And Jehovah sent a pestilence upon Israel from the morning even to the set time; and there died of the people from Dan even to Beer-sheba seventy thousand men.
David's count of his fighting men ends here: a plague sweeping the land from its northern edge to its southern one, and seventy thousand dead in three days. The verse raises two hard questions — why counting soldiers should be treated as sin at all, and why the people died for what their king did.
The law had already set the terms for counting Israel.
Turn to Exodus 30:11-16. There you will find that when Israel was counted, the people had to provide a ransom for their souls. If they did not, a plague would break out among them. King David once numbered the people, but there is no mention of their giving a ransom. The record is, "So the LORD sent a pestilence on Israel from the morning until the appointed time. And there died of the people from Dan to Beersheba 70,000 men." God cannot take account of sinful men in the flesh except in judgment. If man is to stand in favour before God it must be through an accepted ransom.
Why did the blow fall on the nation and not on the king who ordered the count? One writer answers: the people were the very thing David boasted in.
The plans of men do not succeed, and least of all among God's people. "The king's word was abominable to Joab. And God was displeased with this thing; therefore He struck Israel." At first sight this seems strange. Why would God strike Israel? But God was wise. It was Israel that had become a snare and a boast to the king. Did he not number them? They must be reduced now. God would cut down the number. He would make David feel that his folly and pride had made him a curse to God's people, not a blessing.
David had asked to fall into God's hand rather than man's. What followed was a nation with nowhere to hide — and, on this reading, a nation getting what it had earned, with David's census as the trigger rather than the whole cause.
It must have been a solemn time. Throughout the length and breadth of the land death was claiming its victims. Who would be struck next no one could tell. No remedy cured the sick. No pleading, however urgent, saved the life of someone loved. All joy must have fled. God was working, and in power. Could anyone charge Him with injustice? No. They deserved the correction. David's act in counting them was the immediate cause of it. Helpless, how helpless they all were. Their only hope was in the mercy of God.
The plague ran only to the appointed time, and it stopped at the capital. Notice where this writer puts the reason — not in the king's tears.
The pestilence rages. The angel strikes from north to south, from Dan to Beersheba (v. 15), across the whole area where the numbering had taken place. He comes to Jerusalem and stretches out his sword over the beloved city. At that moment "the Lord relented" and stops the hand of the angel. He does not stop it because of David's repentance, but because of His own relenting. His judgment gives way to His grace without either being weakened or sacrificed.
David then asks for the sword to fall on him instead of the people. The writer weighs his offer against a greater one.
He takes the judgment on himself. He stands in the breach so that the sheep may be spared. He takes sin and iniquity on himself — but this sin was his own sin, and this judgment was judgment he had deserved. Another, a lone Arbiter, bore our sins without having any sins of His own. He made our sins His own and laid down His life for His sheep, saying: "If you seek me, let these men go."
The place where God stopped the angel did not stay a scene of death.
David bought the threshing floor and built an altar. There he offered burnt offerings and peace offerings. Then, at the Lord's command, the angel put away his sword. David said, "Here shall be the house of the Lord God and here the altar of burnt offering for Israel." The place where God accepted the sacrifice was to be the place where Israel would worship. True worship rests on the acceptance of the sacrifice.
- Ransom. Counting God's people required a price for each life. David skipped it, and the law's penalty fell.
- Reckoning. God struck the people because they were the king's boast. David had to feel that he was a curse to them, not a blessing.
- Reach. The plague ran the full length of the land, north to south, leaving no remedy and no refuge except God's mercy.
- Relenting. David's repentance did not stop the angel; God's own relenting did. Judgment gave way to grace without weakening either.
- Redemption. David offered himself for the sheep, but he deserved the judgment. A sinless Arbiter gave His life for His sheep, though He had no sins of His own. The place where the plague stopped became the place of accepted sacrifice.
And the angel stretched out his hand upon Jerusalem to destroy it; but Jehovah repented him of the evil, and said to the angel that destroyed among the people, It is enough withdraw now thine hand. And the angel of Jehovah was by the threshing-floor of Araunah the Jebusite.
A plague followed David's census, and the destroying angel now stood over Jerusalem itself. There God stopped him — on a farmer's threshing floor, the ground where the temple would later stand.
The plague was no light stroke. One writer shows how hard the blow fell, and where God stopped it.
God's hand did not slacken. Out of love itself, and for His own name's sake, God could not and would not spare. The plague swept over the land and the people as a terrible scourge. But in the middle of judgment mercy won out. The very Jerusalem that sent out the guilty order was the place where God stayed the hand of judgment.
The word "relented" needs care. One writer separates two different kinds of words God speaks.
God is not a man, that He should repent as to His eternal and unchangeable counsels and unconditional promises, which "are without repentance." But in His grace He may repent of a threatened judgment — that is, not carry it out. He did this with the city of Nineveh. Remember that the Spirit of God stoops to speak in our human way of speaking, because we are weak.
Notice who is missing here. No sacrifice, no priest, nothing David did.
Death had begun to be busy in Jerusalem. It had come close to David. Then the plague stopped. How was this? God had said, "Now stay your hand." Why was this? "The Lord saw, and He relented." David had done nothing to stop the march of disease and the ravages of death. Neither the high priest nor the prophet could make the angel pause for one moment in his work of destruction. There was no help anywhere but in God… He is love, and so He can act out of what He is. No creature has to move Him to it first.
The owner of that ground was the last man you would expect God's grace to reach.
Government has done its needful work, and now the story of divine grace begins. And where should grace be shown as God would show it, but in the case of one of the chief of sinners? Araunah is a Jebusite, one of the Canaanite peoples of the land, long under the curse. And a Jebusite is a "treader down" of God's royal city.
The angel stops at a threshing floor, where oxen tread out grain. One writer finds God's own work pictured there.
Now God was treading down. He was not doing it cruelly, as a destroyer would. He was threshing, the way the patient ox treads out grain under its feet. The work is rough, yet it seeks out and saves the precious grain. The harvest is God's, even if the blessing is man's. Judgment after that goes no further than the "threshing-floor." There it halts, stayed by the pity of God. And Araunah — whose name may mean "filled with lamentation" — receives his God-given name Aranjah, "the singing of Jah"!
David built an altar on that spot. The choice of place matters as much as the altar.
This altar reminds us of the sovereign mercy of God towards His people. He is the God who remembers mercy in judgment. And He chose the very place where He showed that mercy to be His dwelling place among His people.
This is the first time the Bible mentions this piece of ground. One writer weighs what it was against what God planned for it.
Here the threshing floor of Ornan [Araunah] comes into view for the first time. It is a poor spot in itself. But the Lord destined it to be the joy of the whole earth — the place of the glory, the resting place of God and His Israel. At once it stands as the witness of that blessed, precious truth which is the sure ground of all our hopes: with our God, "mercy triumphs over judgment" (James 2:13).
- Judgment — the plague was real and deserved. God did not slacken His hand. The sin that started in Jerusalem met its judgment at Jerusalem.
- Relenting — God never changes His settled purposes. But He can hold back a judgment He has threatened. That is what "relented" means here.
- Mercy — nothing human stopped the angel. No one had offered a sacrifice or said a prayer. God acted out of what He is.
- Grace — the angel stopped on a Jebusite's ground, the last place anyone would expect. God showed mercy to one of the chief of sinners.
- Dwelling — judgment went no further than the threshing floor. The very spot where mercy triumphed became the place God chose to live among His people.