Day 95. 2 Samuel 24-25

In our reading for today, David gives an oracle by the power of God's spirit (23:2). He first uses the metaphor of a clear dawn to extol the virtues of the righteous king—"One who rules over people justly, ruling in the fear of God, is like the light of morning, like the sun rising on a cloudless morning, gleaming from the rain on a grassy land" (23:3-4). Not all the kings of David' house will live up to this ideal; there will be some scoundrels, as we shall see. But the hope of a righteous king from the house of David is always present. The covenant God has made with David is steadfast, "ordered in all things and secure," and founded upon the character of the covenant-making, covenant-keeping God himself. We see that covenant fulfilled in Jesus Christ, the son of David, who rules eternally and righteously over a kingdom which is, as he said, "not of this world."
As he is summing up the life of David, the compiler of 2 Samuel gives us a list of the "mighty men," the heroes of David's reign—the "Three" and "the thirty" (23:3 and 13). These names need not detain us long. But we should take note of the little story of how David once refused to drink when his troops were thirsty and poured out the water "to the LORD" (23:15-17). Almost exactly the same story is told about Alexander the Great. Both illustrate that "spirit de corps" in a general is the foundation of great leadership. David is himself the greatest of all the heroes of his reign.
The story of David's census which occupies chapter 24 is strange to us in a number of aspects. First of all, the census is seen as a punishment from God (24:1), visited on the people through the king. In order to understand this we need to remember that an ancient census was taken to centralize the power of the state and to facilitate the collecting of taxes and the exaction of forced labor. It was seen as source of suffering for the people.
Joab, the king's army commander, tries to dissuade David for taking this step, concerned, perhaps, for the public image of the monarchy—a census, though necessary, is hardly ever popular. "But the king's word prevailed against Joab and the commanders of the army," so we are told, the census is taken (24:3-4).
But as soon as it has been done, David is "stricken to the heart" at his own unrighteous behavior, and confesses his sin. The LORD gives him a choice from among three punishments—"Shall three years of famine come upon your land? Or will you flee three months before your foes while they pursue you? Or shall there be three days' pestilence in your land" (24:13). David cannot choose—or will not. He only puts himself in the hands of LORD, where there is mercy, rather than in hands of human beings, where mercy is not always to be found (23:14).
So the LORD sends the pestilence and seventy-thousand die in Israel. God's agent--the "angel" who like one of the apocalyptic figures in Daniel and Revelation—stretches out his arm toward the royal city of Jerusalem, but the LORD relents in a pure act of mercy (26:16) -- or perhaps out of regard for the covenant with David. David sees the angel "by the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite" (24:16), and accepts personal responsibility for the suffering of the people.
He begs the Lord for mercy, and God commands David to build on altar on the threshing floor where he sees the angel. So David buys the property and the oxen to sacrifice, declining Araunah's offer to give them freely. "I will not offer burnt offerings to the LORD by God that cost me nothing," David says. A sacrifice must actually be a sacrifice. The altar is built. The sacrifice is made. And the Book of 2nd Samuel ends with the notice that the "Lord answered [David's] supplication for the land, and the plague was averted from Israel" (24:25).