2 Samuel 24:1

EXPOSITION

And again the anger of Jehovah was kindled against Israel. It is probable that this chapter once stood in intimate connection with 2 Samuel 21:1-22 ; and that the famine therein described was followed by a pestilence, of which the blame largely rested upon David, though the sin punished by it was fully shared by the people. In saying that David was moved of Jehovah to number Israel and Judah, the writer acknowledges the great truth that all action, both good and evil, is of God. "Shall there be evil in a city, and Jehovah hath not done it?" ( Amos 3:6 ). While we are taught to pray that we may not be led into temptation, yet trial and temptation are by God's ordinance for man's good. Man falls only when the temptation gives the opportunity for the outbreak of that which already was at work within ( James 1:14 ). If the previous watch over the heart has been careful and earnest, then the temptation is a steppingstone to a nobler and more pure godliness; and if a man fall, yet even so he learns by outward proof what was secretly ruining his soul, and may by its manifestation be led to repentance. There were festering in David's heart a thirst for war, and pride in his victories; a growing ambition, and, as its necessary result, a disregard of the rights of other nations. The same passions were gaining a daily increasing influence over the people generally. It is too often the case that a nation uses the bravery which has obtained for it freedom from foreign oppression, to impose the yoke of slavery upon others. But this chastisement brought back David and his subjects to more upright counsels. In 1 Chronicles 21:1 the temptation is ascribed to Satan, because David fell. God tempts, that is, tries, men that they may stand more firmly and advance in all that is true and good. Satan tempts men that he may find out their weaknesses and effect their ruin. Yet David fell only to rise again. Satan's triumph was but temporary, and the result was good for king and people, who would have suffered far more terribly from the effects of their lust of war than from the pestilence. Temptation, then, has two sides, and is good or evil according to the use we make of it; but in itself it is a necessity for our probation. The trials and sorrows of life serve but to break up the fallow ground ( Jeremiah 4:3 ); and without them our hearts would remain hard as the roadway; and the good seed, which may spring up to eternal life, would lie unheeded upon the surface, and find no entrance into their depths. As regards the exact time; and the idea of the Jewish commentators, that the sin consisted in neglecting to pay the half shekel there enjoined upon each man numbered, is not merely gratuitous, but is disproved by Joab's remonstrance; for he objects to the census absolutely. From what, too, we know of Joab's character, we cannot suppose that he would be particularly shocked at this being a census of the fighting men. Yet these Israelites were very noble men in their love of freedom and their respect for their national constitution; and if Joab observed in David a growing disposition towards despotism, and foresaw danger to the nation's liberty from the king's lust of foreign conquest, he was too upright a statesman not to oppose a measure which would strengthen the king in his dangerous tendencies. His words in 1 Chronicles 21:3 , "Are they not all my lord's servants?" seem to have this meaning. David was the master of all these fighting men. If their vast number was paraded before his imagination, it might lead him, flushed with past successes, into aggressive war; and victory abroad would lead to the destruction of freedom at home. The sin plainly lay in the violation of the principles of the theocratic government, which fostered personal independence in every member of the nation, and were opposed to every war except one of self-defence; and it was the fact that a nation so governed was weak and almost powerless even to protect itself, that had made the people clamour for a king. And now the opposite dangers were developing themselves, and the Israelites, dazzled by the glamour of victory, were joining with their king in a longing after extended empire. The pestilence stopped them for the present in their ambitious course; the disruption of the. kingdom under Rehoboam dispelled their dream forever. In 1 Chronicles 27:23 we also find the thought that the taking of a census, though several times practised by Moses ( Exodus 38:26 ; Numbers 1:2 ; Numbers 26:2 ), was in itself presumptuous, because it seemed to contradict the promise in Genesis 15:5 , that the seed of Abraham should be past numbering. He moved. It is impossible to translate, "and one moved," understanding thereby Satan, as stated in Chronicles. It was Israel which had incurred the Divine anger by its lust of war, and Jehovah used David, who was himself the victim of the same evil passions, to take a step which led on to the just chastisement. Number ; Hebrew, count. It is a different word from that translated "number" in the rest of the chapter.