1 chronicles 21 commentary

1 CHRONICLES 21 COMMENTARY
EDITED BY GLENN PEASE
David Counts the Fighting Men
1 Satan rose up against Israel and incited David to
take a census of Israel.
BARNES, "As the books of Scripture are arranged in our Version, Satan is here for
the first time by name introduced to us. He appears not merely as an “adversary” who
seeks to injure man from without, but as a Tempter able to ruin him by suggesting sinful
acts and thoughts from within. In this point of view, the revelation made of him here is
the most advanced that we find in the Old Testament.
The difficulty in reconciling the statement here, “Satan provoked David,” etc. with that
of Samuel, “the Lord moved David,” etc. 2Sa_24:1 is not serious. All temptation is
permitted by God. When evil spirits tempt us, they do so by permission (Job_1:12; Job_
2:6; Luk_22:31, etc.). If Satan therefore provoked David to number the peopIe, God
allowed him. And what God allows, He may be said to do. (Another view is maintained
in the 2Sa_24:1 note).
CLARKE, "And Satan stood up against Israel - See the notes on the parallel
place, 2Sa_24:1 (note), etc.
HENRY 1-6, "Numbering the people, one would think, was no bad thing. Why
should not the shepherd know the number of his flock? But God sees not as man sees. It
is plain it was wrong in David to do it, and a great provocation to God, because he did it
in the pride of his heart; and there is no sin that has in it more of contradiction and
therefore more of offence to God than pride. The sin was David's; he alone must bear the
blame of it. But here we are told,
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I. How active the tempter was in it (1Ch_21:1): Satan stood up against Israel, and
provoked David to do it. Is is said (2Sa_24:1) that the anger of the Lord was kindled
against Israel, and he moved David to do it. The righteous judgments of God are to be
observed and acknowledged even in the sins and unrighteousness of men. We are sure
that God is not the author of sin - he tempts no man; and therefore, when it is said that
he moved David to do it, it must be explained by what is intimated here, that, for wise
and holy ends, he permitted the devil to do it. Here we trace this foul stream to its
foundation. That Satan, the enemy of God and all good, should stand up against Israel,
is not strange; it is what he aims at, to weaken the strength, diminish the numbers, and
eclipse the glory of God's Israel, to whom he is Satan, a sworn adversary. But that he
should influence David, the man of God's own heart to do a wrong thing, may well be
wondered at. One would think him one of those whom the wicked one touches not. No,
even the best saints, till they come to heaven, must never think themselves out of the
reach of Satan's temptations. Now, when Satan meant to do Israel a mischief, what
course did he take? He did not move God against them to destroy them (as Job, Job_
2:3), but he provoked David, the best friend they had, to number them, and so to offend
God, and set him against them. Note, 1. The devil does us more mischief by tempting us
to sin against our God than he does by accusing us before our God. He destroys none but
by their own hands, 2. The greatest spite he can do to the church of God is to tempt the
rulers of the church to pride; for none can conceive the fatal consequences of that sin in
all, especially in church-rulers. You shall not be so, Luk_22:26.
II. How passive the instrument was. Joab, the person whom David employed, was an
active man in public business; but to this he was perfectly forced, and did it with the
greatest reluctance imaginable.
1. He put in a remonstrance against it before he began it. No man more forward that
he in any thing that really tended to the honour of the king or the welfare of the
kingdom; but in this matter he would gladly be excused. For, (1.) It was a needless thing.
there was not occasion at all for it. God had promised to multiply them, and he needed
not question the accomplishment of that promise. They were all his servants, and he
needed not doubt of their loyalty and affection to him. Their number was as much his
strength as he could desire. (2.) It was a dangerous thing. In doing it he might be a cause
of trespass to Israel, and might provoke God against them. This Joab apprehended, and
yet David himself did not. The most learned in the laws of God are not always the most
quick-sighted in the application of those laws.
2. He was quite weary of it before he had done it; for the king's word was abominable
to Joab, 1Ch_21:6. Time was when whatever king David did pleased all the people, 2Sa_
3:36. But now there was a general disgust at these orders, which confirmed Joab in his
dislike of them. so that, though the produce of this muster was really very great, yet he
had no heart to perfect it, but left two tribes unnumbered (1Ch_21:5, 1Ch_21:6), two
considerable ones, Levi and Benjamin, and perhaps was not very exact in numbering the
rest, because he did not do it with any pleasure, which might be one occasion of the
difference between the sums here and 2Sa_24:9.
JAMISON, "1Ch_21:1-13. David sins in numbering the people.
Satan stood up against Israel — God, by withdrawing His grace at this time from
David (see on 2Sa_24:1), permitted the tempter to prevail over him. As the result of this
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successful temptation was the entail of a heavy calamity as a punishment from God upon
the people, it might be said that “Satan stood up against Israel.”
number Israel — In the act of taking the census of a people, there is not only no evil,
but much utility. But numbering Israel - that people who were to become as the stars for
multitude, implying a distrust of the divine promise, was a sin; and though it had been
done with impunity in the time of Moses, at that enumeration each of the people had
contributed “half a shekel towards the building of the tabernacle,” that there might be no
plague among them when he numbered them (Exo_30:12). Hence the numbering of that
people was in itself regarded as an undertaking by which the anger of God could be
easily aroused; but when the arrangements were made by Moses for the taking of the
census, God was not angry because the people were numbered for the express purpose of
the tax for the sanctuary, and the money which was thus collected (“the atonement
money,” Exo_30:16) appeased Him. Everything depended, therefore, upon the design of
the census [Bertheau]. The sin of David numbering the people consisted in its being
either to gratify his pride to ascertain the number of warriors he could muster for some
meditated plan of conquest; or, perhaps, more likely still, to institute a regular and
permanent system of taxation, which he deemed necessary to provide an adequate
establishment for the monarchy, but which was regarded as a tyrannical and oppressive
exaction - an innovation on the liberty of the people - a departure from ancient usage
unbecoming a king of Israel.
K&D, "“And Satan stood up against Israel, and incited David to number Israel.” The
mention of Satan as the seducer of David is not to be explained merely by the fact that
the Israelites in later times traced up everything contrary to God's will to this evil spirit,
but in the present case arises from the author's design to characterize David's purpose
from the very beginning as an ungodly thing.
BENSON, "1 Chronicles 21:1. Satan stood up against Israel — Before the Lord and
his tribunal, to accuse David and Israel, and to ask God’s permission to tempt
David. Standing is the accuser’s posture before men’s tribunals; and consequently
the Holy Scriptures (which use to speak of the things of God after the manner of
men, to bring them down to our capacities) elsewhere represent Satan in this
posture. See 1 Kings 22:21; Zechariah 3:1. In 2 Samuel 24:1, it is said, The anger of
the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he moved David, or rather, there was who
moved David; namely, Satan, as is here stated, by God’s permission. The righteous
judgments of God are to be observed and acknowledged even in the sins and
unrighteousness of men. But we are sure God is not the author of sin, and that,
strictly speaking, he tempts no man, James 1:13. That passage, therefore, must be
explained by this. But of this particular, and of the contents of this whole chapter,
and of the variations and seeming contradictions between this narrative and that in
Samuel, see notes there.
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COKE, "1 Chronicles 21:1. Satan stood up— An adversary stood up. Le Clerc. See
the note on 2 Samuel 24:1; 2 Samuel 24:25. Bishop Warburton observes (perhaps
the reader will think with rather too much refinement) upon this passage as follows:
"This evil Being [Satan] was little known to the Jewish people till about this time:
their great lawgiver, where he so frequently enumerates and warns them of the
snares and temptations which would draw them to transgress the law of God, never
once mentions this capital enemy of heaven: but as the fulness of time drew near,
they were made more and more acquainted with this their capital enemy. When
Ahab was suffered to be infatuated, (see on 1 Kings 22:19; 1 Kings 22:53.) Satan is
not recorded by name. On the return from the captivity we find him better known,
and things are then ascribed to him as the immediate and proper author, which
were before given in an improper sense to the first and ultimate cause of all things.
Thus in 2 Samuel 24:1 it seems to be said that God moved David to number the
people: the anger of the Lord was kindled—and he moved, &c. But in the passage
before us, which was written after the captivity, Satan is said to have moved David
to this folly: for his history having an inseparable connection with the redemption of
mankind, the knowledge of them was to be conveyed together; and now their later
prophets had given very lively descriptions of the Redeemer, and the other
attendant truths." Div. Leg.
ELLICOTT, "The census, and consequent plague. The hallowing of the Temple
area. Omitting the magnificent ode which David sang to his deliverer (2 Samuel 22),
and the last words of David (2 Samuel 23:1-7), as well as the list of David’s heroes (2
Samuel 23:8-39), which has already been repeated in 1 Chronicles 11, the chronicler
resumes the ancient narrative at the point coincident with 2 Samuel 24 (See the
notes there.) Though the two accounts obviously had a common basis, the deviations
of our text from that of Samuel are much more numerous and noteworthy than is
usual. They are generally explicable by reference to the special purpose and
tendency of the writer.
In Samuel the narrative of the census comes in as a kind of appendix to the history
of David; here it serves to introduce the account of the preparations for building the
Temple, and the organisation of its ministry.
Verse 1
(1) And Satan stood up against Israel.—Perhaps, And an adversary (hostile
influence) arose against Israel. So in 2 Samuel 19:23 the sons of Zeruiah are called
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“adversaries” (Heb., a Satan) to David. (Comp. 1 Kings 11:14; 1 Kings 11:25.) When
the adversary, the enemy of mankind, is meant, the word takes the article, which it
has not here. (Comp. Job 1, 2 and Zechariah 3:1-2.)
And provoked David.—Pricked him on, incited him. 2 Samuel 24 begins: “And
again the anger of Jehovah burned against Israel, and He (or it) incited David
against them, saying, Go, number Israel and Judah.” It thus appears that the
adversary of our text, the influence hostile to Israel, was the wrath of God. The
wrath of God is the Scriptural name for that aspect of the Divine nature under
which it pursues to destruction whatever is really opposed to its own perfection
(Delitzsch); and it is only sin, i.e., breach of the Divine law, which can necessarily
direct that aspect towards man. If Divine wrath urged David to number Israel, it
can only have been in consequence of evil thoughts of pride and self-sufficiency,
which had intruded into a heart hitherto humbly reliant upon its Maker. One evil
thought led to another, quite naturally; i.e., by the laws which God has imposed
upon human nature. God did not interpose, but allowed David’s corrupt motive to
work out its own penal results. (Comp. Romans 1:18; Romans 1:24; Romans 1:26;
Romans 1:28.) The true reading in Samuel may well be, “And an adversary incited
David,” &c., the word Satan having fallen out of the text. Yet the expression
“Jehovah provoked or incited against . . .” occurs (1 Samuel 26:19).
To number Israel—Samuel adds, “and Judah.”
EBC, "SATAN
"And again the anger of Jehovah was kindled against Israel, and He moved David
against them saying, Go, number Israel and Judah." 2 Samuel 24:1
"And Satan stood up against Israel, and moved David to number Israel."- 1
Chronicles 21:1
"Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God for God cannot be
tempted with evil, and He Himself tempteth no man: but each man is tempted when
he is drawn away by his own lust and enticed."- James 1:13-14
THE census of David is found both in the book of Samuel and in Chronicles, in very
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much the same form; but the chronicler has made a number of small but important
alterations and additions. Taken together, these changes involve a new
interpretation of the history, and bring out lessons that cannot so easily be deduced
from the narrative in the book of Samuel. Hence it is necessary to give a separate
exposition of the narrative in Chronicles.
As before, we will first review the alterations made by the chronicler and then
expound the narrative in the form in which it left his hand, or rather in the form in
which it stands in the Masoretic text. Any attempt to deal with the peculiarly
complicated problem of the textual criticism of Chronicles would be out of place
here. Probably there are no corruptions of the text that would appreciably affect the
general exposition of this chapter.
At the very outset the chronicler substitutes Satan for Jehovah, and thus changes
the whole significance of the narrative. This point is too important to be dealt with
casually, and must be reserved for special consideration later on. In 1 Chronicles
21:2 there is a slight change that marks the different points of the views of the
Chronicler and the author of the narrative in the book of Samuel. The latter had
written that Joab numbered the people from Dan to Beersheba, a merely
conventional phrase indicating the extent of the census. It might possibly, however,
have been taken to denote that the census began in the north and was concluded in
the south. To the chronicler, whose interests all centered in Judah, such an
arrangement seemed absurd; and he carefully guarded against any mistake by
altering "Dan to Beersheba" into "Beersheba to Dan." In 1 Chronicles 21:3 the
substance of Joab’s words is not altered, but various slight touches are added to
bring out more clearly and forcibly what is implied in the book of Samuel. Joab had
spoken of the census as being the king’s pleasure. It was scarcely appropriate to
speak of David "taking pleasure in" a suggestion of Satan. In Chronicles Joab’s
words are less forcible. "Why doth my lord require this thing?" Again, in the book
of Samuel Joab protests against the census without assigning any reason. The
context, it is true, readily supplies one; but in Chronicles all is made clear by the
addition, "Why will he" (David) "be a cause of guilt unto Israel?" Further on the
chronicler’s special interest in Judah again betrays itself. The book of Samuel
described, with some detail, the progress of the enumerators through Eastern and
Northern Palestine by way of Beersheba to Jerusalem. Chronicles having already
made them start from Beersheba, omits these details.
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In 1 Chronicles 21:5 the numbers in Chronicles differ not only from those of the
older narrative, but also from the chronicler’s own statistics in chapter 27. In this
last account the men of war are divided into twelve courses of twenty-four thousand
each, making a total of two hundred and eighty-eight thousand; in the book of
Samuel Israel numbers eight hundred thousand, and Judah five hundred thousand;
but in our passage Israel is increased to eleven hundred thousand, and Judah is
reduced to four hundred and seventy thousand. Possibly the statistics in chapter 27
are not intended to include all the fighting men, otherwise the figures cannot be
harmonized. The discrepancy between our passage and the book of Samuel is
perhaps partly explained by the following verse, which is an addition of the
chronicler. In the book of Samuel the census is completed, but our additional verse
states that Levi and Benjamin were not included in the census. The chronicler
understood that the five hundred thousand assigned to Judah in the older narrative
were the joint total of Judah and Benjamin; he accordingly reduced the total by
thirty thousand, because, according to his view, Benjamin was omitted from the
census. The increase in the number of the Israelites is unexpected. The chronicler
does not usually overrate the northern tribes. Later on Jeroboam, eighteen years
after the disruption, takes the field against Abijah with "eight hundred thousand
chosen men," a phrase that implies a still larger number of fighting men, if all had
been mustered. Obviously the rebel king would not be expected to be able to bring
into the field as large a force as the entire strength of Israel in the most flourishing
days of David. The chronicler’s figures in these two passages are consistent, but the
comparison is not an adequate reason for the alteration in the present chapter.
Textual corruption is always a possibility in the case of numbers, but on the whole
this particular change does not admit of a satisfactory explanation.
In 1 Chronicles 21:7 we have a very striking alteration. According to the book of
Samuel, David’s repentance was entirely spontaneous: "David’s heart smote him
after that he had numbered the people"; but here God smites Israel, and then
David’s conscience awakes. In 1 Chronicles 21:12 the chronicler makes a slight
addition, apparently to gratify his literary taste. In the original narrative the third
alternative offered to David had been described simply as "the pestilence," but in
Chronicles the words "the sword of Jehovah" are added in antithesis to "the sword
of Thine enemies" in the previous verse.
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1 Chronicles 21:16, which describes David’s vision of the angel with the drawn
sword, is an expansion of the simple statement of the book of Samuel that David saw
the angel. In 1 Chronicles 21:18 we are not merely told that Gad spake to David, but
that he spake by the command of the angel of Jehovah. 1 Chronicles 21:20, which
tells us how Ornan saw the angel, is an addition of the chronicler’s. All these
changes lay stress upon the intervention of the angel, and illustrate the interest
taken by Judaism in the ministry of angels. Zechariah, the prophet of the
Restoration, received his messages by the dispensation of angels; and the title of the
last canonical prophet, Malachi, probably means "the Angel." The change from
Araunah to Ornan is a mere question of spelling. Possibly Ornan is a somewhat
Hebraized form of the older Jebusite name Araunah.
In 1 Chronicles 21:22 the reference to "a full price" and other changes in the form
of David’s Words are probably due to the influence of Genesis 23:9. In 1 Chronicles
21:23 the chronicler’s familiarity with the ritual of sacrifice has led him to insert a
reference to a meal offering, to accompany the burnt offering. Later on the
chronicler omits the somewhat ambiguous words which seem to speak of Araunah
as a king. He would naturally avoid anything like a recognition of the royal status of
a Jebusite prince.
In 1 Chronicles 21:25 David pays much more dearly for Ornan’s threshing-floor
than in the book of Samuel. In the latter the price is fifty shekels of silver, in the
former six hundred shekels of gold. Most ingenious attempts have been made to
harmonize the two statements. It has been suggested that fifty shekels of silver
means silver to the value of fifty shekels of gold and paid in gold, and that six
hundred shekels of gold means the value of six hundred shekels of silver paid in
gold. A more lucid but equally impossible explanation is that David paid fifty
shekels forevery tribe, six hundred in all. The real reason for the change is that
when the Temple became supremely important to the Jews the small price of fifty
shekels for the site seemed derogatory to the dignity of the sanctuary; six hundred
shekels of gold was a more appropriate sum. Abraham had paid four hundred
shekels for a burying-place; and a site for the Temple, where Jehovah had chosen to
put His name, must surely have cost more. The chronicler followed the tradition
which had grown up under the influence of this feeling.
1 Chronicles 21:27-30;, 1 Chronicles 22:1 are an addition. According to the Levitical
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law, David was falling into grievous sin in sacrificing anywhere except before the
Mosaic altar of burnt offering. The chronicler therefore states the special
circumstances that palliated this offence against the exclusive privileges of the one
sanctuary of Jehovah. He also reminds us that this threshing-floor became the site of
the altar of burnt offering for Solomon’s temple. Here he probably follows an
ancient and historical tradition; the prominence given to the threshing-floor in the
book of Samuel indicates the special sanctity of the site. The Temple is the only
sanctuary whose site could be thus connected with the last days of David. When the
book of Samuel was written, the facts were too familiar to need any explanation;
every one knew that the Temple stood on the site of Araunah’s threshing-floor. The
chronicler, writing centuries later, felt it necessary to make an explicit statement on
the subject.
Having thus attempted to understand how our narrative assumed its present form,
we will now tell the chronicler’s story of these incidents. The long reign of David
was drawing to a close. Hitherto he had been blessed with uninterrupted prosperity
and success. His armies had been victorious over all the enemies of Israel, the
borders of the land of Jehovah had been extended, David himself was lodged with
princely splendor, and the services of the Ark were conducted with imposing ritual
by a numerous array of priests and Levites. King and people alike were at the zenith
of their glory. In worldly prosperity and careful attention to religious observances
David and his people were not surpassed by Job himself. Apparently their
prosperity provoked the envious malice of an evil and mysterious being, who
appears only here in Chronicles: Satan, the persecutor of Job. The trial to which he
subjected the loyalty of David was more subtle and suggestive than his assault upon
Job. He harassed Job as the wind dealt with the traveler in the fable, and Job only
wrapped the cloak of his faith closer about him; Satan allowed David to remain in
the full sunshine of prosperity, and seduced him into sin by fostering his pride in
being the powerful and victorious prince of a mighty people. He suggested a census.
David’s pride would be gratified by obtaining accurate information as to the
myriads of his subjects. Such statistics would be useful for the civil organization of
Israel; the king would learn where and how to recruit his army or to find an
opportunity to impose additional taxation. The temptation appealed alike to the
king, the soldier, and the statesman, and did not appeal in vain. David at once
instructed Joab and the princes to proceed with the enumeration; Joab demurred
and protested: the census would be a cause of guilt unto Israel. But not even the
great influence of the commander-in-chief could turn the king from his purpose. His
word prevailed against Joab, wherefore Joab departed, and went throughout all
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Israel, and came to Jerusalem. This brief general statement indicates a long and
laborious task, simplified and facilitated in some measure by the primitive
organization of society and by rough and ready methods adopted to secure the very
moderate degree of accuracy with which an ancient Eastern sovereign would be
contented. When Xerxes wished to ascertain the number of the vast army with
which he set out to invade Greece, his officers packed ten thousand men into as
small a space as possible and built a wall round them; then they turned them out,
and packed the space again and again; and so in time they ascertained how many
tens of thousands of men there were in the army. Joab’s methods would be different,
but perhaps not much more exact. He would probably learn from the "heads of
fathers’ houses" the number of fighting men in each family. Where the hereditary
chiefs of a district were indifferent, he might make some rough estimate of his own.
We may be sure that both Joab and the local authorities would be careful to err on
the safe side. The king was anxious to learn that he possessed a large number of
subjects. Probably as the officers of Xerxes went on with their counting they omitted
to pack the measured area as closely as they did at first; they might allow eight or
nine thousand to pass for ten thousand. Similarly David’s servants would, to say the
least, be anxious not to underestimate the number of his subjects. The work
apparently went on smoothly; nothing is said that indicates any popular objection
or resistance to the census; the process of enumeration was not interrupted by any
token of Divine displeasure against the "cause of guilt unto Israel." Nevertheless
Joab’s misgivings were not set at rest; he did what he could to limit the range of the
census and to withdraw at least two of the tribes from the impending outbreak of
Divine wrath. The tribe of Levi would be exempt from taxation and the obligation of
military service; Joab could omit them without rendering his statistics less useful for
military and financial purposes. In not including the Levites in the general census of
Israel, Joab was following the precedent set by the numbering in the wilderness.
Benjamin was probably omitted in order to protect the Holy City, the chronicler
following that form of the ancient tradition which assigned Jerusalem to Benjamin.
Later on, [1 Chronicles 27:23-24] however, the chronicler seems to imply that these
two tribes left to the last were not numbered because of the growing dissatisfaction
of Joab with his task: "Joab the son of Zeruiah began to number, but finished not."
But these different reasons for the omission of Levi and Benjamin do not mutually
exclude each other. Another limitation is also stated in the later reference: "David
took not the number of them twenty years old and under, because Jehovah had said
that He would increase Israel like to the stars of heaven." This statement and
explanation seems a little superfluous: the census was specially concerned with the
fighting men, and in the book of Numbers only those over twenty are numbered. But
we have seen elsewhere that the chronicler has no great confidence in the
intelligence of his readers, and feels bound to state definitely matters that have only
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been implied and might be overlooked. Here, therefore, he calls our attention to the
fact that the numbers previously given do not comprise the whole male population,
but only the adults. At last the census, so far as it was carried out at all, was
finished, and the results were presented to the king. They are meager and bald
compared to the volumes of tables which form the report of a modern census. Only
two divisions of the country are recognized: "Judah" and "Israel," or the ten tribes.
The total is given for each: eleven hundred thousand for Israel, four hundred and
seventy thousand for Judah, in all fifteen hundred and seventy thousand. Whatever
details may have been given to the king, he would be chiefly interested in the grand
total. Its figures would be the most striking symbol of the extent of his authority and
the glory of his kingdom.
Perhaps during the months occupied in taking the census David had forgotten the
ineffectual protests of Joab, and was able to receive his report without any
presentiment of coming evil. Even if his mind were not altogether at ease, all
misgivings would for the time be forgotten, He probably made or had made for him
some rough calculation as to the total of men, women, and children that would
correspond to the vast array of fighting men. His servants would not reckon the
entire population at less than nine or ten millions. His heart would be uplifted with
pride as he contemplated the statement of the multitudes that were the subjects of
his crown and prepared to fight at his bidding. The numbers are moderate
compared with the vast populations and enormous armies of the great powers of
modern Europe; they were far surpassed by the Roman Empire and the teeming
populations of the valleys of the Nile, the Euphrates, and the Tigris; but during the
Middle Ages it was not often possible to find in Western Europe so large a
population under one government or so numerous an army under one banner. The
resources of Cyrus may not have been greater when he started on his career of
conquest; and when Xerxes gathered into one motley horde the warriors of half the
known world, their total was only about double the number of David’s robust and
warlike Israelites. There was no enterprise that was likely to present itself to his
imagination that he might not have undertaken with a reasonable probability of
success. He must have regretted that his days of warfare were past, and that the
unwarlike Solomon, occupied with more peaceful tasks, would allow this
magnificent instrument of possible conquests to rust unused.
But the king was not long left in undisturbed enjoyment of his greatness. In the very
moment of his exaltation, some sense of the Divine displeasure fell upon him.
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Mankind has learnt by a long and sad experience to distrust its own happiness. The
brightest hours have come to possess a suggestion of possible catastrophe, and
classic story loved to tell of the unavailing efforts of fortunate princes to avoid their
inevitable downfall. Polycrates and Croesus, however, had not tempted the Divine
anger by ostentatious pride; David’s power and glory had made him neglectful of
the reverent homage due to Jehovah, and he had sinned in spite of the express
warnings of his most trusted minister.
When the revulsion of feeling came, it was complete. The king at once humbled
himself under the mighty hand of God, and made full acknowledgment of his sin
and folly: "I have sinned greatly in that I have done this thing: but now put away, I
beseech Thee, the iniquity of Thy servant, for I have done very foolishly."
The narrative continues as in the book of Samuel. Repentance could not avert
punishment, and the punishment struck directly at David’s pride of power and
glory. The great population was to be decimated either by famine, war, or
pestilence. The king chose to suffer from the pestilence, "the sword of Jehovah";
"Let me fall now into the hand of Jehovah, for very great are His mercies: and let
me not fall into the hand of man. So Jehovah sent a pestilence upon Israel, and there
felt of Israel seventy thousand men." Not three days since Joab handed in his
report, and already a deduction of seventy thousand would have to be made from its
total; and still, the pestilence was not checked, for "God sent an angel unto
Jerusalem to destroy it." If, as we have supposed, Joab had withheld Jerusalem
from the census, his pious caution was now rewarded: "Jehovah repented Him of
the evil, and said to the destroying angel, It is enough; now stay thine hand." At the
very last moment the crowning catastrophe was averted. In the Divine counsels
Jerusalem was already delivered, but to human eyes its fate still trembled in the
balance: "And David lifted up his eyes, and saw the angel of Jehovah stand between
the earth and the heaven, having a drawn sword in his hand stretched out over
Jerusalem." So another great Israelite soldier lifted up his eyes beside Jericho and
beheld the captain of the host of Jehovah standing over against him with his sword
drawn in his hand. [Joshua 5:13] Then the sword was drawn to smite the enemies of
Israel, but now it was turned to smite Israel itself. David and his elders fell upon
their faces as Joshua had done before them: "And David said unto God, Is it not I
that commanded the people to be numbered? even I it is that have sinned and done
very wickedly; but these sheep, what have they done? Let Thine hand, I pray Thee,
O Jehovah my God, be against me and against my father’s house, but not against
12

Thy people, that they should be plagued."
The awful presence returned no answer to the guilty king, but addressed itself to the
prophet Gad, and commanded him to bid David go up and build an altar to Jehovah
in the threshing-floor of Ornan the Jebusite. The command was a message of mercy.
Jehovah permitted David to build Him an altar; He was prepared to accept an
offering at his hands. The king’s prayers were heard, and Jerusalem was saved from
the pestilence. But still the angel stretched out his drawn sword over Jerusalem; he
waited till the reconciliation of Jehovah with His people should have been duly
ratified by solemn sacrifices. At the bidding of the prophet, David went up to the
threshing-floor of Ornan the Jebusite. Sorrow and reassurance, hope and fear,
contended for the mastery. No sacrifice could call back to life the seventy thousand
victims whom the pestilence had already destroyed, and yet the horror of its ravages
was almost forgotten in relief at the deliverance of Jerusalem from the calamity that
had all but overtaken it. Even now the uplifted sword might be only held back for a
time; Satan might yet bring about some heedless and sinful act, and the respite
might end not in pardon, but in the execution of God’s purpose of vengeance. Saul
had been condemned because he sacrificed too soon; now perhaps delay would be
fatal. Uzzah had been smitten because he touched the Ark; till the sacrifice was
actually offered who could tell whether some thoughtless blunder would not again
provoke the wrath of Jehovah? Under ordinary circumstances David would not
have dared to sacrifice anywhere except upon the altar of burnt offering before the
tabernacle at Gibeon; he would have used the ministry of priests and Levites. But
ritual is helpless in great emergencies. The angel of Jehovah with the drawn sword
seemed to bar the way to Gibeon, as once before he had barred Balaam’s progress
when he came to curse Israel. In his supreme need David builds his own altar and
offers his own sacrifices; he receives the Divine answer without the intervention this
time of either priest or prophet. By God’s most merciful and mysterious grace,
David’s guilt and punishment, his repentance and pardon, broke down all barriers
between himself and God.
But, as he went up to the threshing-floor, he was still troubled and anxious. The
burden was partly lifted from his heart, but he still craved full assurance of pardon.
The menacing attitude of the destroying angel seemed to hold out little promise of
mercy and forgiveness, and yet the command to sacrifice would be cruel mockery if
Jehovah did not intend to be gracious to His people and His anointed.
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At the threshing-floor Ornan and his four sons were threshing wheat, apparently
unmoved by the prospect of the threatened pestilence. In Egypt the Israelites were
protected from the plagues with which their oppressors were punished. Possibly
now the situation was reversed, and the remnant of the Canaanites in Palestine were
not afflicted by the pestilence that fell upon Israel. But Ornan turned back and saw
the angel; he may not have known the grim mission with which the Lord’s
messenger had been entrusted, but the aspect of the destroyer, his threatening
attitude, and the lurid radiance of his unsheathed and outstretched sword must have
seemed unmistakable tokens of coming calamity. Whatever might be threatened for
the future, the actual appearance of this supernatural visitant was enough to
unnerve the stoutest heart; and Ornan’s four sons hid themselves.
Before long, however, Ornan’s terrors were somewhat relieved by the approach of
less formidable visitors. The king and his followers had ventured to show themselves
openly, in spite of the destroying angel: and they had ventured with impunity.
Ornan went forth and bowed himself to David with his face to the ground. In
ancient days the father of the faithful, oppressed by the burden of his bereavement,
went to the Hittites to purchase a burying-place for his wife. Now the last of the
Patriarchs, mourning for the sufferings of his people, came by Divine command to
the Jebusite to purchase the ground on which to offer sacrifices, that the plague
might be stayed from the people. The form of bargaining was somewhat similar in
both cases. We are told that bargains are concluded in much the same fashion today.
Abraham had paid four hundred shekels of silver for the field of Ephron in
Machpelah, "with the cave which was therein, and all the trees that were in the
field." The price of Ornan’s threshing-floor was m proportion to the dignity and
wealth of the royal purchaser and the sacred purpose for which it was designed. The
fortunate Jebusite received no less than six hundred shekels of gold.
David built his altar, and offered up his sacrifices and prayers to Jehovah. Then, in
answer to David’s prayers, as later in answer to Solomon’s, fire fell from heaven
upon the altar of burnt offering, and all this while the sword of Jehovah flamed
across the heavens above Jerusalem, and the destroying angel remained passive, but
to all appearances unappeased. But as the fire of God fell from heaven, Jehovah
gave yet another final and convincing token that He would no longer execute
judgment against His people. In spite of all that had happened, to reassure them, the
14

spectators must have been thrilled with alarm when they saw that the angel of
Jehovah no longer remained stationary, and that his flaming sword was moving
through the heavens. Their renewed terror was only for a moment: "the angel put
up his sword again into the sheath thereof," and the people breathed more freely
when they saw the instrument of Jehovah’s wrath vanish out of their sight.
The use of Machpelah as a patriarchal burying-place led to the establishment of a
sanctuary at Hebron, which continued to be the seat of a debased and degenerate
worship even after the coming of Christ. It is even now a Mohammedan holy place.
But On the threshing-floor of Ornan the Jebusite there was to arise a more worthy
memorial of the mercy and judgment of Jehovah. Without the aid of priestly oracle
or prophetic utterance, David was led by the Spirit of the Lord to discern the
significance of the command to perform an irregular sacrifice in a hitherto
unconsecrated place. When the sword of the destroying angel interposed between
David and the Mosaic tabernacle and altar of Gibeon, the way was not merely
barred against the king and his court on one exceptional occasion. The incidents of
this crisis symbolized the cutting off forever of the worship of Israel from its ancient
shrine and the transference of the Divinely appointed center of the worship of
Jehovah to the threshing-floor of Ornan the Jebusite, that is to say to Jerusalem, the
city of David and the capital of Judah.
The lessons of this incident, so far as the chronicler has simply borrowed from his
authority, belong to the exposition of the book of Samuel. The main features
peculiar to Chronicles are the introduction of the evil angel Satan, together with the
greater prominence given to the angel of Jehovah, and the express statement that
the scene of David’s sacrifice became the site of Solomon’s altar of burnt offering.
The stress laid upon angelic agency is characteristic of later Jewish literature, and is
especially marked in Zechariah and Daniel. It was no doubt partly due to the
influence of the Persian religion, but it was also a development from the primitive
faith of Israel, and the development was favored by the course of Jewish history.
The Captivity and the Restoration, with the events that preceded and accompanied
these revolutions, enlarged the Jewish experience of nature and man. The captives
in Babylon and the fugitives in Egypt saw that the world was larger than they had
imagined. In Josiah’s reign the Scythians from the far North swept over Western
Asia, and the Medes and Persians broke in upon Assyria and Chaldaea from the
15

remote East. The prophets claimed Scythians, Medes, and Persians as the
instruments of Jehovah. The Jewish appreciation of the majesty of Jehovah, the
Maker and Ruler of the world, increased as they learnt more of the world He had
made and ruled; but the invasion of a remote and unknown people impressed them
with the idea of infinite dominion and unlimited resources, beyond all knowledge
and experience. The course of Israelite history between David and Ezra involved as
great a widening of man’s ideas of the universe as the discovery of America or the
establishment of Copernican astronomy. A Scythian invasion was scarcely less
portentous to the Jews than the descent of an irresistible army from the planet
Jupiter would be to the civilized nations of the nineteenth century. The Jew began to
shrink from intimate and familiar fellowship with so mighty and mysterious a Deity.
He felt the need of a mediator, some less exalted being, to stand between himself and
God. For the ordinary purposes of everyday life the Temple, with its ritual and
priesthood, provided a mediation; but for unforeseen contingencies and exceptional
crises the Jews welcomed the belief that a ministry of angels provided a safe means
of intercourse between himself and the Almighty. Many men have come to feel today
that the discoveries of science have made the universe so infinite and marvelous that
its Maker and Governor is exalted beyond human approach. The infinite spaces of
the constellations seem to intervene between the earth and the presence-chamber of
God; its doors are guarded against prayer and faith by inexorable laws; the awful
Being, who dwells within, has become "unmeasured in height, undistinguished into
form." Intellect and imagination alike fail to combine the manifold and terrible
attributes of the Author of nature into the picture of a loving Father. It is no new
experience, and the present century faces the situation very much as did the
chronicler’s contemporaries. Some are happy enough to rest in the mediation of
ritual priests; others are content to recognize, as of old, powers and forces, not now,
however, personal messengers of Jehovah, but the physical agencies of "that which
makes for righteousness." Christ came to supersede the Mosaic ritual and the
ministry of angels; He will come again to bring those who are far off into renewed
fellowship with His Father and theirs.
On the other hand, the recognition of Satan, the evil angel, marks an equally great
change from the theology of the book of Samuel. The primitive Israelite religion had
not yet reached the stage at which the origin and existence of moral evil became an
urgent problem of religious thought; men had not yet realized the logical
consequences of the doctrine of Divine unity and omnipotence. Not only was
material evil traced to Jehovah as the expression of His just wrath against sin, but
"morally pernicious acts were quite frankly ascribed to the direct agency of God."
16

God hardens the heart of Pharaoh and the Canaanites; Saul is instigated by an evil
spirit from Jehovah to make an attempt upon the life of David; Jehovah moves
David to number Israel; He sends forth a lying spirit that Ahab’s prophets may
prophesy falsely and entice him to his ruin. [Exodus 4:21,, 1 Samuel 19:9-10,, 2
Samuel 24:1,, 1 Kings 22:20-23] The Divine origin of moral evil implied in these
passages is definitely stated in the book of Proverbs: "Jehovah hath made
everything for its own end, yea even the wicked for the day of evil"; in
Lamentations, "Out of the mouth of the Most High cometh there not evil and
good?" and in the book of Isaiah, "I form the light, and create darkness; I make
peace, and create evil; I am Jehovah, that doeth all these things." [Proverbs 16:4,,
Lamentations 3:38,, Isaiah 45:7]
The ultra-Calvinism, so to speak, of earlier Israelite religion was only possible so
long as its full significance was not understood. An emphatic assertion of the
absolute sovereignty, of the one God was necessary as a protest against polytheism,
and later on against dualism as well. For practical purposes men’s faith needed to
be protected by the assurance that God worked out His purposes in and through
human wickedness. The earlier attitude of the Old Testament towards moral evil
had a distinct practical and theological value.
But the conscience of Israel could not always rest in this view of the origin of evil. As
the standard of morality was raised, and its obligations were more fully insisted on,
as men shrank from causing evil themselves and from the use of deceit and violence,
they hesitated more and more to ascribe to Jehovah what they sought to avoid
themselves. And yet no easy way of escape presented itself. The facts remained; the
temptation to do evil was part of the punishment of the sinner and of the discipline
of the saint. It was impossible to deny that sin had its place in God’s government of
the world; and in view of men’s growing reverence and moral sensitiveness, it was
becoming almost equally impossible to admit without qualification or explanation
that God was Himself the Author of evil. Jewish thought found itself face to face
with the dilemma against which the human intellect vainly beats its wings, like a
bird against the bars of its cage.
However, even in the older literature there were suggestions, not indeed of a
solution of the problem, but of a less objectionable way of stating facts. In Eden the
temptation to evil comes from the serpent; and, as the story is told, the serpent is
17

quite independent of God; and the question of any Divine authority or permission
for its action is not in any way dealt with. It is true that the serpent was one of the
beasts of the field which the Lord God had made, but the narrator probably did not
consider the question of any Divine responsibility for its wickedness. Again, when
Ahab is enticed to his ruin, Jehovah does not act directly, but through the twofold
agency first of the lying spirit and then of the deluded prophets. This tendency to
dissociate God from any direct agency of evil is further illustrated in Job and
Zechariah. When Job is to be tried and tempted, the actual agent is the malevolent
Satan; and the same evil spirit stands forth to accuse the high-priest Joshua
[Zechariah 3:1] as the representative of Israel. The development of the idea of
angelic agency afforded new resources for the reverent exposition of the facts
connected with the origin and existence of moral evil. If a sense of Divine majesty
led to a recognition of the angel of Jehovah as the Mediator of revelation, the
reverence for Divine holiness imperatively demanded that the immediate causation
of evil should also be associated with angelic agency. This agent of evil receives the
name of Satan, the adversary of man, the advocatus diaboli who seeks to discredit
man before God, the impeacher of Job’s loyalty and of Joshua’s purity. Yet Jehovah
does not resign any of His omnipotence. In Job Satan cannot act without God’s
permission; he is strictly limited by Divine control: all that he does only illustrates
Divine wisdom and effects the Divine purpose. In Zechariah there is no refutation of
the charge brought by Satan; its truth is virtually admitted: nevertheless Satan is
rebuked for his attempt to hinder God’s gracious purposes towards His people.
Thus later Jewish thought left the ultimate Divine sovereignty untouched, but
attributed the actual and direct causation of moral evil to malign spiritual agency.
Trained in this school, the chronicler must have read with something of a shock that
Jehovah moved David to commit the sin of numbering Israel He was familiar with
the idea that in such matters Jehovah used or permitted the activity of Satan.
Accordingly he carefully avoids reproducing any words from the book of Samuel
that imply a direct Divine temptation of David, and ascribes it to the well-known
and crafty animosity of Satan against Israel. In so doing, he has gone somewhat
further than his predecessors: he is not careful to emphasize any Divine permission
given to Satan or Divine control exercised over him. The subsequent narrative
implies an overruling for good, and the chronicler may have expected his readers to
understand that Satan here stood in the same relation to God as in Job and
Zechariah; but the abrupt and isolated introduction of Satan to bring about the fall
of David invests the archenemy with a new and more independent dignity.
18

The progress of the Jews in moral and spiritual life had given them a keener
appreciation both of good and evil, and of the contrast and opposition between
them. Over against the pictures of the good kings, and of the angel of the Lord, the
generation of the chronicler set the complementary pictures of the wicked kings and
the evil angel. They had a higher ideal to strive after, a clearer vision of the kingdom
of God; they also saw more vividly the depths of Satan and recoiled with horror
from the abyss revealed to them.
Our text affords a striking illustration of the tendency to emphasize the recognition
of Satan as the instrument of evil and to ignore the question of the relation of God to
the origin of evil. Possibly no more practical attitude can be assumed towards this
difficult question. The absolute relation of evil to the Divine sovereignty is one of the
problems of the ultimate nature of God and man. Its discussion may throw many
sidelights upon other subjects, and will always serve the edifying and necessary
purpose of teaching men the limitations of their intellectual powers. Otherwise
theologians have found such controversies barren, and the average Christian has
not been able to derive from them any suitable nourishment for his spiritual life.
Higher intelligences than our own, we have been told, -
" reasoned high
Of providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate,
Fixed fate, free-will, foreknowledge absolute,
And found no end, in wandering mazes lost."
On the other hand, it is supremely important that the believer should clearly
understand the reality of temptation as an evil spiritual force opposed to Divine
grace. Sometimes this power of Satan will show itself as "the alien law in his
19

members, warring against the law of his mind and bringing him into captivity under
the law of sin, which is in his members." He will be conscious that "he is drawn
away by his own lust and enticed." But sometimes temptation will rather come from
the outside. A man will find his "adversary" in circumstances, in evil companions,
in "the sight of means to do ill deeds"; the serpent whispers in his ear, and Satan
moves him to wrong-doing. Let him not imagine for a moment that he is delivered
over to the powers of evil; let him realize clearly that with every temptation God
provides a way of escape. Every man knows in his own conscience that speculative
difficulties can neither destroy the sanctity of moral obligation nor hinder the
operation of the grace of God.
Indeed, the chronicler is at one with the books of Job and Zechariah in showing us
the malice of Satan overruled for man’s good and God’s glory. In Job the affliction
of the Patriarch only serves to bring out his faith and devotion, and is eventually
rewarded by renewed and increased prosperity; in Zechariah the protest of Satan
against God’s gracious purposes for Israel is made the occasion of a singular display
of God’s favor towards His people and their priest. In Chronicles the malicious
intervention of Satan leads up to the building of the Temple.
Long ago Jehovah had promised to choose a place in Israel wherein to set His name;
but, as the chronicler read in the history of his nation, the Israelites dwelt for
centuries in Palestine, and Jehovah made no sign: the ark of God still dwelt in
curtains. Those who still looked for fulfillment of this ancient promise must often
have wondered by what prophetic utterance or vision Jehovah would make known
His choice. Bethel had been consecrated by the vision of Jacob, when he was a
solitary fugitive from Esau, paying the penalty of his selfish craft; but the lessons of
past history are not often applied practically, and probably, no one ever expected
that Jehovah’s choice of the site for His one temple would be made known to His
chosen king, the first true Messiah of Israel, in a moment of even deeper humiliation
than Jacob’s, or that the Divine announcement would be the climax of a series of
events initiated by the successful machinations of Satan.
Yet herein lies one of the main lessons of the incident. Satan’s machinations are not
really successful; he often attains his immediate object, but is always defeated in the
end. He estranges David from Jehovah for a moment, but eventually Jehovah and
His people are drawn into closer union, and their reconciliation is sealed by the
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long-expected choice of a site for the Temple. Jehovah is like a great general, who
will sometimes allow the enemy to obtain a temporary advantage, in order to
overwhelm him in some crushing defeat. The eternal purpose of God moves onward,
unresting and un-hasting; its quiet and irresistible persistence finds special
opportunity in the hindrances that seem sometimes to check its progress. In David’s
case a few months showed the whole process complete: the malice of the Enemy; the
sin and punishment of his unhappy victim; the Divine relenting and its solemn
symbol in the newly consecrated altar. But with the Lord one day is as a thousand
years, and a thousand years as one day; and this brief episode in the history of a
small people is a symbol alike of the eternal dealings of God in His government of
the universe and of His personal care for the individual soul. How short-lived has
been the victory of sin in many souls! Sin is triumphant; the tempter seems to have
it all his own way, but his first successes only lead to his final rout; the devil is cast
out by the Divine exorcism of chastisement and forgiveness; and he learns that his
efforts have been made to subserve the training in the Christian warfare of such
warriors as Augustine and John Bunyan. Or, to take a case more parallel to that of
David, Satan catches the saint unawares, and entraps him into sin; and, behold,
while the evil one is in the first flush of triumph, his victim is back again at the
throne of grace in an agony of contrition, and before long the repentant sinner is
bowed down into a new humility at the undeserved graciousness of the Divine
pardon: the chains of love are riveted with a fuller constraint about his soul, and he
is tenfold more the child of God than before.
And in the larger life of the Church and the world Satan’s triumphs are still the
heralds of his utter defeat. He prompted the Jews to slay Stephen; and the Church
were scattered abroad, and went about preaching the word; and the young man at
whose feet the witnesses laid down their garments became the Apostle of the
Gentiles. He tricked the reluctant Diocletian into ordering the greatest of the
persecutions, and in a few years Christianity was an established religion in the
empire. In more secular matters the apparent triumph of an evil principle is usually
the signal for its downfall.
In America the slave-holders of the Southern States rode roughshod over the
Northerners for more than a generation, and then came the Civil War.
These are not isolated instances, and they serve to warn us against undue depression
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and despondency when for a season God seems to refrain from any intervention
with some of the evils of the world. We are apt to ask in our impatience, -
"Is there not wrong too bitter for atoning?
What are these desperate and hideous years?
Hast Thou not heard Thy whole creation groaning
Sighs of the bondsman, and a woman’s tears?"
The works of Satan are as earthly as they are devilish; they belong to the world,
which passeth away, with the lust thereof: but the gracious providence of God has
all infinity and all eternity to work in. Where today we can see nothing but the
destroying angel with his flaming sword, future generations shall behold the temple
of the Lord.
David’s sin, and penitence, and pardon were no inappropriate preludes to this
consecration of Mount Moriah. The Temple was not built for the use of blameless
saints, but the worship of ordinary men and women. Israel through countless
generations was to bring the burden of its sins to the altar of Jehovah. The sacred
splendor of Solomon’s dedication festival duly represented the national dignity of
Israel and the majesty of the God of Jacob; but the self-abandonment of David’s
repentance, the deliverance of Jerusalem from impending pestilence, the Divine
pardon of presumptuous sin, constituted a still more solemn inauguration of the
place where Jehovah had chosen to set His name. The sinner, seeking the assurance
of pardon in atoning sacrifice, would remember how David had then received
pardon for, his sin, and how the acceptance of his offering had been the signal for
the disappearance of the destroying angel. So in the Middle Ages penitents founded
churches to expiate their sins. Such sanctuaries would symbolize to sinners in after-
times the possibility of forgiveness; they were monuments of God’s mercy as well as
of the founders’ penitence. Today churches, both in fabric and fellowship, have been
22

made sacred for individual worshippers because in them the Spirit of God has
moved them to repentance and bestowed upon them the assurance of pardon.
Moreover, this solemn experience consecrates for God His most acceptable temples
in the souls of those that love Him.
One other lesson is suggested by the happy issues of Satan’s malign interference in
the history of Israel as understood by the chronicler. The inauguration of the new
altar was a direct breach of the Levitical law, and involved the superseding of the
altar and tabernacle that had hitherto been the only legitimate sanctuary for the
worship of Jehovah. Thus the new order had its origin in the violation of existing
ordinances and the neglect of an ancient sanctuary. Its early history constituted a
declaration of the transient character of sanctuaries and systems of ritual. God
would not eternally limit Himself to any building, or His grace to the observance of
any forms of external ritual. Long before the chronicler’s time Jeremiah had
proclaimed this lesson in the ears of Judah: "Go ye now unto My place which was in
Shiloh, where I caused My name to dwell at the first, and see what I did to it for the
wickedness of My people Israel I will do unto the house which is called by My name,
wherein ye trust, and unto the place which I gave to you and your fathers, as I have
done to Shiloh I wilt make this house like Shiloh, and will make this city a curse to
all the nations of the earth." [Jeremiah 7:12-14] In the Tabernacle all things were
made according to the pattern that was showed to Moses in the mount; for the
Temple David was made to understand the pattern of all things "in writing from the
hand of Jehovah." [1 Chronicles 28:19] If the Tabernacle could be set aside for the
Temple, the Temple might in its turn give place to the universal Church. If God
allowed David in his great need to ignore the one legitimate altar of the Tabernacle
and to sacrifice without its officials, the faithful Israelite might be encouraged to
believe that in extreme emergency Jehovah would accept his offering without regard
to place or priest.
The principles here involved are of very wide application. Every ecclesiastical
system was at first a new departure. Even if its highest claims be admitted, they
simply assert that within historic times God set aside some other system previously
enjoying the sanction of His authority, and substituted for it a more excellent way.
The Temple succeeded the Tabernacle; the synagogue appropriated in a sense part
of the authority of the Temple; the Church superseded both synagogue and Temple.
God’s action in authorizing each new departure warrants the expectation that He
may yet sanction new ecclesiastical systems; the authority which is sufficient to
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establish is also adequate to supersede. When the Anglican Church broke away
from the unity of Western Christendom by denying the supremacy of the Pope and
refusing to recognize the orders of other Protestant Churches, she set an example of
dissidence that was naturally followed by the Presbyterians and Independents. The
revolt of the Reformers against the theology of their day in a measure justifies those
who have repudiated the dogmatic systems of the Reformed Churches. In these and
in other ways to claim freedom from authority, even in order to set up a new
authority of one’s own, involves in principle at least the concession to others of a
similar liberty of revolt against one’s self.
PARKER 1-13, "The Hands of God Better Than the Hands of Men
DAVID was tempted to number the people of Israel. He said unto Joab and to the
rulers of the people,
"Go, number Israel, from Beersheba even to Dan; and bring the number of them to
me, that I may know it" ( 1 Chronicles 21:2).
Joab was a wise counsellor; in this case the wisdom was with the subject, not with
the king. Joab answered,
"The Lord make his people an hundred times so many more as they be: but, my
lord the king, are they not all my lord"s servants? why then doth my lord require
this thing? why will he be a cause of trespass to Israel?" ( 1 Chronicles 21:3).
The protest was disregarded. When kings are mad, who can stand before them?—
mad, not intellectually, but morally; the madness of the heart, compared with which
mental lunacy is an unspeakable blessing. There are times when the soul seems to be
given over to the power of the devil, when it is caught on every side, when religion
itself becomes little better than a temptation to sin. Men are sometimes brought to
suppose that they are doing things for the glory of God when in reality they are but
heightening the crumbling pedestal on which their own little dignity is to be shown.
24

David might have said to himself, I will see how many fighting men there are in
Israel that can be brought up to the Lord"s cause in the day of battle; I have no
wish to magnify my own strength, or to put a fictitious value upon my own position;
in fact, I am not concerned about myself at all in this matter, my only object is to see
how many qualified men might be called up to the help of the Lord in the day of
battle. In saying all this David might assure himself that he was deeply concerned
only for the Lord"s name and glory, and that nothing could be more unselfish than
his godly concern for the welfare of Israel. There are what may be called subtle sins,
as well as vulgar sins. A man may set himself in open opposition to God, and boldly
say that he means to fight down the divine supremacy, and put a mark of dishonour
on God"s throne; he may be mad enough and vulgar enough for that and defeat his
own intentions by his exaggeration. We need not argue the case with such a Prayer
of Manasseh , for he is not the kind of character that does much evil in society; his
very fury is its own best check. The drunkard who is rolling in the ditch is rather a
warning than a temptation to other people. The thing to be noted Isaiah , that there
are subtle sins—sins which do not look like sins; sins that are done up in beautiful
parcels, that have an inviting aspect, that come to men altogether in false guises, and
take men unawares. There is a possibility of doing things that look well, and yet are
bad; of encouraging ambitions, and strengthening tastes which, under a passable
reputation, are eating away the substance and strength of our best life. It will be a
mistake on our part to imagine that David exhausted the sin of counting, and that
now arithmetical calculations may be made without trespassing upon the province
and honour of God. It is easy for us to rise in petulant indignation against David,
and to declare that he ought not to have counted his men; but let us beware, lest in
so doing we provoke the spirit of David to retort that it is possible for us to count
our money so as to disclose the very motive and intention which in him we condemn
as vicious. Yes, there is an atheistical way of counting money. A man may go over
coin by coin of his property, and look at it in a way which, being interpreted,
signifies, This is my strength, this is my confidence; so long as I have all these coins
it is impossible that I can get far wrong, or know much trouble; these will be my
answer and defence in the day of accusation and adversity! The most harmless
looking things may be done in a distrustful and self-considering spirit. David was
undoubtedly giving way to low considerations; he was trying an arm of flesh; he was
encouraging himself by a review of forces which he imagined to be invincible. God,
who is jealous for the honour of his servants, and jealous for the honour of his own
name, sent Gad, David"s own seer, to put three propositions before the king:
"Choose thee either three years" famine; or three months to be destroyed before thy
25

foes, while that the sword of thine enemies overtaketh thee; or else three days the
sword of the Lord, even the pestilence, in the land, and the angel of the Lord
destroying throughout all the coasts of Israel" ( 1 Chronicles 21:12).
To these propositions David answered:
"I am in a great strait: let me fall now into the hand of the Lord; for very great are
his mercies: but let me not fall into the hand of man" ( 1 Chronicles 21:13).
Let us regard this answer as showing that in the saddest experiences of the heart, in
the extremities of human guilt, in the allotment of penalties, and in the working out
of law, it is better to fall into the hand of God than into the hands of men; that the
Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and plenteous in mercy, and that like
as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him.
The doctrine Isaiah , that as sinners, as sinners before God, and as sinners towards
each other, our highest hope is not in the incomplete and perverted mercy of Prayer
of Manasseh , but in the infinite mercy which is founded upon the infinite
righteousness of God. We may, perhaps, help ourselves towards a clearer
understanding of this doctrine by first considering that it is better to fall into the
hands of the highest class of men than into the hands of the lowest; if this be made
clear, it will give us a hint of how much better it may be to receive sentence from
God than from the highest human authorities.
Take a debated legal case. In the first instance it may be brought before the local
magistracy; but, very possibly, the result may be considered unsatisfactory by one
party or the other, hence the case may be moved to the court above; there again
dissatisfaction may be the result, and an appeal may be carried to the highest court
in the land. The decision of that court carries with it the advantage that at all events
nothing further can be done—all that legal learning, acumen, skill, and experience
can do, has been done. The result, even then, may not be satisfactory; still, by so
much as the case has been carried to the highest tribunal, and pronounced upon by
the highest Wisdom of Solomon , there is strong ground to rest upon. Not only Song
26

of Solomon , there is a point beyond this; for by so much as a man wishes that there
were yet another superior court to which an appeal might be made does he show
how deeply graven upon the heart is the law that it is better to fall into the hands of
the highest than into the hands of the lowest; that it is better to fall into the hands of
God than into the hands of men. It is quite true that the decision of the highest may
not bring with it satisfaction to the mind; that is not the point; the one point Isaiah ,
that men do aspire to have their cases determined, not by the lowest, but by the
highest authorities, and it is only by so much as they are persuaded that they have
had access to those highest authorities, that they approach anything like a condition
of satisfaction.
What is true in the law is equally true in all criticism. Take an amateur painter: as
his work approaches completion, he permits his friends to look at it. His father
declares himself lost in wonder; his mother unhesitatingly says that the work of her
son is perfect; his kinsfolk generally admit that there is genius in the family. So
much for one class of critics; but, inasmuch as the artist is aware that this is the very
lowest class, it is impossible for him to be satisfied even with the most flattering
commendation of his skill. Next come other competitors for fame; and they, as
becometh incipient greatness, look on critically and coldly; and the amateur
consoles himself under their censure, by finding in envious rivalry a full explanation
of their reserve. Is the artist satisfied with the opinions which have been pronounced
upon his work? Does he consider himself favoured of fortune, because his father
and his mother have, without modification, accorded to him the tribute of their
favour? Or does he consider himself condemned to neglect and forgetfulness,
because men who are in the same position as himself have treated his work with
coldness? He says, alike to the flattery and the censure, I have yet to be judged by
the academicians; you are not the judges; they will say what the work is worth; by
their word I abide. I cannot accept your flattery; I cannot be discouraged by your
censure: I must appeal to the highest, and by the highest I stand or fall. Even
supposing the judgment of the highest to be unfavourable, the painter knows that,
morally, it is impartial, and, artistically, it is supreme; and by so much he is set at
rest as to the value of his work. But suppose that all preliminary criticism is
favourable, the wise artist will yet say, I must not rest content with this, it has not
the full consent of my own mind; these people are not able to judge my work by the
right standards: the great judgment has yet to be pronounced; all that has been said
may be confirmed or reversed, and not until the appointed authorities have
expressed their opinion can I feel at rest.
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Take the case of the young public speaker. It will be for the advantage of such a
man to be judged by the greatest orators which the country can supply. Do not let
his audience consist of half-educated men, but fill the house in which he is to speak
with the highest talent of the land. Even then, should the young man fail in his
effort, there will be in his hearers a discrimination that can find out any sign or
trace of power that may be discovered in his service: there will be an honourable
treatment of his failings; and everything that he does that looks in the direction of
power will be viewed with hopefulness and encouraged with stimulating words. It is
better to be judged by the highest than by the lowest; men have less to fear when
they act or speak in the presence of the noblest minds than when they are criticised
and judged by men of inferior sagacity and culture. Constantly in life we are seeing
the conflict of opinions, and waiting for the expression of the highest, and when the
highest has been ascertained, society settles down into contentment and rest. On the
other hand, until the highest has been made known, men cannot be quite at ease; the
vexed question is still beset with perilous possibilities, and no man is foolhardy
enough to build upon it with confidence and satisfaction.
In carrying these illustrations into the religious realm, we must distinguish between
the principle and the accident. There is of course infinite disparity between God and
the highest human authorities; those authorities are not infallible, even upon
matters which come within the scope of their proper functions; judges may err in
law; academicians may err in art; physicians may err in medicine;—the one thing to
be remembered Isaiah , that by so much as men are sure that they have appealed to
the highest accessible tribunal, are they satisfied with the decision. We come then to
the one great question of sin. How is sin to be met? How is sin to be forgiven? That
sin must somehow be recognised and punished is made abundantly clear by all the
arrangements of society. By common consent it has been determined to hunt down
sin that affects our social relations; how is the great sin which affects the heart and
disturbs our attitude towards God to be met? We may seek to punish one another,
or to heal one another, but our punishments are mockeries, and our healings do not
touch the disease. You may scourge a felon, but he is a felon still. When you have
shut up the manslayer for life in the gloomiest solitude, you have not touched the
spirit of murder that is in him. When we have sought to modify sin, to show that
corruption is not so corrupt, and that there are spots of light even in the densest
moral darkness, we have not really healed the heart which we have addressed in
such vain words, we have only put over it a thin covering of lies which will be
consumed; and the heart will be the worse for the delusion to which it has yielded.
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All human punishment is but negative. Human punishment Isaiah , in fact, simply a
protest.
Why is it better that the sinner should fall into the hands of God rather than into the
hands of men? In reply to this question, good use might be made of the many
pleasing considerations which arise in connection with God"s Wisdom of Solomon ,
God"s righteousness, and God"s perfect knowledge of facts; but we shall include all
these in a higher answer—viz, it is better to fall into the hands of God than into the
hands of men, because in his whole treatment of human sin God is constantly
seeking, not the destruction, but the salvation of the sinner. The punishment which
follows sin is not mere punishment; it is not a bald assertion of the rights of law:
there is a redemptive element in it; the rod itself conveys a call to the cross. God has
never answered our sin merely by punishment. To have contented himself with
punishment, strictly as such, would have been to proclaim his weakness. Nothing is
easier than to measure sin by penalty, and to make an end of transgression by a
visitation of the rod. All this, however, is weakness itself; it is impotent compromise;
it leaves the great rebellion untouched. God answers sin not by his hand only, but by
his heart. When we ask, How does God propose to encounter sin? He does not point
to the spear of lightning, and say, So long as that spear is at my command the sinner
shall not go unpunished; he does not refer us to the thunder of his power, and say,
So long as I can avail myself of such resources the sinner shall be humiliated: all this
would amount to less than nothing; it is negative; it is puerile, if it be considered
strictly within its own limits; God, instead of confining himself to penalty, set up the
cross, and shows men the sinfulness of sin through the depth and tenderness of his
own mercy. Man seeks to magnify his own righteousness, by pronouncing sentence
of condemnation upon other people. Man is apt to think that he will be considered
virtuous if he speak loudly against other people"s vices. It is possible to have quite a
genius in devising penalties, and yet for the heart to know nothing of true loyalty to
virtue. Magistracy is one thing, righteousness is another. Law-making may be
reduced to a science, but law-keeping comes out of the heart. All human legislation
in reference to crime is of necessity incomplete, because it touches simply the overt
Acts , and not the motive or the spirit underlying and explaining the life. All
incompleteness is weakness, and weakness has but three courses before it—it
succumbs to an ignominious fate; it takes advantage of compromise; or it defends
itself by exaggeration. All human penal law is ex post facto; it is made after the
crime; it is something that comes up to meet a certain class of facts; or by so much
as human law is apparently anticipative, it is founded upon inferences and
probabilities which make it really retrospective. Crime came first, the Statute Book
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came next. On the other hand, God"s treatment of sin was determined before the
creation of man; for we read in the Holy Book of the Lamb slain from before the
foundation of the world. The idea of redemption was established before the
infliction of mere punishment could by possibility be accomplished. The cross is the
first figure in the immeasurable past. Redemption lies at the very foundation of the
divine government. It is no afterthought; it is not the device of a magistracy
organised to put down public crime; it is the expression of the infinite righteousness
and the infinite love of God.
Let us be clear upon this point, lest sentiments overrule reason. We are not to
suppose that the punishment of sin is either unrighteous or inconsistent with the
love of God. Sin must be punished. The law must smite. Sin punishes itself; it
kindles a fire in the soul; it pierces the sinner with the sharpest sword. No man can
do wrong without smarting for his iniquity, and all his smarting is a testimony that
God is on the throne, that God is looking on, that the streams of his infinite life are
flowing through the universe in one continual protest against all evil, and one
continuous encouragement and benediction upon all good. We shall abuse the spirit
of the text if we imagine that by going to God we shall escape the punishment of our
sins. It is possible that some who have not been closely following our argument may
say, Inasmuch as God deals so mercifully and lovingly with sinners, we shall leave
our whole case in his hand and cast ourselves upon his mercy, in order that we may
escape the consequences of our sin. They may say that, but let it be understood that
it is not with the authority of the argument which we have been considering. It is
more than a delusion, it is practical blasphemy. By going to God, we go to
punishment; in appearing before his infinite holiness, we bring upon our souls a
swift and sure condemnation of everything that is evil in our nature; but herein is
the difference between the punishment man accords, and the punishment with
which God visits the sinner who casts himself into his hands—under the divine
punishment there lies the great and infinitely precious fact that God is seeking the
salvation of the sinner. The punishment is not merely negative. God"s government is
not a mere magistracy. It is a moral dominion—a government of the heart.
Need a word be added about the fallacy that men would deal more lightly with one
another, if the whole question of punishment were left between themselves, because
of selfish reasons? First of all, the suggestion is philosophically untrue; and,
secondly, its moral unsatisfactoriness is obvious. The conscience would remain after
the judgment. To deal lightly with sin is actually to commit sin. To tell lies to one
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another, by way of modifying each other"s guilt, is a method which carries its own
condemnation. We must accept the great principle, that punishment can never
lessen sin; that punishment is strictly negative; and that God alone can accompany
punishment with a scheme of righteous and merciful redemption. It is good to fall
into thy hands, gracious Father; when thou dost smite, it is that we, feeling the
bitterness of sin, may desire to abandon it; when thou art angry, we see how true
and pure is thy love; when thou dost terribly thunder against us, it is not that we
may be driven to destruction, but that we may be called to salvation and peace.
What is wanted for a full acceptation of the principle of this text? I. A deep sense of
sin. David had it, "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." If
men have inadequate notions of sin, they will, of necessity, have inadequate notions
of its treatment. If a man comes to God with a sense of his own integrity, with a
spirit that is prepared to defend itself against the charges of God"s law, the gospel
will be to him nothing but a mockery, an offer that is to be declined with
indignation, if not with contempt, He does not need it; he imagines that he is
superior to it; he is not at all on the moral line on which the gospel operates. But let
the heart be smitten with a sense of evil; let the whole soul cry out with contrition
and with despair; let the watchword of the life be, "O wretched man that I am!"
then in that hour of extremity, when all nature gives way, when life is a burden,
when futurity is a threat, let the proposition be made to such to fall into the hands of
God, who is gracious, long-suffering, and infinitely merciful, and who will mingle
with all his judgment elements of love, and the heart will feel that the proposition
appeals to its very deepest needs, and that there is but one answer which can be
made to an offer so infinitely gracious. To those who are overwhelmed with a sense
of their own moral respectability this message will be without meaning or
application; but to the broken-hearted and contrite, to whom sin has become the
most tormenting problem of their lives, it will be a word of illumination and
encouragement.
2. An unreserved committal of our case to God. David gave himself up entirely to
God"s will. Mark the beauty of the expression, Let me fall into the hand of the
Lord; not, Let me stand before the Lord and consult him, laying before him my
opinions and pointing out a modification of his judgment; not that at all; God would
not have treated with David on any such terms, nor will he treat with us if we come
before him with a proposition instinct with such selfishness. We must fall into the
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hand of God—an expression which signifies resignation, perfect trust in the divine
righteousness and benevolence, and an entire committal of our whole case to the
disposal of God.
Fall into the hand of God, O misjudged man! We are living in a world where
misjudgments are being constantly pronounced upon our conduct; our words are
mistaken, our tones are perverted, our whole spirit is misunderstood: what is our
hope? and in what does our soul find rest?—in the belief that God is over all, and
that he himself pronounces the final judgment! In doing what is right and true, and
doing it with individuality of method, we shall unquestionably expose ourselves to
the censure of many critics. Men who profess to be men of taste, men who have
made taste their idol, men whose taste is so highly cultivated as to have become the
most odious vulgarity, will tell us that their whole nature shrinks from this or that
method of doing things, and they will not be slow to suppose that because what they
call their "whole nature" shrinks from something that bears our individuality, they
are, therefore, very lofty and righteous judges! God knoweth our frame; he
remembereth that we are dust; and in the hour of his judgment he will look upon
our life, not in such incomplete portions as are visible to the public eye, but in all the
secret things, in all the hidden elements and forces that have gone to make it what it
is; he will look at our life from its beginning to its end, and see how circumstances
that never could be told to men have often asserted an overruling claim in our spirit,
and caused us to assume attitudes and relations which have actually been
distressingly painful to ourselves; he will judge not by the outward but by the
inward, and if it be possible for his infinite love to find in us one redeeming feature,
he will so magnify that as to cause our weaknesses and our failures, in so far as they
have been mere infirmities, to be forgotten in the amplification of those features on
which he himself can look with any degree of approbation. The whole world is in the
hand of God, let us be thankful. The whole past is under his review, let us leave it
with the assurance that his judgment is righteous. The whole future is under his
control, let us pass into it with the steadiness, the quietness and the majesty of those
who know that all the resources of God are placed at the disposal of all who put
their whole trust in his wisdom and love. We can talk but inadequately about these
things now; poor are our best notions about the goodness of the divine rule and the
blessedness of falling into the divine hands. Not until we reach heaven can we fully
know how good a thing it is to have given up our whole heart and life to the keeping
and direction of our heavenly Father.
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GUZIK, "1 CHRONICLES 21 - WHERE TO BUILD THE TEMPLE
A. David commands a census to be taken.
1. (1 Chronicles 21:1-2) David is moved to take a census.
Now Satan stood up against Israel, and moved David to number Israel. So David
said to Joab and to the leaders of the people, “Go, number Israel from Beersheba to
Dan, and bring the number of them to me that I may know it.”
a. Now Satan stood up against Israel, and moved David to number Israel: In 2
Samuel 24:1, it tells us that this was initially prompted because the anger of the
Lord was aroused against Israel. So we see that Satan moved David yet the LORD
expressly allowed it as a chastisement against David.
i. There is quite a gap in the historical record that the Chronicler passes over,
including many family problems and a civil war. “His reasons for a gap of this
length are not difficult to surmise: little of what transpired during those two decades
would encourage a postexilic Judah, before whom Ezra was seeking to portray a
piety that characterized David as his best.” (Payne)
ii. “For the first time in Scripture, the word ‘Satan’ appears without the definite
article as a proper noun.” (Payne)
iii. “When Satan incites, he is interested merely in his own ends. He neither cares for
righteous punishment nor looks for possible repentance, since they are as foreign to
his nature as temptation to sin is to God’s.” (Selman)
b. Go, number Israel: This was dangerous because of a principle stated in Exodus
30:12 : When you take the census of the children of Israel for their number, then
every man shall give a ransom for himself to the LORD, when you number them,
that there may be no plague among them when you number them.
i. The principle of Exodus 30:12 speaks to God’s ownership of His people. In the
thinking of these ancient cultures, a man only had the right to count or number
what belonged to him. Israel didn’t belong to David; Israel belonged to God. It was
up to the LORD to command a counting, and if David counted he should only do it
at God’s command and receiving ransom money to “atone” for the counting.
ii. “Numbering the hosts of Jehovah is not essentially or necessarily wrong;
everything depends on the motive. . . . When it is born of pride, it is the subtlest of
perils, inclining us to trust in the multitude of a host, and thus to cease to depend
upon God.” (Morgan)
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iii. “When we are moved to number the people, we may rest assured that the
impulse is Divine or Satanic, and we may determine which by the motive. If the
motive is service, it is God. If the motive is pride, it is Satanic.” (Morgan)
POOLE, "David numbereth the people, 1 Chronicles 20:1-6. He repenteth of three
judgments propounded, he chooseth the pestilence; and why, 1 Chronicles 21:7-13.
David, by Gad’s direction, buildeth an altar, and sacrificeth: the plague is stayed, 1
Chronicles 21:14-30.
Satan stood up, Heb. stood, to wit, before the Lord and his tribunal to accuse David
and Israel, and to beg God’s permission to tempt David to number the people.
Standing is the accuser’s posture before men’s tribunals; and consequently the Holy
Scripture (which useth to speak of God, and of the things of God, after the manner
of men, to bring them down to our capacities) elsewhere represents Satan in this
posture, as 1 Kings 22:21 Zechariah 3:1. And so this agrees with 2 Samuel 24:1,
where the Lord is said to move David, i.e. to give Satan commission or permission to
move him; for otherwise God tempteth no man, James 1:13. But of this, and of this
whole chapter, and of the variations and seeming contradictions between this
narrative and that in Samuel, see my notes on 2Sa 24.
PULPIT, "This very important chapter in David's history is the parallel of 2 Samuel
24:1-25, which contains some details not found here, e.g. the route taken by those
who went to number Israel (2 Samuel 24:5-8), and omits others. This chapter
furnishes one of the clearer proofs (in respect of what it supplies, not found in
Samuel) that its indebtedness is not to that book, but to a work open as well to the
compiler of Chronicles as to the writer of Samuel. Its contents fall into five sections.
1. David's command to number the people, with Joab's remonstrances (2 Samuel
24:1-6).
2. The means taken to rouse David to a sense of his sin, and his confession thereof (2
Samuel 24:7, 2 Samuel 24:8).
3. The choice between punishments presented to him and his prayer under the
34

drawn sword of the angel for the sparing of the people (2 Samuel 24:9-17).
4. The accepted propitiatory sacrifices and offerings of David, and the consequent
stay of the plague (2 Samuel 24:18 -27).
5. David's grateful establishment of that same spot as the place of sacrifice (verses
28-30).
1 Chronicles 21:1
Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel. This
remarkable sentence takes the place of the statements in the parallel, "And again
the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he moved David against them
to say, Go, number Israel and Judah." Our own passage seems to confine the
temptation and sin to David. David also seems to be spoken of as the object of
malignant attack on the part of Satan, though Israel is spoken of as the object of
malignant envy and animosity. It is also to be noticed that in 1 Chronicles 21:17
David takes all the blame to himself, and speaks of the people as "innocent sheep."
A people and whole nation have, indeed, often suffered the smart of one ruler's sin.
Yet here the light thrown upon the whole event by the account in the Book of
Samuel must be accepted as revealing the fact that there had been previously
something amiss on the part of the people—perhaps something of illest significance
lurking in their constitution. This alone could "kindle the auger of the Lord against
Israel." It is the opposite of this which kindles the anger of Satan—when he
witnesses excellence, surpassing excellence, as when he witnesses "the weakest
saint," yet in that strongest position, "on his knees." The apparent inconsistency in
Satan being spoken of as resisting Israel, and the anger of the Lord being spoken of
as kindled against Israel, is but apparent and superficial. In the first place, these
histories do only purport to state the facts overt. And in this sense either alternative
statement gives the prima facie facts. Either is true, and both may be true in
different chronological order. And further, that the anger of the Lord was kindled
against Israel is no disproof that Satan will see and seize his opportunity. It looks
the contrary way. There was a time and an occasion in Eden when Satan thought he
saw an opportunity, tried it, and found it, when the anger of the Lord was not
35

kindled against Adam and Eve for certain. But much more prompt will be the
executive of Satan at another and less doubtful time. The paths in written history
are often awhile rugged and broken up; the written history of Scripture is no
exception. And in thus being the more in analogy with history itself, those
unevennesses and breaks are the better attestation of both the reality of the
Scripture history and the veracity of its writers. The word ( ‫ן‬ ַ‫ט‬ ָ‫שׂ‬ ) occurs twenty-
four times in the Old Testament. On all occasions of its occurrence in the Book of
Job and in the prophecies of Zechariah, it shows the prefixed definite article; in all
other places it is, with the present passage, unaccompanied by the article. Its
translation here might appear strictly as that of a proper name. But this cannot be
said of the other instances of its use, when without the article (Numbers 22:22,
Numbers 22:32; 1 Samuel 29:4). This constitutes with some the ground of the very
opposite opinion and opposite translation. If we regard the name as utterly
expressing the personality of Satan, the passage is very noteworthy, and will be most
safely regarded as the language of the compiler, and not as copied from the original
source. The signification of the word "Satan," as is well known, is "adversary," or
"accuser." The sin of David in giving the order of this verse was of a technical and
ceremonial character, in the first place, whatever his motives were, and however
intensified by other causes of a moral and more individual complexion. We learn
(Exodus 16-30:12 ) the special enactments respecting what was to be observed when
"the sum of the children of Israel after their number" was to be taken. However, the
same passage does not say, it fails to say, when such a numbering would be
legitimate or when not. It is left us, therefore, to deduce this from observation. And
we notice, in the first place, that, on the occasion of its undoubted rightness, it is the
work of the distinct commandment of God (Numbers 3-1:1 ; Numbers 4-26:1 ). Next,
we notice the religious contribution, "the ransom," that was required with it
(Exodus 16-30:12 ; Exodus 38:25, Exodus 38:26; Numbers 31:48 -55). Again, we
notice that the numberings narrated both in the beginning of the Book of Numbers
(1.) and toward the close (26.) had specific moral objects as assigned by God—
among them the forcible teaching of the loss entailed by the successive rebellions of
the people (Numbers 26:64, Numbers 26:65; Deuteronomy 2:14, Deuteronomy 2:15).
And though last, not least, all these indications are lighted up by the express and
emphatic announcements in God's original promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,
that their seed should become past numbering, multitudinous as the stars, and as
the sands of the seashore. From all which we may conclude that only that
numbering was held legitimate which was for God's service in some form, and as
against human pride and boastfulness—by God's command as against a human
king's fancy—and which was attended by the payment of that solemn "ransom"
money, the bekah, or half-shekel (Exodus 30:12). Other numbering had snares
about it, and it was no doubt because it had such intrinsically that it was divinely
36

discountenanced, and in this case severely punished. It seems gratuitous with some
to tax David with having other motives than those of some sort of vanity now at
work, sinister designs of preparing, unaided and unpermitted, some fresh military
exploits, or stealing a march on the nation itself in the matter of some new system of
taxation. The context offers no corroboration of either of these notions, while several
lesser indications point to the simplest explanation (1 Chronicles 27:23).
BI 1-30, "And Satan stood up against Israel and provoked David to number Israel.
Under a spell
(Compare 2Pe_1:21):—
I. All the world seems to be under a spell or charm; inward influences move men as
steam moves a ship. There am three spells.
1. One is that of parentage. The spell of a virtuous parentage influences its children’s
children, like a good charm, for thousands of generations; but, on the other hand, the
wickedness of a parent generally ceases to influence his offspring at, as the Second
Commandment says, “the third and fourth generation.”
2. Another spell is the outward influence of our surroundings. Faithful parents, wise
teachers, inspiring books, virtuous companions, healthy atmosphere, and suitable
food will train up a child in the way God and men would have him go; but many a
bright apprentice lad has been cursed by bad example.
3. The third spell is that of inward influences. One of these is said in the Bible to be
the movement of the devil, and the other that of the holy God.
4. What can be greater than the spell which moves the human appetite to
intoxicating drink? To obtain drink people will sometimes descend to the lowest
degradation of meanness. Yes; the evil spell of the appetite for drink upon its victims
is great and overpowering. Drink may be no temptation to you and me, but many
people find it a spell which moves them as the tide and wind sometimes drives a
feeble ship on the rocks. And what stronger spell can there be than the inclination to
war between men, and churches, and nations?
5. Again, is there a stronger spell than the desire for money, the greed of gold? See
how men under the spell of an insane ambition for wealth sometimes forget honour,
and become actual thieves!
II. Now, let us consider the good spell over mankind. One of these is the heaven-born
spell of true love; it is a most powerful influence for good. Thus love will reform the
prodigal life. There is no stronger spell than true love; God is love. It is by the wisdom of
love that He converts mankind. God’s object in winning men to love Him is that they
may be prompted to self-denial in themselves and to do good works to others. (W.
Birch.)
David’s sin and repentance
37

1 chronicles 21 commentary

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