Summary #21

Weekly Summary
2 Samuel 22-24, 1 Chronicles 21-25, Some Psalms

Counting. Since when did that get you in trouble? It got David in trouble, though -- he takes a census of all of Israel, probably dreaming of military might. He does this even against the advice of his occasionally righteous military commander, Joab. Joab comes back with a number.

Once David realizes that he has gravely offended the Lord, he repents and begs his forgiveness. God offers him three choices: Three years of famine, three months of running from strong adversaries, or three days of pestilence on the land. Not a great choice among them, but David chooses the shortest option, giving himself over the hand of God rather the hands of men.

Moving through the land of Israel, the Lord's angel takes the lives of 70,000 of the newly-counted Israelites, and then heads to Jerusalem to destroy it, but at the last minute, God tells him to spare it. David's eyes are opened and he realizes that people are dying because of his sin, and he begs that God's vengeance be taken on him and his house rather than the people of Israel.

Ending up at the threshing floor of Ornan, who, along with his sons, had seen the angel of the Lord, David is compelled to buy the place to raise an altar to the Lord. Ornan offers to give it to David, along with bulls and wood and grain for the offerings, but David insists on paying the full price, saying what is one of my favorite verses: " I will not offer to the Lord a sacrifice that costs me nothing."

Once David had made his sacrifices, God relented and stayed the hand of the angel. David began to offer his sacrifices here at the threshing floor of Ornan rather than in the tabernacle, because he was afraid of the angel of the Lord. He decided that this site would be the site of the new Temple.

Now that he had a site for the temple, David begins preparing for it. He gathers workers who were skilled in doing the labor that they would need. He also orders wood from Lebanon, and makes nails, and all of the other supplies that Solomon would need. Although God had told him he would not be the one to build the temple, David wanted everything ready.

So after he got everything together, he called Solomon to him and gave him the charge to build the temple of the Lord. He called on the people of Israel to follow Solomon as he builds the house of the Lord, saying that God had given the people of Israel peace so that they could build.

Peace meant that the people could focus on creating this place for the Lord -- and he organized the Levites so that they could move their duties from the Tabernacle to the Temple.

Right after organizing the Levites, David moves on to organizing the priests, and then gathers the musicians and organizes them as well. David counts on God to lead him in organizing and appointing the right people to the right posts in Israel.

In these last years of David's reign, he continues not only to depend on God for wisdom and guidance, but he also is quick to repent. It's interesting that despite his pretty outrageous list of sins, he is so close to God's heart, and so willing to repent, to take responsibility, and to answer God's call. As the second King of Israel, he sets the tone for what God wants from a king.

Next week we'll get a glimpse of the "House and Line of David" as his son, Solomon takes the reigns... read on to see if he follows in his father's footsteps or wanders away.

Goodbye.