2 Samuel 24

2 Samuel 24:1-9

Chap. 10. We have here, 1. David’s sin in numbering the people, ver. 1—9. 2. His remsition, and repentance for it, ver. 10. 3. The judgment inflicted upon him, ver. 11—15. 4. The judgment played, ver. 15—17. 5. An utter evicted in token of God’s re-affiliation to him, ver. 18—25.

AND again the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel, and he moved David against

them, to say, Go number Israel and Judah. 2. For the king said to Joab the captain of the host, which was with him, ‘Go now through all the tribes of Israel, from Dan even to Beer-theba, and number ye the people,’ that I may know the number of the people. 3. And Joab said unto the king, Now the LORD thy God add unto the people (how many forever they be) an hundred-fold, and that the eyes of my lord the king may see it: but why doth my lord the king delight in this thing? 4. Notwithstanding, the king’s word prevailed against Joab, and against the captains of the host: and Joab and the captains of the host went out from the presence of the king, to number the people of Israel. 5. And they passed over Jordan, and pitched in Arceer, on the right side of the city that iseth in the midst of the river of Gad, and toward Jazer. 6. Then they came to Gilead, and to the land of Tahim-hodhi; and they came to Dan-jaan, and about to Zidon. 7. And came to the stronghold of Tyre, and to all the cities of the Hivites, and of the Cananites: and they went out to the South of Judah, even to Beer-theba. 8. So when they had gone through all the land, they came to Jerusalem at the end of nine months and twenty days. 9. And Joab gave up the sum of the number of the people unto the king: and ’there were in Israel eight hundred thousand valiant men that drew the sword; and the men of Judah were five hundred thousand men.

Before Christ entry. 1. Job. in. 2. Decr. viii. 3. 14. Hist. ii. 4.

Sin and punishment are as inseparable as the body and the shadow. Israel’s iniquities and rebellions provoked God, and he permitted Satan to stir up David against them.

1. David now at rest from war, after such a storm of success, is too much elated with the greatness of his kingdom; and in the pride of his heart is curious to know the number of his warriors, as if the arm of Beth instead of the arm of God had gotten him the victory. Note, He that searches the heart, knows the pride of it, and that is an abomination in his sight.

2. Joab, with the captains, humbly dissuade the king from his design; and which he hardly wishes they might increase an hundred fold, yet slain would divert him from a proceeding, useless, burdensome to the people, and which might be, as it proved, of dangerous consequences. Note, When interiors behold the errors into which their superiors are hurrying, humbly to remonstrate, is to act the part of a faithful friend.

3. David’s commands are peremptory; and Joab and the captains, though against their better judgment, obey. It becomes subject and servants to obey not only the reasonable commands of their matters or magistrates, but, rather than rebel, to submit to those that are oppressive or unreasonable. Nine months the survey lasted, employing much time, trouble, and expense; and at last the return is made, eight hundred thousand fighting men in Israel, and five hundred thousand men in Judah, besides the tribes of Levi and Benjamin, which Joab numbered not. The difference of numbers in 1 Chron. xxi. 5 may be reconciled, by supposing that David’s regular army came not into this account, which consisting of twenty-four thousand in monthly waiting, amounted to two hundred and eighty-eight thousand; to which if twelve thousand officers be added, the sums will correspond: and the men of Judah are there counted thirty thousand less than here, the thirty companies of one thousand men each, mentioned in the preceding chapter, not being there taken into the account.

4. ¶ And David’s heart ‘smoot him, after that he had numbered the people: and David said unto the LORD, ‘I have sinned greatly in that I have done: and now I beseech thee, O LORD, ’take away the iniquity of thy servant; for I have done very foolishly. 11. For when David was up in the morning, the word of the LORD came unto the prophet Gad, David’s feet, saying, 12. Go and say unto David, Thus saith the LORD, ‘I offer thee three things; choose thee one of them, that I may do it unto thee. 13. So Gad came to David, and told him, and said unto him, Shall seven years of famine come unto thee and thy land? or wilt thou see three months before thine enemies, while they purdue thee? or that there be three days pestilence in thy land? now advise, and see what answer I shall return to him that sent me. 14. And David said unto Gad, I am in a great strait: ’let us fall now into the hand of the LORD, (for his mercies are great) and ’let me not fall into the hand of man. 15. So the LORD sent a pestilence upon Israel, from the morning even to the time appointed: and there died of the people from Daniel 4 Z even Before Christ 1027. = He exmi- = Phil. Jewish. 58. Hab. ii. 6. even to Beer-sheba, * seventy thousand men. 16. And when the angel stretched out his hand upon Jerusalem to destroy it, the LORD repented him of the evil, and said to the angel that destroyed the people, * It is enough: flay now thine hand. And the angel of the LORD was by the threshing-place of Araunah the Jebufite. 17. And David spake unto the LORD when he saw the angel that smote the people, and said, * Lo, I have finned, and I have done wickedly: but these sheep, what have they done? let thine hand, I pray thee, be against me, and against my father’s house.

2 Samuel 24:10-12

During nine months David waited for the gratification of his pride; and now he no sooner receives the return, than conviction of his sin dashes the sweet draught he was lifting to his lips. So often are the pleasures of sin turned into the poison of afps. 1. His heart smites him: reflecting in the evening on what he had done, the good Spirit opens his eyes to a sense of his guilt, and awakens his conscience to a feasibility of his danger. Inflantly his penitent confections speak his contrite spirits, and he begs earnestly the forgiveness of his great sin and folly. Note, (1.) Though we have played the fool, and turned exceedingly, yet if our heart smites us, and we are brought to our tears and our knees, there is yet hope. (2.) A sense of guilt upon the conference, will put an edge on the importunity of our prayers, and the groanings which cannot be uttered, God can hear. (3.) It is the greatest folly for a momentary piety, to incur neverending pain. 2. When David arose in the morning, expecting from the bitter night he had pail to meet no glad tidings, God the fear is sent to him with his sentence: Three things are proposed to his choice; famine, pestilence, or war. He shall run his folly, and the people suffer for their sins. Note, (1.) God often severely chastises those he never means to destroy. (2.) All his judgments are just; and those who walk in pride he is able to abuse, by sinking their idol, or laying their honour in the dull. 3. David is in a dreadful strait: yet since it must be so, he chutes rather to fall into the hands of God than of man; and to stand on a level with the meanest subject, as the mark of the devouring pestilence: knowing the greatness of the mercies of God, he calls himself upon them, hoping the stroke in his hand would be lightened, or the time of suffering threatened. Note, These mercies which we must for ever despair of obtaining from men, whom we have so highly offended, we may hope, (though so much more aggravated our guilt) to find with God, for he is God and not man. 4. Infant as the choice is made, the sword is drawn; and Israel’s land (so changed is the scene!) instead of peace and joy, refounds with the shrieks of the mourners, and the groans of the dying. Seventy thousand fell before the destroying angel; Such dreadful havock can these glorious spirits make, when lent to execute God’s judgments. The time was short, but the slaughter was prodigious. Some think it continued till the third day; others, that it was the same day, at the time of the evening-facrifice, when the angel with the drawn sword appeared, visibly in the air over Jerusalem, as ready to smote that city of David. Then God repented of his fierce anger; he looked upon their desolations, and remembered the ark of his covenant; therefore he bids the angel breathe the sword, it is enough. Note, (1.) God mingles mercy still with judgment, else would the sons of Jacob be utterly consumed. (2.) Whilst we tremble at his visitations, let us fear to provoke them by our sins. 5. David’s eyes were now opened, to behold this mighty angel, as he stood with the sword of vengeance yet unheard, by or over the threshing-floor of Araunah, which was on mount Moriah, the place whither Abraham went, according to the Jewish tradition, to offer up his son. There David fell down before the angel, and directing his prayer to God, confessed his guilt, and opened his bosom, to receive the stroke he had provoked, begging that he might bleed, as the author of the judgment; and that his people, whom as a good shepherd he loved, might escape, tho’ at the expense of his own blood. His prayer is accepted, and himself also spared. Note, (1.) Thus the son of David not only offered, but actually laid down his life for his sheep. (2.) Real penitents cannot bear others should smart for their sins; and care not what themselves suffer, so they may go free. 18. ¶ And God came that day to David, and said unto him, * Go up, rear an altar unto the LORD, in the threshing-floor of Araunah the Jebufite. 19. And David, according to the saying of God, went up, as the LORD commanded. 20. And Araunah looked, and saw the king and his servants coming on toward him: and Araunah went out and bowed himself before the king on his face upon the ground. 21. And Araunah said, Wherefore is my lord the king come to his servant? And David said, To buy the threshing-floor of thee to build an altar unto the LORD, that the plague may be stayed from the people. 22. And Araunah said unto David, Let my lord the king take and offer up what Semeith good unto him: behold, here he oxen for burnt- -facrifice, and threshing instruments, and other instruments of the oxen for wood. 23. All these things did Araunah, * as a king, give unto the king: and Araunah said unto the king, * The LORD thy God * accept thee. 24. And the king said unto Araunah, Nay; but I will surely buy it of thee at a price: neither will I offer burnt-offerings unto the LORD my God, of that which doth coft me nothing. So David bought the threshing-floor and the oxen, for * fifty shekels of silver. 25. And David built there an altar unto the LORD, and offered burnt-offerings, and peace offerings: * so the LORD was intreated for the land, and the plague was stayed from Israel. 6. 18-25. God, the messenger of the judgment, is sent again to David, as the minister of reconciliation. 1. He enjoins him to erect an altar for sacrifice in the threshing-floor of Araunah, in token that God now had accepted him in mercy; and that by the blood of atonement, he might seal his pardon, and receive the tribute of his thankfulness. Note, (1.) But for the blood of Jesus, the destroying angel would utterly consume this guilty world. (2.) The sacrifice of praise is the bounden duty of the pardoned sinner. 2. David basters to the threshing-floor, and being met by Araunah, declares his desire to purchase the threshing-floor, in order to build an altar, that the plague might be stayed. Araunah, with the munificence of a king, offers to make him a present of it, with hearty prayer for God’s blessing on his design: or Araunah the king, as it is in the original, being, as some conjecture, of the seed royal of the Jebufites, perhaps heir to the former king, and now become a preselyte. But David cannot think of serving God with that which coft him nothing, or taking any advantage of such a generous spirit, when he was in so little need of the obligation; therefore insists on purchasing the place, and the oxen for sacrifice, at their full value, fifty shekels of silver for the floor and the oxen, and afterwards six hundred shekels of gold, 1 Chron. xxi. 25. for the adjacent lands, on which the temple was afterwards built. Note, (1.) A noble generosity makes a man appear great as a king. (2.) Needless obligations are to be avoided. (3.) They who desire to serve God without expense, have little of David’s spirit. 3. The purchase being agreed, and the altar built, David sacrifices burnt-offerings and peace-offerings, and God declares his acceptance, perhaps by fire from heaven consuming them; and the sin of the land being pardoned, the plague is stayed. Note, Christ the living altar, and the acceptable sacrifice, having once offered himself for a propitiation, we may rejoice in the returning favour of a reconciled God, and fear no more danger or death. THE