2 Samuel 24

2 Samuel 24:1

D. David’s Census and Its Consequences (Chap. 24)William Crockett suggests that the events recorded here took place some time after David captured Jerusalem (chap. 5) but before he brought the ark into the holy city (chap. 6). 24:1 It would appear that God in His anger told David to take a census of Israel and Judah. But we learn from 1Ch_21:1 that it was Satan who moved David to do this. Satan precipitated it, David performed it (because of the pride of his heart), and God permitted it. The Septuagint rendering of verse 1 reads “and Satan moved David” rather than “and He moved David.“24:2-9 When the king ordered Joab to begin the numbering, Davids military commander demonstrated better judgment than he did. He realized that the purpose of the census was to cater to David’s pride, and he urged the king to desist, but in vain. Obedient to David, Joab and his men went throughout the land, numbering the people; they found that there were eight hundred thousand soldiers in Israel and five hundred thousand in Judah. Exo_30:12-13 commanded that a half-shekel ransom be collected when a census was taken. There is no record of David’s doing so. Pride motivated him to number the people. The census might cause him to depend on the size of his army and not on the arm of the Lord. 24:10-14 After the census was finished, the king was convicted of his sin, and cried out to the LORD for forgiveness. God sent the prophet Gad to him, offering any one of three punishments: (1) seven years of famine . . . in the land; (2) three months of pursuit by his enemies; (3) three days of pestilence or plague. David chose to fall into the hand of the LORD, and not into man’s. 24:15-25 The LORD sent three days of plague, killing seventy thousand men. The destroying angel was about to destroy the city of Jerusalem when God stopped him at the threshing floor of Araunah (also called Ornan). David asked the Lord why He was destroying the people of Israel when it was David and his house who were guilty. God’s reply, given through Gad, was for David to build an altar . . . on the threshing floor of Araunah. So David the king immediately began to arrange with Araunah the Jebusite for the purchase of the site. Although he was a Gentile, Araunah offered not only the threshing floor without charge but also oxen for sacrifices and the threshing implements for firewood. The king’s noble answer was, “nor will I offer burnt offerings to the LORD my God with that which costs me nothing.“Finally David bought the threshing floor and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver. (1Ch_21:25 says that David paid 600 shekels of gold for the place, but this undoubtedly included the property surrounding the threshing floor.) The plague stopped when burnt offerings were offered on the altar (v. 25). The threshing floor of Araunah, on Mount Moriah, was probably the very same spot where Abraham offered Isaac. It later became the site of Solomon’s temple and then of Herod’s temple in the time of Christ. Today it is occupied by a Moslem shrinethe Dome of the Rock. It will probably be the location of the temple in the Tribulation and finally of the millennial temple. The Scriptures are completely honest in their treatment of the heroes of the faith. David had his faults and they are mentioned alongside his faith. We have followed David from the flock, through exile, into exaltation. Few men walked closer to God; few men fell deeper into sin. But through it all he was sustained by the Lord. We have all benefited from the experiences that David passed through, because he recorded them in his psalms. Matthew Henry remarks on David as he appears in Samuel and how he appears in Psalms: Many things in his history are very instructive; but for the hero who is the subject of it, though in many instances he appears here very great, and very good, and very much the favourite of heaven; yet it must be confessed that his honour shines brighter in his Psalms than in his Annals. The words of Psalm 40 fitly summarize David’s life: I waited patiently for the LORD, and He inclined to me, and heard my cry. He also brought me up out of a horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and He set my feet upon a rock, and established my steps. He has put a new song in my mouthpraise to our God; many will see it and fear, and will trust in the LORD (Psa_40:1-3).