2 Samuel 24:10

_AND DAVID'S HEART SMOTE 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._ David's heart smote him ... And David said unto the Lord, I have sinned ... The act of numbering the people was not in itself sinful; for Moses did it twice, by the express authority of God. But David acted not only independently of such order or sanction, but from motives unworthy of the delegated king of Israel, and even inconsistent with constitutional principles-from pride and vain glory, from self-confidence and distrust of God, and, above all, from ambitious designs of conquest, in furtherance of which he was determined to force the people into military service, and to ascertain whether he could muster an army sufficient for the magnitude...

10-15 It is well, when a man has sinned, if he has a heart within to smite him for it. If we confess our sins, we may pray in faith that God would forgive them, and take away, by pardoning mercy, that sin which we cast away by sincere repentance. What we make the matter of our pride, it is just in God to take from us, or make bitter to us, and make it our punishment. This must be such a punishment as the people have a large share in, for though it was David's sin that opened the sluice, the sins of the people all contributed to the flood. In this difficulty, David chose a judgment which came immediately from God, whose mercies he knew to be very great, rather than from men, who would have triumphed in the miseries of Israel, and have been thereby hardened in their idolatry. He chose the pestilence; he and his family would be as much exposed to it as the poorest Israelite; and he would c...

Verse 2 Samuel 24:10. _DAVID SAID - I HAVE SINNED GREATLY_] We know not exactly in what this sin consisted. I have already hinted, 2 Samuel 24:1, that probably David now began to covet an extension of empire, and purposed to unite some of the neighbouring states with his own; and having, through the suggestions of Satan or some other _adversary_, (for so the word implies,) given way to this covetous disposition, he could not well look to God for help, and therefore wished to know whether the thousands of Israel and Judah might be deemed equal to the conquests which he meditated. When God is offended and refuses assistance, vain is the help of man....

EXPOSITION 2 SAMUEL 24:1 AND AGAIN THE ANGER OF JEHOVAH WAS KINDLED AGAINST ISRAEL. It is probable that this chapter once stood in intimate connection with 2 Samuel 21:1; and that the famine therein described was followed by a pestilence, of which the blame largely rested upon David, though the sin punished by it was fully shared by the people. In saying that David was moved of Jehovah to number Israel and Judah, the writer acknowledges the great truth that all action, both good and evil, is of God. "Shall there be evil in a city, and Jehovah hath not done it?" (Amos 3:6). While we are taught to pray that we may not be led into temptation, yet trial and temptation are by G

AND DAVID'S HEART SMOTE HIM, AFTER THAT HAD NUMBERED THE PEOPLE,.... For nine or ten months his conscience lay asleep, but now the thing was done, it is awakened, and accuses him for it, and he repents of it; now he began to see the pride and haughtiness of his heart; his vanity and confidence in the creature, which led him to it; aggravated by doing it without seeking to know the mind of God, and without giving him his due, the half shekel, according to the law, Exodus 30:12; intent only upon increasing his own revenue, as some think, intending to impose a poll tax upon the people when he had numbered them; and attempting to number a people who were not to be numbered; and numbering those who were under the age of twenty, and therefore the plague began before it was finished, 1 Chronicles 27:23;

4. DAVID'S FAILURE: THE ALTAR ON THE THRESHING FLOOR OF ARAUNAH CHAPTER 24 _ 1. The numbering of the people (2 Samuel 24:1)_ 2. The sin acknowledged and Gad's message (2 Samuel 24:10) 3. The pestilence (2 Samuel 24:15) 4. The altar on the threshing floor of Araunah (2 Samuel 24:18) The final chapter of the books of Samuel is of much interest and importance. “And again the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel, and He moved David against them to say, Go, number Israel and Judah.” In...

1 SAMUEL 24. THE CENSUS (J). (_Cf._ p. 292.) This event also may belong to the beginning of David's reign over all Israel. 2 SAMUEL 24:1. Here is another illustration of the imperfect recognition of the moral nature of Yahweh in the primitive documents. No one is conscious of sin, yet Yahweh, for some inscrutable, arbitrary reason, is angry with His people. Accordingly, He induces David to commit an obvious sin, so that He may have a justification for punishing Israel. It is useless to ask why a census was sinful; such ideas go too far back for us to trace their origin (Numbers 31:50 *). In the Priestly Code censuses are taken quite happily. The subsequent advance of religious thought in Israel is indicated by the fact that in...

I HAVE SINNED. Probably conviction of pride or other sinful motive. Hebrew. _hatah._ App-44. TAKE AWAY. cause to pass over. See 2 Samuel 12:13 INIQUITY. See App-44....

The choice of punishments 10. _David's heart smote him_ Conscience accused him, and he became aware of his guilt. He recognised the sinfulness of the proud and vainglorious spirit of self-confidence and desire for worldly aggrandisement which had induced him to take the census. See Additional Note v. p. 238. _I have done very foolishly_ Cp. 1 Samuel 13:13; 2 Chronicles 16:9. In both these cases, as in effect here, the folly was sin springing from distrust of God....

DAVID SAID,—I HAVE SINNED— The specific nature of his sin may be easily determined and understood, though it has embarrassed many of the commentators; for, among other commands which were given by Moses, was that recorded Exodus 30:12 to which the reader is referred. David, either not thinking of this command, or thinking himself, as king of Israel, exempt from it, ordered the people to be numbered without exacting the ransom from each of them. This was one of the highest stretches of power, assuming a prerogative which God reserved to himself, and a violation of one of the standing laws of the kingdom. But God, to support the dignity of his own constitution, and to put David in mind, that, though king, he was still to limit the exercise of his power by the precepts of the law, gives him by the prophet the option of three punishments, of which David chose the plague, recollecting probabl...