What was David’s worst sin? Every Sunday School child knows the answer to that question: his adultery with Bathsheba [1]and murder of her husband Uriah (2 Sam. 11-12).
There’s no doubt that David’s double sin against Bathsheba and Uriah is heinous. Following David’s sin, his family begins to implode. David’s son Amnon rapes his daughter, Tamar, Absalom murders Amnon in response and then attempts to overthrow his father and is ultimately killed. David’s sin was a direct violation of two of the most sacred moral laws: adultery and murder, and his family or reign would never be the same.
But is it possible that as heinous as this sin was, it wasn’t his worst sin? I think so. It appears as though God views David taking the census (1 Chron 21, 2 Sam 24) as more egregious. How could taking a census possibly be worse than adultery and murder? Let’s consider.
Following God bringing about peace in Israel, David orders a census of the men in Israel capable of fighting. In 1 Chronicles we read:
Then Satan stood against Israel and incited David to number Israel. 2 So David said to Joab and the commanders of the army, “Go, number Israel, from Beersheba to Dan, and bring me a report, that I may know their number.” 3 But Joab said, “May the Lord add to his people a hundred times as many as they are! Are they not, my lord the king, all of them my lord's servants? Why then should my lord require this? Why should it be a cause of guilt for Israel?”
In 2 Samuel 24, we read a parallel account, which shockingly begins, “Again the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he incited David against them, saying, ‘Go, number Israel and Judah’” (2 Sam. 24:1). In the account in Chronicles, it is Satan who incites David to number Israel. In the Samuel account, it is God who incites David against the Israelites. This is the mystery of the sovereignty of God. Because of Israel’s sin, God is going to use David’s sin to bring discipline upon Israel. At the same time, Satan incites David to sin (not knowing God has purposes for David’s sin—for David and for Israel).
Unlike David’s sin against Bathsheba and Uriah, where no one dares challenge the king’s malevolent desires, Joab dares to question David. Joab likely has Moses’s warning to God’s people in his heart:
14 “When you come to the land that the Lord your God is giving you, and you possess it and dwell in it and then say, ‘I will set a king over me, like all the nations that are around me,’ 15 you may indeed set a king over you whom the Lord your God will choose. One from among your brothers you shall set as king over you. You may not put a foreigner over you, who is not your brother. 16 Only he must not acquire many horses for himself or cause the people to return to Egypt in order to acquire many horses, since the Lord has said to you, ‘You shall never return that way again.’ (Deut. 17:14-16)
Israel was not to become like the other nations, relying on her own strength and building up military might. Beyond God’s admonition, Joab apparently also picks up on David’s motives: pride and ego swelling in his heart. Looking out at a peaceful land, David now implicitly takes credit for the military victories in his wake and rejects God’s protection in the future, trusting his own might.
God quickly responds to David’s sin, “But God was displeased with this thing, and he struck Israel. And David said to God, ‘I have sinned greatly in that I have done this thing. But now, please take away the iniquity of your servant, for I have acted very foolishly’” (1 Chron 21:7-8). David immediately acknowledges that he has “sinned greatly,” although we will discover that there will be a process of repentance for David.
Through the seer Gad, God offers three options for discipline, “[E]ither three years of famine, or three months of devastation by your foes while the sword of your enemies overtakes you, or else three days of the sword of the Lord, pestilence on the land, with the angel of the Lord destroying throughout all the territory of Israel” (1 Chron. 21:12). “Then David said to Gad, ‘I am in great distress. Let me fall into the hand of the Lord, for his mercy is very great, but do not let me fall into the hand of man’” (1 Chron. 12:13). Although, David still isn’t acting as selflessly as he might. Where Abraham argued with God over the fate of Sodom, urging God to spare Sodom even if ten righteous were found in the city (Gen. 18:23-33), David just concedes to the punishment for his sin being levied on the people of Israel.[i] David’s language is that he is going to fall “into the hand of the Lord,” but in reality, it is the people who are about to take the brunt of the Lord’s anger on David’s behalf.[ii]
70,000 Israelites are killed by a pestilence that ravages the land. The Lord allows David to see the angel of the Lord, poised at the threshing floor to continue on in his destruction, “And David lifted his eyes and saw the angel of the Lord standing between earth and heaven, and in his hand a drawn sword stretched out over Jerusalem. Then David and the elders, clothed in sackcloth, fell upon their faces.17 And David said to God, ‘Was it not I who gave command to number the people? It is I who have sinned and done great evil. But these sheep, what have they done? Please let your hand, O Lord my God, be against me and against my father's house. But do not let the plague be on your people’” (1 Chron. 21:16-17). David’s repentance deepens. He clothes himself in sackcloth and now asks that the punishment be meted out to him, not God’s people. His heart is remorseful and contrite.
There is ultimately a mystery in how David taking the census was more grievous in God’s eyes than his actions with Bathsheba and Uriah, but we get hints in the text that David’s pride is an affront to God. James reminds us that, “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble” (Jms 4:6). David’s sin ought to be a stark warning to us of the danger of our own pride.
As much an affront adultery and murder are, they are not the spring from which the commandments flow. The Ten Commandments begin with a declaration of the character and nature of God and a demand that he be our only god. “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me” (Ex. 20:2-3). Our minds tend to invert the Ten Commandments, considering the latter half of the list weightier than the first. God disagrees. Our humble worship is the starting point for a moral life, and false worship is the most heinous error.
The census was David’s declaration of self-worship. And God responded in kind. May David’s worst sin warn us of the danger of pride and self-worship that lurks in every one of our hearts. May we repent and throw ourselves at the mercy of our good and glorious God.
[1] Possibly even rape, given the power dynamics of a king and subject at play.
[i] See also where Moses begs God to spare the Israelites for their sin of crafting and worshiping the golden calf in Exodus 32:11-14.
[ii] Because of what we know from the 2 Samuel account, we recognize that God is still just in this, because of some unspecified sin of God’s people, they likewise deserved discipline. But David is unaware of the Lord’s double-intention.
You may also appreciate:
Photo by Taylor Smith on Unsplash