David Sins Against God

Click here to read II Samuel 24.

Chapter 24 records one of David's major sins against God. When you read about it, the sin is not evident, especially when it seems that God "moved" David to do it.

Perhaps we need to look at the steps that led to this event:

  1. Israel was disobedient and God became angry.
  2. God decided to bring judgment upon Israel and David became the instrument of that judgment.

The question is why could God use David for this purpose? The answer, though not so obvious, was the pride that was in the heart of David. The "pride" of commanding so many people, conceit in his own greatness, wanting to brag to the surrounding nations. Here the sin was not the act but the motive. A seemingly harmless census was sinful in the eyes of God because of what motivated it. David was resting in his might rather that the might of the Lord that had gotten him where he was.

Joab took the census, but even he could not see the need or the purpose of it. The census revealed that there were 800,000 men of draft age in Israel and 500,000 men of draft age in Judah. The census was no sooner complete until David realized that he should not have done it. He realized that he had sinned against God. He asked the Lord's forgiveness.

The next morning the word of the Lord came to David by the prophet Gad. David was given the choice of one of three judgments for his sin.

  1. Seven years of famine across the land.
  2. Run for 3 months from his enemies.
  3. Submit to a plague for 3 days.

David reasoned that he would rather be in the hands of the Lord than the hands of his enemies, so he took the plague, number three. As the result, 70,000 men died throughout Israel. The "Death Angel" was preparing to destroy Jerusalem when the Lord was sorry for them and told the Angel to stop. The Angel was at the threshing floor of a man named Araunah, the Jebusite, when David saw him. David said, "I am the one who had sinned, let your anger be against me and my family."

Then the Prophet Gad told David to build an altar and offer a sacrifice. Araunah offered David any thing he wanted for the sacrifice but David declined and insisted on paying for it because he did not want to sacrifice anything that cost him nothing. The offerings were made and the plague stopped.


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