As a result of David’s failure in this area, with his
idolatry having been revealed to himself, the prophet Gad goes to speak to
David. It is in the content of what it is that is spoken to David that we
find the reason why God was angry with Israel. Gad was instructed, by the
Lord, to say to David, “This is what the Lord says: I am offering you three
forms of judgment. Pick one of them and I will carry it out against you”
(2 Samuel 24:12). What follows, in the choice of judgments given, will
direct us to the basis for God’s anger. In this, we will realize that God
was not only angry with Israel, but that He was also angry with David as
well.
“Gad went to David and told him, ‘Shall seven years of famine
come upon your land? Or shall you flee for three months from your enemy
with him in hot pursuit? Or shall there be three days of plague in your
land? Now decide what I should tell the One Who sent me.’” (24:13)
Are these judgments random? Of course not. These are a portion of
the prescribed exilic curses. These three potential judgments force us to
look to the books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy (though possibly post-David compilations,
though the thoughts therein contained, in conjunction with Leviticus, would
reflect the general tradition and operational mindset of the covenant people
throughout their history), and to the understanding of their covenant and of
the nature of their covenant God within which Israel operated. In the twenty-eighth
chapter of Deuteronomy we find all of these judgments, both implicitly and
explicitly.
Through Moses, the Lord speaks of His people being “cursed
in the field,” with “basket and… mixing bowl cursed… as well as the produce of
your soil” (28:16b,17,18b). In addition, “The sky above your heads will
be bronze and the earth beneath you iron. The Lord will make the rain of
your land powder and dust” (28:23-24a). Taken together, these things
point implicitly to the curse of famine. We here find that “The Lord will
allow you to be struck down before your enemies; you will attack them from one
direction but flee from them in seven directions” (28:25a). This points
to the optional judgment of Israel being forced to flee from their enemies.
Explicitly, we find that “The Lord will plague you with deadly diseases… He
will afflict you with weakness, fever, inflammation, infection, sword, blight,
and mildew; these will attack you until you perish” (28:21-22). Quite
obviously, this correlates with the “three days of plague in your land.”
So no, these are not random selections on God’s behalf, but rather, they are
overt and direct reminders of His covenant, of the covenant responsibilities of
His people, and of the personal and perpetual covenant that God had made with
the king that is now being forced to make a choice. These are reminders
of the curses that will come upon the people, and indeed, have come upon the
people in various ways and at various times, for their falling into idolatry.
Deuteronomy informs the people that curses will fall upon
them if they “ignore the Lord your God and are not careful to keep all His
commandments and statutes” (28:15). However, the initial presentation of
the curses, to be found in the twenty-sixth chapter of Leviticus, is far more
direct in speaking to that which will bring these curses that are wrapped up
together with the ultimate judgment of exile. There, we find a greater
degree of specificity in expectation, as we read “You must not make for
yourselves idols, so you must not set up for yourselves a carved image or a
pillar, and you must not place a sculpted stone in your land to bow down before
it” (26:1). To that is quickly added, by way of rounding out the primary
things that God is requiring from His covenant people, “You must keep My
Sabbaths and reverence My sanctuary” (26:2). Clearly, there is a greater
weight of judgment attached to idolatry, which makes perfect sense, especially
considering that it was essentially the idolatry of the original humans that
brought about the fall of man and of creation, for which Israel has been raised
up as a part of God’s corrective measures for His divine image bearers and His
once-good world.
If we take in the grand, cosmic picture, then we will see
that the judgments that God is offering to David and Israel here in the
twenty-fourth chapter of second Samuel, are, in reality, nothing more than
localized manifestations of the curses that came upon mankind and the world at
the fall. Indeed, the curses outlined and presented to Israel in both
Leviticus and Deuteronomy, are actually rather detailed expansions on the
initial curses that were spelled out to Adam and Eve---cursed ground, pain, and
death. As it relates to this story, are these not to be equated with famine,
to being afflicted with plague, and to being pursued by an enemy? This
presents itself as grand evidence of a consistent and faithful God, as well as
evidence that Israel was very much looked upon by the Lord as a second Adam,
charged with bearing His image into the world and of reminding the whole of the
created order of their Creator God. It is this fact that informs us as to
why Israel’s God looked upon and reacted so harshly against the idolatry on
display, while opening our eyes to the deep-rooted redemptive plan that
underlies the goings-on of this particular chapter of the story of Israel and
of David.
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