April 13 Daily Devotional

2 Samuel 24; 1 Chronicles 21

When David had become a very mighty and powerful king, it made him proud at times; instead of trusting in God he was led to trust in his huge army. He called Joab, the captain of the host, and said to him, “Go now … and number the people, that I may know the number of the people.” Joab hesitated. He replied, “My lord the king, are they not all my lord ‘s servants? Why doth my lord require this thing? why will he be a cause of trespass to Israel?” But the king would not hearken to Joab. So Joab departed and numbered the people. And all the men of Israel were eight hundred thousand men, and of Judah five hundred thousand men, that drew the sword.

But this thing displeased the Lord, and David turned to the Lord and said, “I have sinned greatly, because I have done this thing.” Then a prophet named Gad was sent to David, saying, “Thus saith the Lord, I offer thee three things: choose thee one of them, that I may do it unto thee … Shall seven years of famine come unto thee in thy land or wilt thou flee three months before thine enemies, while they pursue thee? or that there be three days’ pestilence in thy land?” David replied, “I am in a great strait: let me fall now into the hand of the Lord; for very great are his mercies: but let me not fall into the hand of man.”

So the Lord sent a pestilence upon Israel for three days; and seventy thousand men of Israel died. And when the angel stretched out his hand over Jerusalem to destroy it, the Lord said to the angel, “It is enough, stay now thine hand.” And David saw the angel of the Lord stand between earth and heaven on mount Moriah, having a drawn sword in his hand. Then David and the elders, who were clothed in sackcloth, fell upon their faces. And David said to God, “Is it not I that commanded the people to be numbered? even I it is that have sinned … but as for these sheep, what have they done? let thine hand, O Lord my God, be upon me … but not on thy people.”

The prophet Gad then said to David, “Go up, rear an altar unto the Lord in the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.” David and his men went up the side of mount Moriah. They found Araunah who owned the rock on the top of the mountain threshing wheat upon it. When Araunah saw the king and his nobles coming, he said, “Wherefore is my lord the king come to his servant?” David replied, “To buy the threshing floor of thee, to build an altar unto the Lord, that the plague may be stayed from the people.” Araunah offered the floor, the oxen and the threshing tools to the king as a gift. But David said, I cannot take it as a gift; but I will “buy it for the full price.” So there David built an altar, and offered burnt offerings, saying, “This is the house of the Lord God.”