The world in its friendships and the flesh in its worst forms have under the cunning wiles of Satan rudely shaken the king on the throne; and he would have stumbled to rise no more, but that the word and the purpose of God are in question. So grace meets and triumphs over the sin, for God is pledged to bring the king through all. “Yet again there is war.” David is still the point of attack, as it were the citadel, hitherto found impregnable, of the kingdom which stands or falls with him. After proving that all attempts have as yet only established David more firmly (if possible) in his kingdom, Satan turns to other means to attain his end. David's heart is lifted up with vanity, and he seeks to gratify himself with his own glory, as if independent of God, forgetting that it was God Who had clothed him with honor and renown as with a garment.
It is a like vain glory which has wrought ruin in the church. It began in the admiration of itself. The attributing to itself, as the source, all the things it admired, early shut out the Lord from view, and then it became a question only of proselytizing. The Lord was forgotten, and increased numbers the aim. The professing church has boasted of its own riches, saying it has need of nothing; while the truth is, it is wretched and miserable and poor, blind and naked (see Rev. 3:17). Becoming more boastful, yet more wretched, it awaits a fuller development of pride, to be followed by sure and unsparing judgment. “I will spue thee out of my mouth” is not all. Compare Rev. 17, 18.
David's sin lies not in the bare fact of numbering the people; for they had been numbered by God's command before. God looks at the hidden spring. Fleshly and worldly ostentation, springing up in his heart, for the moment shut out the thought of God. Had David forgotten the grace that took him while yet unknown, and even unthought of by his own family, and anointed him to be king? His heart swelling with his own greatness, as if acquired by his own power, he would know the extent of his rule from Beersheba even unto Dan. God judged the secret motive, and later on David judges himself. “I have sinned greatly because I have done this thing; but now I beseech Thee do away the iniquity of Thy servant, for I have done very foolishly” (21: 8). Does not Psa. 30 refer to this time when prosperity for a moment hid God from his soul? “And in my prosperity I said, I shall never be moved.” When restored, all breaks into the praise of God, “To the end my glory may sing praise to Thee, and not be silent; O Lord my God. I will give thanks unto Thee forever.”
To trust in prosperity, in earthly riches, is a danger for most if not all saints. It was so in the days of old when prosperity in earthly things was a mark of God's favor. How much greater the folly of trusting to them now, when our true riches are revealed to be heavenly and not earthly! To boast of spiritual gifts and attainments as if acquired by our own skill is even more offensive to the Lord, Who alone gives as it pleases Him. It is to put God's blessings and favors in the place of God Himself. If the perishable things of this life are His gift, how much more the spiritual and eternal! Forget not all His benefits, but bless the Lord.
It was the same spirit of pride and self-complacency as in Nebuchadnezzar. The self-complacency might be greater in him, but the sin was greater in David. It was but natural in the heathen king, and he had a wider domain than David; but David knew God, therefore his guilt was greater. Hear the heathen's confession of sin. For one year after the warning from Daniel he walked in the palace of the kingdom of Babylon and said, “Is not this great Babylon that I have built for the kingdom by the might of my power, and for the honor of my majesty.” In like spirit David looked on Jerusalem and all Israel, and in the consciousness of being king would know the extent of his power and the number of the people. The iniquity of his sin in the sight of God may be seen in the manner of God's judgment. On his fall before when owned, the prophet said, “The Lord hath put away thy sin.” In this the confession is not met with the declaration of mercy, but with an offer of three kinds of judgment. Had David dared to choose, he would have found how vain was his numbering the people. As it was, piously choosing to fall into the hand of God and leaving all in His hand, thousands were cut off as in a moment. It was a solemn rebuke to David. The Lord is saying to him, “All souls are mine"; and He can increase or diminish the number at a word.
Though the same kind of sin in both David and Nebuchadnezzar, how different the manner of judgment! David confesses his sin and the chastisement comes after. Nebuchadnezzar confesses after his recovery. In both we see how swiftly judgment overtook the sin. When the numbering was completed, immediately Israel is smitten and the angel of the Lord with a drawn sword stands over Jerusalem: David makes confession and rears an altar. Here grace triumphs over judgment. There is submission to the Lord, and confidence in Him. David chooses nothing but to fall into the hand of the Lord, “for very great are His mercies.” Remark that faith accompanies true confession; and it would appear before the three days are ended the Lord said to the destroying angel, “It is enough, stay now thine hand.” In this case the people suffered, for the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel. We do not read of any special judgment on the Babylonians, it falls upon the king alone. Upon him it was sudden and terrible. In the same hour of his boasting the judgment fell on him (see Dan. 4:25, 33), swift and unexpected. So it was with the antediluvians, so with Sodom; so it will be in the days of the Son of Man (Luke 17:26-30). There doubtless were consternation and fear in his court, for it was no ordinary case of insanity, as infidels since have dared to say, as they do of the possessed of demons in the Gospels. Were there such infidels then? Wonderful as the account is, believers know that it is true. Indeed the words of scripture are far too precise to admit of any meaning short of literal fact. He was driven from the abodes of men, did eat grass as oxen, his body was wet with the dew of heaven (i.e., wore no clothing), his hair grew like eagle's feathers, and his hair like bird's claws. It was God's rebuke, terrible in its measure, but blessed in its ultimate result.
Dan. 4 appears to be in the main the confession of Nebuchadnezzar after his restoration to his throne. He relates how he was warned, his exceeding pride and sin, and how great the judgment upon him; how at the end of the days he lifted up his eyes, at the end of the seven times meted to his punishment; and his reason came as suddenly as it was taken from him; and his first thing is to honor Him that liveth forever. Therefore he thinks it good to show the signs and wonders that the high God had wrought towards him (ver. 2). And he tells of a miracle at his return to his kingdom as striking as when men drove him away (he was not shut up in a madhouse). “At the same time my reason returned unto me; and for the glory of my kingdom, mine honor and brightness returned unto me; and my counselors and my lords sought unto me, and I was established in my kingdom and excellent majesty was added unto me.” That his lords and courtiers should seek him after seven years' estrangement, that excellent majesty should be added unto him, mark the miraculous controlling power of Him Who holds all things in His hand. Nebuchadnezzar, in the opening and closing verses of this chapter (Dan. 4), praises the King of heaven, the One Who had shown signs and wonders to him.
David's praise rises higher, but then his confession was deeper, “I have done very foolishly.” This was an intelligent saint, that an ignorant heathen. But the word of God closes its history of the mighty man of the earth, the head of gold, with his being a worshipper by grace. There is a faith that believes “that He is,” and God is a rewarder of such. Shall we not see him in the kingdom of God among those who come from the east and the west, from the north and the south? There was not “much” given to him, but God looks to what a man hath.
This attempt of Satan against Israel is also baffled, and becomes the occasion for a further and greater display of that grace which is the only foundation of God's kingdom among men. If the sword of the Lord is drawn out against rebellious man, His grace lingers over him, and puts back the sword, for a time into its sheath. It is here as we read in the prophets, “But I wrought for My name's sake.” That wondrous name had been declared to Moses. A name which shot forth bright but transient rays before the glorious light was displayed in Christ. Oftentimes mercy and goodness rose above the law on which man had perched himself. What more glorious proof of that name could there be before Christ came than when Jehovah restrains the avenging sword that was already stretched out over Jerusalem?
In Chronicles this is the last recorded attempt of Satan against the kingdom during David's life. In it David failing, but grace triumphing, brings to view, in a little, the grace now fully displayed in Christ; for here in result an altar is built on the floor of a Jebusite, a Gentile. The ark of the covenant was in the tent in the city of David (16:1). And the old altar of burnt offering and the tabernacle of the Lord which Moses made in the wilderness, “were at that season in the high place at Gibeon,” and David is afraid to go there, because of the sword of the angel of the Lord. This sword is always connected with the old altar and the tabernacle that Moses made. But here is an altar altogether new, built by the man who feared to go to the other. Is not David's son made the occasion of showing that grace without law is the only foundation even for the kingdom, and that the priests of the Aaronic type have nothing to do with it? For it is David the king that builds it, and sacrifices on it, and the Lord answers by fire. It is a new way, unknown to the law, where are found both Israelite and Jebusite. What right had the priests who served at the altar in Gibeon to the altar built by the king? And what right have those who plead works as a ground of acceptance with God to the altar which is the expression of pure, unmingled, sovereign grace, without works? Here is a transient ray from that name long before declared to Moses, and now in far fuller character to all that have ears to hear. R. B.