Finding a Place of Worship (1 Chronicles 21)

 A parallel account of this story is found in 2 Samuel 24. It was clearly a problematic time in which God judged his people for their sins. The account in 2 Samuel 24 begins by saying that ‘Again the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he incited David against them, saying, “Go, number Israel and Judah.”’ Perhaps we wonder what Israel had done to displease the Lord. One suggestion is that they were punished for rebelling against David during the rebellion of Absalom. But there could have been other behaviour problems.

 

How did God bring about his judgement on them? He allowed the devil to incite David to find out the numerical strength of his armed forces. At one level, there is nothing obviously wrong with a leader knowing how many soldiers are available in case he has to make plans. Yet it depends on the motive, and David’s motive here was wrong and even Joab objected to his proposal. Perhaps David was tempted to trust in his military might rather than on God. There may even be the possibility that David failed to honour God by ensuring that the census was accompanied by taking a shekel from each person as atonement money, as had been done when Moses took a census recorded in Exodus 30. The consequence was that God sent trouble of some kind on the Israelites as an indication of his displeasure. That led David to realise his great sin and he asked the Lord to forgive him (vv. 1-8).

 

Conversation with Gad (vv. 9-13)

Yet the Lord had more to say before the matter was concluded, and he sent the prophet Gad to David with a set of three options from which he was to choose one. The options were stark: three years of famine, or three months in which David’s opponents would ravage the country and try to capture him, or three days in which the angel of the Lord would travel round the country, using the mentioned pestilence as his weapon of punishment.

 

The second option could point to invasion, but it might suggest that opposition to David had not disappeared within the Israelites, and David himself might seem to acknowledge that when he refused this option. Instead, he chose the third option of falling directly into the Lord’s hands because, unlike the men of the second option, the Lord could show mercy in the middle of his judgement. This comment by David should cause the readers to wonder how God would show mercy while also displaying judgement at that time.

 

Judgement and mercy (vv. 14-17)

Both the judgement and the expression of mercy are connected to the activities of the angel of the Lord. Seventy thousand men died during those three days from a pestilence sent by God, under the control of the punishing angel. In addition, the Lord had sent the angel to destroy Jerusalem, but almost at the last minute he told the angel to cease.

David was unaware that a time of mercy was about to happen, that the Lord had heard his previous and earnest prayer for deliverance. Instead, David and his elders saw the angel near the threshing floor of Ornan stretching out his sword over Jerusalem, which would have seemed to David that the judgment was continuing. I have no idea how much space Jerusalem took up, but we are meant to be impressed by a person big enough to hold a sword that stretches out over the city and not merely pointing towards it. The sight of this enormous angel led David and the elders of Israel, who were already expressing repentance, illustrated by them wearing sackcloth, to prostrate themselves on the ground before the Lord.

 

As he observed the angel and his sword, David himself took full responsibility for the sin that was being judged and asked the Lord to show mercy to the people because of the prominent way he had been involved. Like Paul centuries later David was willing to be judged instead of them. In a reverse sort of way, David revealed that a sense of brotherly love was strong in his heart even when he was recovering from backsliding.

 

The threshing floor of Ornan (vv. 18-30)

Ornan and his four sons also had seen the angel. They did not know why the angel had stopped there, close to their land. But David was informed through the instructions of the prophet Gad whom the angel had commanded to tell David what to do. David was to make the threshing floor the location where the yet-unmade altar of the coming temple would be.

 

David, in order to obey the Lord, wanted to purchase it, but Ornan wanted to give it freely, along with animals for a burnt offering, grain for a grain offering, and wood for the fire. Eventually, Ornan agreed to receive six hundred shekels from the king. After making this arrangement David built an altar and offered burnt and peace offerings on it. God revealed his approval by answering with fire that consumed the offering, after which the threat of judgement was removed when the angel, at God’s command, sheathed his large sword.

 

The author informs us that after this incident David would not go to the tabernacle in Gibeon because he was afraid of divine judgement if he did – the angel might reappear with his sword and punish him. David had recovered his fear of the Lord. His fear could be connected to the fact that God had revealed where he now wanted sacrifices to be made, at this new location near Jerusalem, and David had learned by sad experience the cost of disobedience.

 

Lessons

What lessons can we take from this unusual incident? An obvious one is that God can send national judgements. It was not only David who had sinned against the Lord, but also the nation. While the judgement was severe on the ones who perished, the relative smallness of the number is a reminder that God is merciful. After all, God had been angry with the nation as a whole.

 

The second lesson is the complexity of sin and its tentacles when an individual goes astray from the Lord by acting according to his own whims. In this instance, we have the involvement of the devil, the wrong response of David by ordering for the census out of possible pride, and the purpose of the Lord to bring chastisement, all merging together with or overruling what was happening. This is similar to what happened to disobedient Peter at the Last Supper when he was allowed to fall after being tempted. It is also worth noting that when we compare this account with the one in 2 Samuel 24, we see it took Joab nine months to gather the census, nine months in which David kept on with his wrong plan, showing how his attitude to the Lord had declined during that period.

 

The third lesson is that sometimes both the devil and ourselves can do something that is right in the wrong way. 2 Samuel 24 says that the Lord urged David to number Israel as an expression of his judgement. After that, the activity was affected by what Satan suggested and by what David wanted. It looks like the same activity, but in reality, it was not. That kind of thing happens all the time, except not at such a big level. Indeed, it could happen with any of God’s commands that we are called to obey.

 

The fourth lesson is that God often has a surprise in store. Take Ornan. He was a Jebusite, a non-Israelite who belonged to the tribe that held out for centuries against the Israelites and their aim to capture Jerusalem. He may even have been a ruler or chieftain among them. But now he is a real Israelite, ready to give what he has freely to the worship of God. Given that the destroying angel was stopped when he came near Ornan’s property, was there anything about his devotion that contributed to the outcome? Who can say?

 

The fifth lesson might be that sometimes when someone offers something for nothing, we should not take it. After all, Ornan was not giving his possessions to David, but to the Lord, and did the Lord not want Ornan to be paid for his loss of land and property? The king had the authority to take land, even as Samuel warned the people that kings would do. David knew that it would be inappropriate to offer to the Lord what had cost him nothing.

 

The sixth lesson is to observe the angel of the Lord here. It is not the first time he has appeared with a sword. Think of Joshua before he entered Canaan and of Balaam on his way to curse the Israelites. We should also think about how Jesus is described in Revelation 1–3, where he threatens one of the churches with the sword from his mouth (1:16). What about the involvement of this angel in judgement? Take a look at Jude 5: ‘Now I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it, that Jesus, who saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe.’ And is there something in the fact that he was so dramatically involved in the change of location of divine worship, moving away from the Tabernacle to the Temple in Jerusalem?

 

The seventh lesson is to note the closeness of judgement and mercy. After all, where were we the second before we received mercy? We were under divine judgement because of our sins. We were as close to it as Ornan and his family were when the angel came near their home. They may have thought they were next in line for punishment. It would have looked that way to any onlookers. But even as Ornan discovered that mercy came instead of judgement, so we found that forgiveness came to us from the cross of Christ when we feared that we would never taste the pardoning mercy of the God of grace.