2 Sam. 24
Second Samuel ends with the most wonderful revelation of the work of redemption given us under the dispensation of the law.
The Word tells us that "the anger of Jehovah was kindled against Israel" (2 Sam. 24:1). It does not reveal the occasion for this, but in 2 Sam. 21 we have seen that events that happened long ago remain present before God when it is a matter of chastening or disciplining His people. David becomes the instrument of this chastening: "[Jehovah] moved David against [Israel] saying, Go, number Israel and Judah." In 1 Chron. 21:1 we find that as in the case of Job, Satan was the agent used against the people and to seduce David. "The accuser of the brethren" would have liked for God to curse the people and their prince; he could not know that God would use him as an involuntary servant for His designs for the ultimate blessing and triumph of those He had chosen.
We might ask in what way this numbering of the people was so contrary to the Lord's mind, for from the time of the departure from Egypt many numberings of the able-bodied men of Israel had been commanded and approved by God.
The object of the first numbering mentioned (Ex. 38:25-27) was to gather the silver (amounting to a bekah per man) intended to form the bases of the pillars of the tabernacle; thus this numbering had taken place for the Lord and in view of worshipping Him. The second numbering (Num. 1:2-3) at the time when Israel was about to engage in conflict with the enemy was intended to determine the number of men able to go to war. This was according to God; every Israelite from twenty years and upward needed to understand his personal responsibility in the battles of the Lord. The Word mentions a third numbering (Num. 26:2, 52-65) of those who were capable of military service, this in view of dividing up the land. Here again the numbering was all important, for each family would see its inheritance in Canaan increase or decrease according to the number of its sons.
The numbering in our chapter has none of these characteristics. The tabernacle having been built, the Levites having been substituted for the firstborn, and the conquest of the inheritance having been in large part accomplished, there were still men able to go to war, but God "had delivered [David] out of the hand of all his enemies" (2 Sam. 22:1). What need had he yet to take knowledge of the number of his warriors? His purpose, as he said to Joab, was to "know the number of the people" (2 Sam. 24:2). At the end of his life at Satan's instigation this godly king's heart underwent a temptation quite contrary to his character. David had always been a humble man before the Lord (2 Sam. 7:18) and before men (1 Sam. 26:20). It did not seem necessary for him to be on guard against pride. In the past the lust of the eyes and the lust of the flesh had enticed him, and he had been severely punished for this; now, tempted by the pride of life, he does not resist the desire to reckon up his forces in order to know to what extent he could rely upon them. Chastening befalls him to teach him that he could not and ought not count on anything but God alone.
Joab censures his master. This man who had never judged himself condemns the man of God. The king's word "was abominable to Joab" (1 Chron. 21:6). What a shame for a David to be reproached by a Joab! We can discover but one reason for Joab's repugnance to obeying the king's orders. There was no profit to be gotten from this act and no advantage in defying God. Joab would never have done so except if it were profitable to him and if his interests were at stake. Why then should David commit this profane and useless act?
The king's desire prevails. For over nine months Joab and the captains of the army number the people and during these nine months David's conscience is silent, but once he has obtained the fruit of his desire he finds it has a bitter taste. How much effort put forth for such a miserable objective! And something was still lacking, for Levi and Benjamin had not been numbered. Faced with this incomplete result, David must have doubly felt the folly of his proceedings.
We make the same experiences as he. Satan entices us by lusts. Yet possessing the objects of these lusts can never satisfy a child of God's heart, because they cannot silence his conscience. The man of the world finds no more satisfaction in them than the Christian does, but he sets right out in pursuit of new objects by which he hopes to fill the void he feels. Not the Christian—he comes to his senses, dismayed, his hands empty, his heart empty, the very picture of moral wretchedness: having lost his fellowship with God and heaven's joy and having not gained that of earth. His conscience reproaches him and he comes to God filled with repentance. Oh, how David now might wish to erase those nine baneful months! He cannot do so. And so he lays hold of the only resource left to him and addresses the Lord: "I have sinned greatly in what I have done; and now, I beseech Thee, Jehovah, put away the iniquity of Thy servant; for I have done very foolishly" (2 Sam. 24:10). On another occasion he had seen how much it cost to trespass against God's holiness. Was a new judgment going to fall on him? The consequences of his act cause him to fear, but too late; they ought to have frightened him before he followed this path. His repentance cannot lessen the guilt of the evil committed or make it less worthy of judgment; his repentance cannot atone for his sin or deliver him from its consequences. What is left for David? To submit to the judgment which he would like to have avoided.
But here his faith appears. By the mouth of Gad the Lord sets three alternatives before him; he chooses the last of these. The sword of the Lord, this two-edged sword, is more reassuring to him than the sword of man because he knows God. Had he not learned during his long career of sorrows, trials, and battles that "His mercies are great"? (2 Sam. 24:14). He commits himself into His hands of righteousness for he knows that His righteousness is inseparable from mercy. David is in a "great strait" (2 Sam. 24:14), like the remnant of Israel at the end, but he knows that he can count on God's grace (cf. 2 Sam. 12:13).
The pestilence rages; the angel smites from north to south, from Dan to Beer-sheba (2 Sam. 24:15), throughout all the sphere where the numbering had taken place (cf. 2 Sam. 24:5-7); he comes to Jerusalem and stretches forth his sword over the beloved city (1 Chron. 21:16). At that moment "Jehovah repented him" and arrests the hand of the angel. He does not stop it on account of David's repentance, but on account of His own repentance. His judgment yields to His grace without the one or the other being weakened or sacrificed.
But before this David intervenes as intercessor and arbiter between God and the people: "Behold, it is I that have sinned, and it is I that have committed iniquity; but these sheep, what have they done? let Thy hand, I pray Thee, be on me, and on my father's house!" (2 Sam. 24:17). He takes the judgment upon himself and sets himself in the breach so that the sheep may be spared; he charges himself with sin and iniquity—but alas! this sin was his sin and this judgment was judgment that he had merited. Another, a lone Arbiter, bore our sins without having any sins Himself, and making our sins His He laid down His life for His sheep, saying: "If therefore ye seek Me, let these go away" (John 18:8).
Now a third great factor appears. The first was grace, the second was the intervention of an arbiter between God and men, and the third is sacrifice. It is mercy on the one hand and sacrifice on the other that check the final judgment, and the true arbiter can rise up and say: "I have found a ransom" (Job 33:24). Jerusalem, the city of grace, is spared, but it cannot be spared except through the atoning sacrifice offered on Moriah in the threshing-floor of Ornan the Jebusite (2 Chron. 3:1).
Moriah was the historical site where Abraham had offered Isaac (Gen. 22:2). On this mountain of Jehovah would be provided. How much more so when the sin of Israel and of their king had stirred up Jehovah's judgment against the people. Provision was now made by a sacrifice which cost the people nothing but for which David paid the full price. Provision has been made in a far more perfect manner on this same mountain where Jesus has been crucified for us.
God who had once provided the victim for the burnt offering accepts the sacrifice after having looked forward to its efficacy, and so sovereign grace reigning through righteousness and manifested as such on the cross becomes Israel's means of approach. The tabernacle of former days is forsaken as well as its altar; the ark alone remains on Mount Zion. A new order of things begins. The system of the law is set aside as outdated; free grace that provides the sacrifice is worth more than all that man could offer. This is where the Lord answers the needs of every poor sinner and this is also where the believer sacrifices and worships (cf. 1 Chron. 22:1). It is no longer the tabernacle of Moses but the threshing-floor of a Jebusite, a stranger to the promises, that becomes the meeting place between God and His people!