffering is itself suffering of the worst kind for any individual. It is not diminished by company, nor distributed by being shared among many. It is terribly intensified when a community, a nation, an army, is the prey of it. First, excited imagination very likely goes beyond the ensuing realities if they were but left to themselves. Then the facts result otherwise, and the realities on which the sun in the heavens has looked down in not a few such cases surpass imagination, even to beggaring it. History's very devotee declines to believe. What cries, what wails, what maddened curses must have rent the air wherever the ear of David was to hear, whether he travelled or rested, whether he listened or strove to shut out every sound! When once pestilence walks abroad, it not only kills so many thousands of its own professional right, but from hour to hour, from morning to night, it tortures an uncounted number, who "hang in doubt of their life," and have no rest, because they "have no assurance of their life" nor, indeed, of lives dearer to them than their own. And it is this which David does for the very flock it was his life-work to fold, to feed, and to shield free even from the breath of fear.
2. We have to credit David with having cut short some seventy thousand human careers. Even though the nation may have deserved the punishment, and their crimes have cried for judgment, David has laden himself withal with the responsibility of inflicting it. So many streams of human life he has dried up. So many deaths lie at his door. At so many burials the loud mourners and the low mourners, say it is he who has rifled the home of life and love, and opened the sepulchre's dark door to receive an untimely prey. Youth he has cut down, beauty he has blighted, in their opening freshest hope. The strong men, the pride and defence of his kingdom, and the support of its homes, he has laid weak as the weakest. And for the peaceful or splendid sunsetting of old age he has substituted a horizon overspread with the gloomiest clouds. This is what one sinful determination of one man carried through could do, and really did. And it is a type of many, many an antitype. It is a type not least in this one element of it, that it did what it never meant nor thought to do, and yet is to the full answerable for it, because it was not in the path of duty, and was distinctly out of it. Sin sometimes takes very heavy toll out of those who do wrong, not because they mean to do so, but because they do not mean not to do it, and do not live with watching and prayer.
3. We have to credit David's sin with an incalculable amount of human grief. Not always, by any means, is he who is gone the one who deserves most pity, even as he certainly is past the reach of any sympathy, but rather those who remain, who remember, who grieve, who weep, and not merely "would not be comforted," but cannot be comforted, for comfort is not. To wound human affections, to make hearts bleed, to crush human courage, hope, life, is surely among the deadly sins, and to be revealed "in that day." If Abel's blood cried to God from the very earth, what cries must have reached him from the innumerable bleeding hearts of bereft homes now, wrecked of hope and joy and peace by David!
III. THE STRUGGLE OF DAVID TO EMERGE FROM THE CONSEQUENCES OF HIS SIN, AND TO EXTRICATE HIS PEOPLE AFTER HIM. (2 Samuel 24:12, 2 Samuel 24:13, 2 Samuel 24:16, 2 Samuel 24:17.) And it must be allowed at once that David begins to resume again his better self.
1. The struggle was the struggle of conviction, confession, prayer, even to wrestling; not the struggle against these. Although it may be held that there is some ambiguity about it, yet a comparison and combination of the two accounts need leave little hesitation as to the real order of things. David's heart "smote him" after that he had numbered the people. Never mind that, it was not quite a spontaneous stirring of the conscience and heart that were within him; yet there was the fact—branded and seared they were not. God's sudden morning call and message (2 Samuel 24:11) roused David from his torpor in the twinkling of an eye. It was upon this event that conviction, most unreserved confession, entreaty for pardon and mercy, and in due time intercession, followed. And they followed with no other calculation than the calculation most instinctive of an awakened and alarmed soul. The real ring, solemn though the ring was, of other well-known self-condemnation of David, is now unmistakably heard. Not a syllable of excuse, not an accent of extenuation, is to be detected in the tone.
2. The struggle shows David in the midst of the very paroxysm of grief, and fresh from the rebuke of his great Master, to be possessed in a peculiar manner of the wisest and rightest attitude of disposition towards God.