Consequences for Rejecting the King
David’s Correction (24:1-25)
The final appendix to the book of 2 Samuel deals with a census David took of all of Israel.
Satan Incites (1-9)
After David’s army had put down the rebellion of Absalom, God allowed Satan to incite David to number the people of Israel (1 Chronicles 21:1). Against Joab’s strenuous objections, David ordered the census to be taken from Dan to Beersheba. Over the span of ten months, the census began in the region south of the Jordan River, moved north, then proceeded back across the Jordan all the way to Tyre, and finally made its way south into Judah to complete the circle. It was discovered that David had 800,000 fighting men in Israel and 500,000 fighting men in Judah, making up an immense standing army of over 1,000,000 warriors (1-9).
David Confesses (10-16)
Moses had taken a census twice, so numbering people was not a sin; the sin satan tempted David into must have been a motive issue—either to draft an army in anticipation of a military campaign or to impose a tax on the people. David most likely succumbed to the temptation to seek power apart from God. David sought to number his potential military force to measure his political and military strength.
We analyze two problems in the text: first, “the anger of Yahweh was kindled against Israel.” The reason for Yahweh’s anger could have been their complicity and conspiracy with Absalom and Sheba to overthrow God’s king, David. In rejecting David as God’s anointed king, they would have rejected the covenant of Yahweh.
The second problem was the thought of God inciting David to do something God later rebuked as a sin. This is difficult for us to get our minds around, yet this view of God occurs throughout Old Testament Scripture. In Hebrew thinking, if it was allowed or permitted by God, then God was not behind it, willing or wanting the action, but He was involved in making a way for the action because of how He designed the world to operate.
Whatever David’s motive, his heart convicted him after the census was taken, and David gave himself to seeking mercy and forgiveness for his foolishness. God dispatched Gad the prophet to David; Gad gave David grace by allowing him to choose one of three punishments—seven years of famine, three months of military defeats, or three days of pestilence. David chose to fall into the hand of God, knowing God’s mercy. Leaving the choice to Yahweh, pestilence was selected (10-14).
David knew wrath was coming, but believed God’s wrath could be swaddled in mercy and compassion. David did not view God’s wrath as unquenchable fury nor maniacal rage, but reasoned correction enclosed in mercy.
Beginning in the morning (6 a.m., breakfast time), the pestilence ensued for its appointed time; within hours, 70,000 men died across the land. God had determined that the pestilence would last for three days, but it ended at His “appointed time.” The appointed time seems largely connected to when David interceded and offered his life in exchange for the people. This seems to imply that the “appointed time” had more to do with intercession than a literal, allotted three days (15-16).
David Intercedes (17)
Not only had David sinned in numbering the people, but many of the nation had also sinned by renouncing David as God's anointed king and crowning Absalom in his place. So, as the nation endured correction for entertaining the Absalom and Sheba rebellions, David became the Jesus-like intercessory figure who offered his life for the people to contain the crisis. This is the very power and heart of intercession (17).
David Sacrifices (18-25)
Gad the prophet then told David to build an altar and make a sacrifice at the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite. Araunah offered the floor and the sacrificial offerings to David for free, but David responded with his famous line, “I will not offer burnt offerings to the LORD my God that cost me nothing.” David purchased the spot and offered the sacrifice in his place for the nation.
It was at this spot that David noticed God had heard his prayer as it ascended with the smoke of the sacrifice from the ground where innocent blood was shed. Here we have a picture of “propitiation,” a sacrifice absorbing wrath and restoring mercy.
A life devoted to Yahweh is a life that belongs to Yahweh. In the Old Testament, believers would offer the costly blood of animals instead of their own blood, and with the blood, their own heart. Their life, so to speak, was in the blood of the animal they sacrificed. In a sense, this is what “propitiation” means—to absorb the life, especially the sin-life of those offering the sacrifice. The animal’s death would serve as the heart of a believer dying to the sin and separation they had committed against Yahweh. Once David gave his life back to Yahweh, he and the nation had returned to Yahweh, belonging to Him and not to their sin and its consequences.
This, of course, is a picture of Jesus as our sacrifice, taking our sin, giving us His righteousness, and devoting Himself faithfully to God. We no longer offer animals to God because Jesus is our sacrifice, and every time we gather around the Table, Jesus allows us to experience this sacrifice as we give ourselves to Him. The message here is that everything devoted to God and belonging to Yahweh is clothed in mercy and love.
God granted restoration to David’s heart, David’s kingdom, and even his place of sacrifice, for David declared it would be the site where the Temple (1 Chronicles 21:27-22:1) would be built (18-25).
Yahweh's Excellent Word
Psalm 119 is a “Wisdom Psalm” whose author is unknown, and yet there is reason to believe it was written by Ezra in the post-exilic times. It is an acrostic Psalm, constructed into twenty-two eight-verse stanzas corresponding to the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet.
The Psalm is self outlined in the sense of the acrostic, so let me fill in the literary background of the Psalm to give it meaning in relationship to the time of its writing. Because the evidence of Ezra's authorship is most likely, I will assume throughout my review that Ezra is the author.
Ezra's main theme in the Psalm is Yahweh (appearing twenty-four times in the text). Ezra's main subject of the Psalm is the “word” which appears 175 times in 176 verses in some form, and it appears in every verse except verses 3, 37, 84, 90, 121, 122, and 132.
The basic words used for “word”:
“Law” 25 times,
“Testimonies” 23 times
“Precepts” 21 times
“Statutes” 22 times
“Commandments” 22 times
“Judgments”/“ordinances” 33 times
“Word” (Hebrew davar, ordevarim) 23 times
“Word” (imrah) 30 times
Ezra uses afflictions as the circumstantial backdrop for his Psalm, the word appearing in verses 8, 20, 22, 23, 25, 28, 39, 42, 50, 51, 53, 61, 67, 69, 71, 75, 78, 81–87, 92, 94, 95, 107, 110, 115, 121– 23, 134, 136, 141, 143, 145–47, 149, 150, 153, 154, 157, 161, 170, and 176.
The aim of Ezra is clear: he is calling upon Yahweh to deliver him, thus Judah, according to His word and for the sake of His lovingkindness, so that those who consider the act of honoring Yahweh and His word fruitless will have their insults buried beneath Yahweh's faithfulness. He further commits to bearing faithful witness to the world concerning Yahweh's promise-keeping nature, and further he is ready to surrender to wholehearted obedience to Yahweh's command.
Place this Psalm against the background of Judah’s returning from Babylon to rebuild the Wall of the City of Jerusalem on the basis of God's word. You can see Ezra writing this Psalm to imprint on the heart and minds of Yahweh's people the great faith they should have in Yahweh to fulfill what He had started, according to His promise.
Observation: This Psalm serves as a motivating song, reviving faith in Yahweh's word against the adversaries wishing to stop Judah's resettlement and rebuilding. After Judah had rebuilt the wall, the nation asked the scribe Ezra to come and read the law. He did so at the Water Gate (Nehemiah 8). A revival of God's word was sweeping the nation at this time. It is hard to imagine this Psalm not being written by Ezra at this time.
Purpose: To show us how to pray when we are partway through God’s completing and fulfilling a word Yahweh has spoken into our lives, restoring and renewing our faith in His promises.