David’s census: Did God tempt him to sin?
2 Sam 24:1-10
Along with the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart, this passage is among the most confusing in the Old Testament. We read that the Lord was angry with Israel and incited David to number the people (2 Sam 24:1) only to punish them for David’s sin! The questions just pile up when we consider this summary. If God was angry with Israel, why did He incite David? Why was it even wrong to do a census and if it was and God instigated it, does that mean that He tempted David to sin? If so, how could the Lord hold David responsible and why did He take it out on the people? Finally, the parallel account in 2 Chron 21:1 identifies Satan as the one who enticed the king. What are we to make of all this?
God’s sovereignty and human responsibility
While the answers to some of these questions are a mystery and not easily explained, we must try to engage with the difficulties, nonetheless. As a preliminary observation, it should be noted that the Old Testament is emphatic about God’s sovereignty who is in control of all that is happening, so that in places where we today might say that He allowed something to happen, the OT stresses that God made it happen. This creates tension for us because even bad things that happen are attributed to God and it gives the impression that human beings are puppets who cannot be held responsible for what they do because God makes them act in certain ways. For instance, Isaiah 10:5-6 describes how God used Assyria as a ‘rod’ against Israel. This sounds as troubling as saying today that God uses governments to persecute Christians and also seems to take away responsibility from Assyria. However, what follows clarifies that Assyria was unaware of the Lord and went out to conquer nations because of its own arrogance, and God is going to punish the empire for it (Isa 10:7, 12-14).
David incited by God
In other words, the OT often places primary and secondary causation side by side without reconciling the two. Thus, it emphasises that God is sovereign in history and events are not accidents outside His control. At the same time, He does not coerce people, but they act out of their own human motivation and are therefore responsible. How exactly God’s sovereignty and human responsibility hang together is a mystery, but Scripture adamantly stresses both. In relation to our reading then, we should recognise that God is in control of what happens, and events unfold in accordance with His will even as individuals (like David) are simultaneously responsible for their sin. This, I believe, is the force of God inciting David, i.e. that He is in control of events. It cannot mean that God is tempting David because Scripture firmly rejects such a view. God is not tempted by evil and neither does He tempt us, but our human desires entice us into sin (James 1:13-14). Perhaps the dynamic between David and God may be re-phrased as God creating a situation in which David’s heart and sinful desires are revealed. Mysteriously, human actions are woven into the tapestry of God’s will so that the picture that emerges is as God determines it yet is achieved without duress.
Satan as culprit?
In the parallel account of this incident, Satan is credited with inciting David (1 Chron 21:1). The Hebrew satan without a definite article means ‘an adversary’, either human (e.g. 2 Sam 19:22; 1 Kings 11:14) or an angel of the Lord doing His bidding (e.g. Num 22:32). If this is the way to understand Chronicles then it is no different from saying that God (or one of his angels sent by Him) incited David and it simply adds the nuance of God being an adversary (i.e. opposed) to Israel. Alternatively, it might mean Satan or the Devil inciting David. Since the Hebrew script does not differentiate between capital and lowercase letters, we cannot be certain if this is the meaning here. Satan as a personal evil becomes a recognised figure by the time of Jesus, but it is generally thought to be a late development in Israel’s understanding and Chronicles 21:1 is a rare instance where it could be a reference to the Devil.[1] By and large the OT attributes sin to people submitting to their evil inclinations (e.g. Gen 4:7), but Chronicles is a post-exilic book, so it is possible that Satan as a figure was recognised by this time. If so, then Chronicles emphasises the other side of causation: the direct temptation by Satan, while Samuel focuses on God’s sovereign control of events.
Why the census was wrong
Why numbering the people was wrong is another tricky question. Exodus 30:11-14 describes a census that God commanded in which each person had to pay half a shekel as ransom, ‘so that there will be no plague among them when you number them’ (v.12). While there were times when a census was a practical necessity, taking stock of Israel’s size may have led the people to pride in their strength. The ransom money then is an acknowledgement that the source of their numbers is the Lord who allows them to become a great nation. The result of David’s census focuses on the number of fighting men (2 Sam 24:9), so perhaps this is an indication that he wants to assess the country’s military capabilities. If so, this points to pride and self-sufficiency. Although the exact nature of David’s sin is opaque to us, even Joab understands that it is wrong and David recognises it himself later (2 Sam 24:3, 10).
God’s anger against Israel
Finally, God’s anger is initially directed against Israel, although we are not told why. This is troubling for us because it sounds like God is angry without cause, which feeds our doubts about His justice. However, just because we do not know, does not mean that He had no good reason. We know from the rest of Scripture that the Lord of the universe is indeed just and fair. This is as far as we can go with the facts. However, we might speculate that Israel’s sin was complacency or self-sufficiency, which will be paralleled by David’s sin. If so, then the punishment of plague (2 Sam 24:15), which decimates their numbers is a wake-up call for everyone’s pride (David’s as well as the people’s).
Conclusion
While all these questions are challenging, it should not distract us from the message of the passage (I shall cover this in my next post). Our greatest fear, I suspect, when coming to these troubling issues is that somehow God will prove to be unfair, unjust or unloving. However, we need to remember three things. First, if we could understand everything about God, He would be on our level rather than the Almighty whose ways can be inscrutable to our limited human mind (Isa 55:8-9). Second, how can the Lord who gave us our sense of justice prove unjust Himself? It is impossible! Third, our greatest demonstration of God’s character is His Son, Jesus Christ, who healed and loved even those who did not end up following Him and never forced anyone to become a disciple (e.g. Mk 10:20-22). More than anything, His willingness to die for us all when we were His enemies (Rom 5:8-10) is our greatest reassurance that His aim is not to destroy but to save us.
[1] In Job’s story, the adversarial figure is translated as Satan, but the Hebrew actually refers to ‘the satan’, i.e. ‘the adversary’. Scholarly consensus seems to be that this is a reference to an angel in God’s heavenly court whose role is to raise questions (or sometimes to be a prosecuting attorney), not a sinister figure like Satan himself. Note how the sons of God, a reference to angels, are mentioned in Job 1:6 and ‘the adversary’ [the satan] is among them. Taking the reference to point to an angel of God makes better sense because it is otherwise difficult to explain how the Devil can have access to God’s presence in heaven or how he can incite God to act in certain ways (Job 2:3). Further, Zechariah 3:1 envisages a divine court scene, where ‘the satan’, an angel of God acting like a prosecuting attorney accuses Joshua, the high priest. Since these traits of accusation, adversarial role and being a (fallen) angel came to be recognised as particularly characteristic of the Devil, it is hard for us to see these references as anything other than Satan himself. However, we must be careful not to read our fuller understanding of Satan back into these incidents. There are, of course, hints of the Devil in the Old Testament (the serpent in Eden – Gen 3:1-5; the fallen angel imagery in Ezekiel’s prophecy about Tyre – Ezek 28:14-17 – and Isaiah’s about Babylon – Isa 14:12-14) and the New Testament retrospectively identifies these with Satan (Luke 10:18; Rev 20:2).
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