2 Samuel 24

2 Samuel 24

There are times in all of our lives when pride gets the best of us. We become proud of our accomplishments and we want everyone to know how great of a job we have done. David experienced a similar time in 2 Samuel 24. Near the end of his reign, David was curious as to how many people were in the land, so he had Joab go out and number the people. Joab questioned David on his intentions but in the end did as David had requested. It took Joab a little over 9 months to travel through all the tribes of Israel, and when he returned he reported that there 1.3 million people living in Israel and Judah. Now the word that is used here is “men,” and it speaks of men who could draw up a sword. So there is a strong possibility that Joab only numbered the men. If that is the case, we can then assume that there could have been as many as 3-4 times as many people. That number could easily jump to over 4 million Israelites at this point in history. So we see that during the time of David’s rule, Israel had not only conquered large portions of the Promised Land (land they were supposed to conquer when they first entered), but they also grew by a large number. As king during this time period, David was proud of his accomplishments.


However, God was not pleased with what David had done. God had been the one who had poured out His blessings on the land of Israel. He had chosen David to rule, and He had given David everything he needed to do so effectively. It greatly displeased God to see David taking credit for something that He had done for not only David but Israel as well. David also recognized his mistake and knew that he had had the census taking to boost up his own pride. So he went to God in repentance, and God came back with punishment. But what is interesting in this story is that God gave David a choice of three different consequences. He could choose between a famine that would affect the whole country for 3 years, a plague that would affect the whole country for 3 days, or he could flee for 3 months once again being pursued by some of his enemies.

In the end, David left the choice up to God but did ask that He not punish the others for his mistakes. 70,000 Israelites died as a result of the plague that God sent to the land, but He spared Judah and the city of Jerusalem upon David’s request. David then went and offered sacrifices to God in a spirit of worship and repentance. He asked God to life the plague from the land and spare the rest of his kingdom. David was truly broken before God over what he had done, and by coming in the right attitude to God, God heard his requests and lifted the plague.

Like so many of our lives, David’s life was filled with spiritual highs and lows. There were times in which he obeyed God completely. He did everything that he was commanded to do, and he was a great example to his people. Then there were times when David allowed sin to control his life. He faltered when he saw Bathsheba, did not make wise decisions when dealing with his children, and he let pride control him near the end of his life.

You may wonder how a man who was so close to God could fall so quickly. I have wondered the same thing in my own life. We have these great moments where we draw so close to God, we begin following Him so closely, and then we allow sin to creep back in and take over. We eventually find our way back to God, but then we regret the time we wasted. There really is no answer to this problem except to say that we are human, and as long as we live on this earth, we are going to struggle against sin. But one last lesson we can learn from David is the importance of repentance. We are going to sin, but we should strive not to; however, when we do mess up in life, we should always turn to God in repentance. He is always there waiting for us to turn back to Him, and He will forgive us of those sins. But remember that repentance is not just saying “sorry” for what you have done and doing it again the next day. Repentance is making a choice to turn away from that sin as you try to live for God.

Matt