In days when we are facing our own plague, it’s easy to misunderstand passages like these. It’s easy to assume that any sort of pandemic is God’s punishment for a specific sin. But in spite of Joab’s protest (I Chronicles 21:3), there isn’t any Old Testament law that prohibited David from taking a census of his people. It may have been wrong for David to plan some military campaign that would have been an expression of sinful pride or ambition. But we just can’t be sure of why he shouldn’t have taken this census, so that’s probably not the main point of this story.
Instead, the emphasis seems to be on how David reacted once he realized he had displeased the Lord (I Chronicles 21:7). When the prophet Gad confronted him about his sin (I Chronicles 21:11), David’s heart troubled him, and he was quick to make a full confession (II Samuel 24:10). And when God told him to select the consequence his sin would bring on the people, he simply threw himself on the mercy of God (II Samueol 24:14). We thus see a clear and compelling example of how all of us should deal with our sin, however it comes to our attention.
But we also see in this passage a foreshadowing of the reason we can confess our sins in the confidence of God’s forgiveness. For when the plague approached the city of Jerusalem, David not only repeated his confession. He asked that the Lord would punish him and his family so that all the rest of the people might be spared (II Samuel 24:17). David was thus willing to do what his greater Son would do for all of us, dying in our place so that our sins might be washed away in His blood.
And the place where David made this selfless offer to God was the threshing floor of Araunah, the same place where the Temple of the Lord would eventually be built (I Chronicles 22:1). The Temple thus pointed forward to the perfect sacrifice the Son of David would eventually make for all His people, a sacrifice that stays God’s hand, protecting us from the consequences our sins deserve.
Yes, In Christ, the Lord has truly turned our mourning into dancing, removing all the signs of grief from us and clothing us instead with gladness. May we sing His praise and give thanks to Him forever (Psalm 30:11-12).
II Samuel 24:15-25 (NASB)
15 So the LORD sent a pestilence upon Israel from the morning until the appointed time; and seventy thousand men of the people from Dan to Beersheba died.
16 When the angel stretched out his hand toward Jerusalem to destroy it, the LORD relented from the calamity, and said to the angel who destroyed the people, “It is enough! Now relax your hand!” And the angel of the LORD was by the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.
17 Then David spoke to the LORD when he saw the angel who was striking down the people, and said, “Behold, it is I who have sinned, and it is I who have done wrong; but these sheep, what have they done? Please let Thy hand be against me and against my father’s house.”
18 So Gad came to David that day and said to him, “Go up, erect an altar to the LORD on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.”
19 And David went up according to the word of Gad, just as the LORD had commanded.
20 And Araunah looked down and saw the king and his servants crossing over toward him; and Araunah went out and bowed his face to the ground before the king.
21 Then Araunah said, “Why has my lord the king come to his servant?” And David said, “To buy the threshing floor from you, in order to build an altar to the LORD, that the plague may be held back from the people.”
22 And Araunah said to David, “Let my lord the king take and offer up what is good in his sight. Look, the oxen for the burnt offering, the threshing sledges and the yokes of the oxen for the wood.
23 “Everything, O king, Araunah gives to the king.” And Araunah said to the king, “May the LORD your God accept you.”
24 However, the king said to Araunah, “No, but I will surely buy it from you for a price, for I will not offer burnt offerings to the LORD my God which cost me nothing.” So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver.
25 And David built there an altar to the LORD, and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings. Thus the LORD was moved by entreaty for the land, and the plague was held back from Israel.
