2 Samuel 24:10-17

A king's sin and a people's chastisement.

The facts are:

1 . David, reflecting on the accomplishment of his purpose, comes to a consciousness of his sin, and makes confession before God.

2 . In the morning the Prophet Gad is sent to him from. the Lord, offering him, as a choice of a chastisement, either seven years' famine, or three months' defeat before his enemies, or three days' pestilence.

3 . David, in his anguish, elects to fall into the hands of God.

4 . Thereupon God sends a pestilence which carries off seventy thousand men.

5 . There being some relenting in the anger of God when the pestilence reached Jerusalem, David entreats with the angel of the Lord by the threshing floor of Araunah, that he would have pity on the people and rather smite him and his house. The various truths taught in this section may be briefly set forth thus.

I. THE REACTION OF MAN 'S SPIRITUAL NATURE . For more than nine months the unhallowed feeling which prompted the numbering of the people had held sway, and now during the silence of night the spiritual man that had been suppressed again asserts his power. David comes to himself, and sees his conduct in a Divine light. The supremacy of sin means a depression of the better nature. The awakening to a sense of sin is the reaction of that better nature. The same was seen in the matter of Bathsheba and Uriah. The prodigal son's coming to himself is an instance; as also the repentance of every sinner. The causes and occasions of the reaction may come from without, but there can he no doubt that the change does lie in a reaction. The spell is broken, and the higher nature of man once more asserts itself.

II. THE CAUSES AND OCCASIONS OF THE SOUL 'S BREAKING THE SPELL OF SIN ARE DEFINITE . David came to himself most probably for three reasons.

1 . Difficulties of carrying out his project may have pressed on him the need of reflection; for not only were Joab and the captains reluctant workers, but long time elapsed, and so strong was the opposition that two tribes were not counted ( 1 Chronicles 21:4 ).

2 . The strain of persistence would, by psychological law, enfeeble purpose. He could not go on forever in a line of sin; exhaustion of moral motive is a reality.

3 . The gracious action of God would revive the latent and suppressed sense of right; for though the Holy Spirit is grieved, he does not depart forever from the erring. The same is true still. External difficulties of a sinful course make the way hard, and so give chance for reflection and reaction of the better self. The exhaustion and satiety of persistence in evil tends to open a way for the action of Divine influence. The misery of the prodigal, the weariness of sin, the loss of early novelty, do not turn men, but they render other more spiritual action more timely. The real cause which turns these occasions to account is the gracious action of the Holy Spirit.

III. THE CHANGED ESTIMATE OF CONDUCT UNDER THE LIGHT OF GOD 'S SPIRIT . As we have seen ( 2 Samuel 24:1-9 ), plausible reasons could be assigned for numbering the people, but now that in the silence of night the light had come, that which once was reasonable and proper, and persisted in as essential, is folly and sin. It is only in the light which God causes to shine into our hearts that we can see what is the real character of some of the motives lurking there. Saul of Tarsus came to see himself in the light of God, and the old life in which he had prided himself became his shame. No man knows himself apart from Divine illumination. Repentance marks the change undergone in a man's estimate of himself in the sight of God.

IV. THE ANTITHESIS OF SIN AND RIGHT REASON . When David confessed before God that in what he had done he had acted foolishly, he not only expressed a changed estimate of his conduct, but also illustrated a universal truth. Sin and wisdom are incompatible; they are mutually exclusive. The lie from the beginning has been that it is good for man to do his own will. The wisdom of being "as gods" was the first of snares. The votaries of pleasure and the scornful rejecters of the supernatural Christ deem themselves wise in following the bent of their unholy and proud disposition. The wise "disputer of this world" looks with contempt on "the foolishness of preaching" and of the obedience to Christ which is its object. Yes, like David, in his sin, they have their day; but just as he found at last that his wisdom was all the time folly, so others will find that wisdom is utterly removed from their preference of their own to the will of Christ. Sin is the most desperate folly. It debases man's nature, entails numberless ills for body and spirit, interferes with the true development of the mind and the acquisition and enjoyment of the treasures of good hid in nature, inflicts a stigma and leaves a stain that unfit for the highest society in the universe, and, moreover, mars the future possibly beyond recovery. Holiness and wisdom alone coincide. To go against the will of God is a species of madness. The history of individuals and of nations is proof of it.

V. GOD 'S WATCHFULNESS OVER REPENTING SINNERS . It was a long solitary night when David came to see the folly and sin of his conduct. The outpouring of his penitent heart was known to no human being. The most sacred experiences of life are secrets between the soul and God. But yet in the morning, just at the right time, the messenger of God came to him. His mission was to offer alternative chastisements, but there was implied in it forgiveness. The eye of God had seen the inner workings of the broken spirit, and the occasion was seized to bring David again into more direct communication with his God. In the case of Bathsheba Nathan had awakened penitence; here Gad came to help forward the good work begun in penitence. The cry of Saul of Tarsus was heard in heaven, and to help him a servant of God was prepared to speak the words suitable to his case. The ear of the Lord is ever open to the cry of the humble, and his eye is on their sorrows. Some message or messenger will be sent to them to confirm the fact of their awakening to a sense of sin, and do what is best for their restoration. Let every penitent remember that God hears the cry in the night, and sees all the desires of the broken heart.

VI. THE ADAPTATION OF CHASTISEMENT TO SIN . In the alternative choice of David as to the form of chastisement there is secured the same adaptation of the infliction to the nature of the sin. Many explanations have been offered of this sin, but we prefer to consider its essence to lie in a sense of elation in the strength of the nation, and a consequent desire to be assured of its sufficiency for all contingencies. David was thinking of strength and glory in numerical form. In this he was going counter to the letter and spirit of the Law laid down for him and his people ( Leviticus 26:1-46 .). Success and prosperity were to be dependent on perfect obedience to God's commands (Le 26:3, 4)? It is expressly added that then a few men will suffice against a host, and, on the other hand, disobedience and "pride of power" ( 2 Samuel 24:14 , 2 Samuel 24:15-19 ) will entail defeat and desolation. That this "pride of power" was the real sin in David's case is seen in this—that the three alternatives offered to him are the very three forms of chastisement alluded to in Le 26:3-10 (cf. 16-20). But the point is this, that, whichever form of chastisement is taken, the effect is the same—a diminution of the power which was an object of pride. The sin of rejoicing in the "arm of flesh" ( Jeremiah 17:5 ; cf. Isaiah 30:2 ) was visited by a weakening of that "arm." Famine, war, pestilence, either, would take away from that very number which it was David's ambition to know and have as large as possible. This adaptation of chastisement to sin is seen elsewhere. The infliction for wicked craving for flesh in the wilderness ( Numbers 11:33 ), the confusion and helplessness of those who sought help in Egypt rather than in God ( Isaiah 30:2 , Isaiah 30:3 , Isaiah 30:16 , Isaiah 30:17 ), the turning of Laodicean outward respectability into a loss of all respectability ( Revelation 3:14-18 ), the change from boasted glory to corruption in the case of Herod ( Acts 12:21-23 ),—are instances of a certain adaptation of chastisement to the particular sin committed. All who make self, or personal merits, or created power, a substitute for God, will find that on which they rest vanishing just when they most need comfort.

VII. THE PENITENT 'S TRUST IN THE JUSTICE AND MERCY OF GOD . Of the three dreadful alternatives, David took the pestilence, on the ground that his broken heart could rest more calmly in God's judgments, where the human element was not employed as agent. Here was the true instinct of the soul. God is just and good, and in his hands all is sure to be right and kind. Man is weak and evil, and as an agent may blend his own base passions with the execution of a Divine decree. Even in the hour of suffering, when sin is to be punished, the heart has faith in God. Here is homage to God's justice and mercy. Many a man, who by his sins brings terrible wars on himself and family, bows in entire submission, and rests in blended justice and mercy. This is the essence of our faith in Christ as Sacrifice for sin.

VIII. THE RELATIVE CHARACTER OF OPEN MANIFESTATIONS OF GOD 'S PRESENCE . There is nothing really surprising in the appearing of the angel of the Lord to David; for it is in keeping with the theophanies of the early dispensation, when men had special need to be reminded of the reality of God's presence. Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Joshua, Manoah, were predecessors of David in this respect. The step from the message of God by the Seer Gad to a visible manifestation is not very great to any one who believes at all in the supernatural; indeed, the final manifestation of God in Christ covers all prior manifestations. Those who profess to see difficulties in these Old Testament accounts do not understand the logic or the historical congruity of their position as believers in the visible incarnation of the Son of God. Manifestations of God's presence are relative. Creation is an expression of the being and presence of God. The voice which comes to prophet or apostle, the glory on which Moses gazed, the pillar of cloud and of fire, the appearance of manna after the promise of it, the vision of the seer, the still small voice to Elijah, the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, the frustration of the scheme of the wicked and the furtherance of those of the good, and the spiritual revelation to the soul in fulfilment of the precious words ( John 14:21 , John 14:22 ),—these are all manifestations of God. Christ differs from all in that he is the Fulness of the Godhead bodily. It is a mercy that our poor dull nature has been blessed by these demonstrations of the reality of things unseen and eternal.

IX. MENTAL SUFFERING THE CHIEF PENALTY OF SIN . David sinned in numbering the people; the pestilence smote many of them, but touched him not. Nevertheless, he was the greatest sufferer; for no physical death could equal, in the pain it brings, the anguish of his soul in seeing that his sin had brought such trouble and pain on "these sheep" (verse 17). To a man of his generous nature, with all the ambition to be a good and wise ruler ( 2 Samuel 23:3-5 ), it must have been torment unspeakable to see that he was an occasion of bringing woe to thousands of homes. His punishment was heavy indeed. A similar terrible mental punishment comes to the parent who sees, in his reformed years, his children diseased or ruined by former sins of his own. In this mental anguish lies, perhaps, the hell which men so much dread.

X. THE PARCIMONY OF PROVIDENCE . David was not correct in his supposition that "these sheep" had not gone astray. We are not certain whether they had indulged in feelings of pride in the strength of Israel, and so were virtually one with their king in the sin of numbering; but we know that they had sinned in the revolt of Absalom and Sheba, and the anger of the Lord against Israel may, as we have seen (verses 1-9), be referred to those acts. The fact that they had not been chastised for so great a sin is manifest, so far as the history is any guide, though, if Absalom's sin deserved special visitation on him, theirs equally deserved a visitation on themselves. The sense of the whole history, therefore, is that God waited, and made the occasion of the new sin of their king the opportunity of visiting them with stripes while visiting him with stripes for his own. Indeed, the severity of his chastisement lay much in this, that he was the instrumental occasion of their woe. By one pestilence the double chastisement was secured. Philosophy has dwelt much on the "law of parcimony" in nature. It seems also to run through many providential dispensations in relation to man. By the Flood God punished wicked men and set forth his faithfulness to the righteous. The institution of the Hebrew ritual both educated men in spiritual conceptions, and kept them distinct from the nations for the ulterior purpose of Christ's coming. The sacrifice of Christ is at the same time an objective ground of forgiveness, and the most impressive source of moral influence in winning men over to God. There are manifold forms of the same law in daily life.