1 Chronicles 21:14-30

1Ch 21:14-30

¶ 14. So the Lord sent pestilence upon Israel [From Samuel we learn that the plague raged throughout the land, from dawn to the time of the evening sacrifice]: and there fell of Israel seventy thousand men.

15. And God sent an angel unto Jerusalem to destroy it ["And the angel stretched out his hand towards Jerusalem to destroy it"]; and as he was destroying ["About (at the time of) the destroying;" when the angel was on the point of beginning the work of death. It does not appear that Jerusalem was touched (comp. 2Sa 24:16 )], the Lord beheld, and he repented him of the evil, and said to the angel that destroyed, It is enough, stay now ["Enough now, stay (drop) thine hand"] thine hand. And the angel of the Lord stood [was standing. Samuel "had come to be"] by the threshingfloor of Oman [ or, Araunah, 2Sa 24:18 ] the Jebusite.

16. And David lifted up his eyes, and saw the angel of the Lord stand between the earth and the heaven, having a drawn sword in his hand stretched out over Jerusalem. Then David and the elders of Israel, who were clothed in sackcloth, fell upon their faces. [On the bursting out of the pestilence it would be natural that David and the elders should put on sackcloth (see 2 Samuel 3:31 ; 1 Kings 21:27 ; 2 Kings 6:30 , etc.); and on seeing the angel it would be natural that they should veil their faces (see Exodus 3:6 ; 1Ki 19:13 )].

17. And David said unto God, Is it not I that commanded the people to be numbered? even I it is that have sinned and done evil indeed; but as for these sheep [verbatim as in Samuel, save that the appeal, "O Lord my God," is wanting there. (Literally, "But these, the sheep." The king was the shepherd)], what have they done? let thine hand, I pray thee, O Lord my God, be on me, and on my father's house; but not on thy people, that they should be plagued [Literally, "and on thy people, not for a plague "].

Interrupted Judgments

THE ministry of angels is not always a ministry of salvation. We read in the epistle to the Hebrews, "Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?" But in this case we find an angel charged with the awful mission of destruction. The city towards which the angel was flying was none other than Jerusalem, the fair, the beautiful, the comeliest object upon all the earth, the very city of peace and of God. But position, history, outward advantages, cannot save men from divine judgment, when they have rebelled against God and invoked his wrath. Curious, however, it is to notice how judgment and mercy meet together, even under circumstances the most appalling. A beautiful instance of this occurs in the fifteenth verse "and as he was destroying" the Lord was looking on, and he himself interrupted the judgment which he had ordered to be poured out upon the doomed city. The Lord cannot look upon destruction with complacency. He did not make the earth to destroy it, or create the children of men that he might turn them to destruction; his thoughts are ever thoughts of restoration, maturity, completeness, and the blessedness of peace and sweet contentment "Turn ye, turn ye; why will ye die?" "As I live, saith the Lord, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked." Are there not many interrupted judgments in human history? Sometimes we have wondered why the judgment was not carried on to the point of extremity, so that nothing whatever should be left behind of all the heritage of evil-doers. The explanation of our wonder is given in this verse, and specially in these words, "and as he was destroying." God has left a remnant; he would not have the uttermost farthing extracted; he would not carry out his judgment until there was nothing left upon the earth but the signs of the fire which had consumed it. What applies to a nation or to a city applies also to the individual life. We have had much taken away, and yet how much have we had left! As the angel was destroying, "the Lord beheld," and into his eyes there came tears of pity, and his voice was heard saying to the angel, "It is enough, stay now thine hand." In wrath God has remembered mercy; thus, although our house has been shaken down, and our life has suffered great chastisements, and all objects of beauty seem to have been withdrawn from our vision, yet when we come to look on what God has left behind, we may indeed often be more astounded by the mercy than we have been appalled by the wrath. "It is enough, stay now thine hand," enough, if rightly interpreted, but not enough if the right interpretation has been missed. Enough was done to assert the reality of divine righteousness, the certainty of the divine superintendence of human affairs; enough was done to show that God could have done more, had not his pity arrested his anger. Blessed are they who themselves say, "It is enough," and who justify their verdict of sufficiency, not because of their cowardice under the strain of suffering, but because their distresses have brought them to penitential humiliation and to full-orbed views of life and of God. We have never had enough punishment until we have been brought to an attitude of humiliation, confession, and uttermost penitence. The object of God in sending the destroying angel to city or nation, to family or individual, is to bring men to repentance, to use even the ministry of fear in order that he may bring home those who have wandered far from him. When David beheld the awful spectacle, he began to accuse himself with just severity, yet he began in that hour to know what it is to respond to priestly instincts and to pursue the holy work of mediation. David said unto God, I only am to blame "I it is that have sinned and done evil indeed " I am the guilty one before high Heaven: O thou God of mercy, kill me if thou wilt, but spare those who have no part or lot in this iniquity. Happy indeed is the man who can bring himself even to this distress of mind. Contradictory as the mere words may appear to be, there is joy in a distress in which we have not involved others, but which righteously falls upon ourselves, and which we accept in a spirit of submission and penitence. David was great in his repentance. The circumstances developed the highest quality of the man's nature; he did not seek for the mitigation of his punishment in the punishment of innocent men: he felt that he could bear that penalty more resignedly, and even gratefully, if he himself were left alone to receive the full outpouring of divine indignation which he had justly incurred: "Let thine hand, I pray thee, O Lord my God, be on me, and on my father's house; but not on thy people, that they should be plagued." Yet a curious illustration of providence is afforded by this very association of innocent people with divine judgments. We cannot sin ourselves without involving others in some measure of penalty and suffering. Surely this should be some restraint upon our eager appetites, our unholy ambitions, our diabolical desires. When the father of the house goes down in character he carries down with him, to a considerable extent, the character of his innocent children. The bad man is laying up a bad fortune for those whom he has brought into the world; long years afterwards they may be told how bad a man their father was, and because of his iniquity they may be made to suffer loss and pain. If any man is now seeing innocent people suffering on his account he ought at once to confess the sin to be his own, and openly implore God to keep back the hand of judgment from those who are involved in the grievous offence.

"Then the angel of the Lord commanded Gad to say to David, that David should go up, and set up an altar unto the Lord in the threshingfloor of Ornan the Jebusite. And David went up at the saying of Gad, which he spake in the name of the Lord. And Ornan turned back, and saw the angel; and his four sons with him hid themselves. Now Ornan was threshing wheat. And as David came to Ornan, Ornan looked and saw David, and went out of the threshingfloor, and bowed himself to David with his face to the ground. Then David said to Ornan, Grant [Heb. Give] me the place of this threshingfloor, that I may build an altar therein unto the Lord: thou shalt grant it me for the full price: that the plague may be stayed from the people. And Ornan said unto David, Take it to thee, and let my lord the king do that which is good in his eyes: lo, I give thee the oxen also for burnt offerings, and the threshing instruments for wood, and the wheat for the meat offering [comp. Lev 2:1 ]; I give it all. And king David said to Ornan, Nay; but I will verily buy it for the full price: for I will not take that which is thine for the Lord, nor offer burnt offerings without cost. So David gave to Ornan for the place six hundred shekels of gold by weight. And David built there an altar unto the Lord, and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings, and called upon the Lord; and he answered him from heaven by fire upon the altar of burnt offering. And the Lord commanded the angel; and he put up his sword again into the sheath thereof" ( 1Ch 21:18-27 ).

Another link is now introduced into this ministry of mediation. The Lord commanded the angel, and the angel of the Lord commanded Gad, and that prophet was to tell David to go up and set up an altar unto the Lord. The setting-up of an altar unto the Lord was not a mere act of masonry. Many sinners there are who would be willing to build altars and churches if thereby they could escape the penalty of their sin. There is no way into the blessedness of pardon through any golden door. How easy it would be for the rich man to claim a pardon because of the multitude of his donations, or the magnificence of the buildings for whose erection he has paid! The way of escape does not lie along that path at all. We are indeed to set up an altar, but that altar is to express the condition of the heart; in the heart itself the altar is first set up: all the building of the hand but shows forth visibly what has already been done secretly in the innermost parts of the soul. Instantly David went up at the saying of Gad, which he spake in the name of the Lord. David said to Ornan, "Grant me the place of this threshingfloor, that I may build an altar therein unto the Lord." David did not ask for a privilege, he asked to be allowed to purchase the site upon which his eyes were fixed. He told the object which he had in view, that object being none other than that the plague might be stayed from the people. He who had seen innumerable thousands of men slain by the sword, in the time of what he considered to be just and honourable war, could not bear to see innocent people mown down by the scythe of divine wrath. Here embodies the true idea of amelioration and all true restoration, namely, that the man must be made right with God in order that he may be made right with his fellow-men, and in order that divine judgments may be turned into divine blessings. David had nothing to say to Gad, nor had he a word to speak to the angel; these were but instruments in the divine hand: his business was to go immediately to God himself, and there, in amplest submission and deepest humiliation, make his peace with the offended Creator. Our rupture is not with our fellow-men, it is with our God. The answer to all the results of that rupture, therefore, is not to be found in political rearrangements, in social reforms, in manipulations suggested by an inventive genius; it is to be found in a deeply religious exercise, namely, the up-going of the soul to God with tears and brokenheartedness and uttermost contrition; and thus having purified the fountain the streams will all be cleansed and sanctified. When David built his altar "he offered burnt offerings and peace offerings, and called upon the Lord." After all, this was work which David loved. With all his shortcomings, with his manifest and even monstrous defects, there was deep down in his heart an inextinguishable love for God and for God's house. Nor was the Lord slow to answer him; the Lord commanded the angel, and the sword was at once put up into its sheath. This was answered prayer. If we have difficulties in the matter of prayer being answered, we ought to consider whether those difficulties should not turn upon the nature of the prayer itself. What is the prayer which we offer? Is it a cry of selfish pain or selfish shame? Or is it in any way limited by merely selfish desires and considerations? If so, it is not prayer at all; it is the mere cry of cowardice, the mere whimper of childish timidity. We shall prove the reality of our prayer when we publicly confess our own sin, and when we openly go forward and at all costs purchase what is required in order to show the depth and power of our conviction, and when we lovingly and audibly cry in the hearing of the whole world that God would have mercy upon us and heal us: when our prayer comes to that point of agony, we shall be in a position to say whether God hears our prayers or allows them to die upon the idle wind. Before pronouncing upon prayer we ought ourselves to pray. We ought also to remember that to pray is not to use a form of words, however sacred and tender, but to pour out the living heart in absolute and ungrudging sacrifice before the throne of grace. Few men pray. Many men utter the words of prayer, but never truly aspire to heaven. Lord, teach us how to pray!

"At that time when David saw that the Lord had answered him in the threshingfloor of Ornan the Jebusite, then he sacrificed there [i.e., then (from the time of the fall of fire from heaven) David made this his regular place for offering sacrifice]. For the tabernacle of the Lord, which Moses made in the wilderness, and the altar of the burnt offering, were at that season in the high place at Gibeon [comp. ch. 1 Chronicles 16:39-40 , and 2Ch 1:3-5 ]. But David could not go before it to inquire of God: for he was afraid because of the sword of the angel of the Lord" ( 1Ch 21:28-30 ).

This is a parenthesis, showing why David did not resort to the ancient tabernacle which stood then at Gibeon. The dwelling-place of Jehovah is set forth in contrast with Ornan's threshingfloor, or the new sanctuary. David could not go to inquire of God, for he was afraid because of the sword of the angel of the Lord. David could not go to Gibeon because of the sword of the angel of Jehovah that is to say, because of the pestilence which raged at Gibeon. It has been supposed by some that the awful vision of the angel had afflicted David with some bodily weakness; perhaps it is better to suppose that the sight of the angel had made an indelible impression upon the mind of David.

There are some sights which we never wish to see repeated; so thoroughly unmanned have we been by certain spectacles that nothing could induce us to look upon them again. No man can see God, and live; and God can so show an angel to the human vision that that vision would on no account look again upon the appalling and bewildering sight. We know not what we ask for when we desire to see the invisible world. We cannot tell what is the meaning of the word "spirit"; we see one another in the body, and become familiar with one another in that relation, but who can tell what would be the effect upon the mind if we could really see the spirit of our dearest friend? Mysterious spirit! spirit of fire, spirit of life; an amazing, wondrous, immeasurable thing, palpitating in every part of the body, and yet wholly resident in none: the thing that thinks, that brings riches to the mind from afar, that wonders, schemes, plots, prays, blasphemes, and conducts the whole tragedy of life, and yet is itself invisible impalpable! By our self-study we approach in some degree a knowledge of the nature of God. God is a Spirit. God is invisible. We are to know God meanwhile as we know one another, namely, through embodiment, incarnation, phenomena; we are to know him by the very nature that is round about us the shining heavens, the flowering earth, the living air: all these things, rightly understood, interpret God as we are able to bear him. There is indeed another interpretation always to be desired and always to be earnestly sought for, and that is the indwelling Holy Ghost, taking of the things of Christ and showing them unto us, leading us into all truth, comforting us with appropriate solaces, and giving us confidence that the future shall be larger and brighter than the past, and that all our sorrows shall be but as dark roots out of which the flower of joy will spring. Solemn indeed ought every religious exercise to be: it should heighten the whole level of the mind, and bring to a finer pitch of harmony the action of all the powers of the soul. If we have left the altar in any other frame of mind than this, then our service there has been a vain oblation. When men go down from the house of God, their whole spirit should be marked by reverence, tenderness, submission, and a complete desire to obey and fulfil every tittle of the word of God. By this sign shall men know that they have offered acceptable worship.

Prayer

Almighty God, make us as little children. We want to be taken up into thine arms and have thine hands put upon us, and to be blessed of God. Without this we cannot live. We have tried to keep all the commandments, and the stones fall down from the top of one another, because we are on the wrong foundation and there is no binding quality in the cement we use. We cannot build these stones at all. When we try to rise upon them they and we all fall down together. Who can build himself up into heaven? Not one. So we cease to do all this, and come to Jesus Christ our Saviour, and knowing nothing, arguing nothing, questioning nothing, we want simply to be taken up by him into his arms, and to feel his warm hands upon us, and to know that his blessing is stealing into our hearts with most tender persuasiveness. This is true godliness to know no will but thine; to know nothing of argument and controversy and fierce quarrelling of words, but to know that thou art in us and we in thee; hardly to know ourselves from thee; to be absorbed in God, to be lost in love. Then shall we prove all this by many a generous deed. We shall be out before Pharaoh in the morning, and accost him ere he bathes in the water. We shall go to Pharaoh by night when he sends for us, as all cowards do, and shall there in the darkness be as free and safe as if in heaven. We shall serve the Lord; we shall rejoice in the Lord and greatly magnify his Name; and our life shall be no scented perfume but a daily service and sacrifice, and thus an acceptable oblation. But this is a great mystery, and it concerns Christ and his Church. It is not in man to work this miracle. Man argues, and builds stones that will not hold together, and invents long and foolish words. Lord, displace this first man and set up within us the Second Man, which is the Lord from heaven. Then our life shall upward go, our soul shall struggle to the skies, our whole estate shall have resting upon it the oath of consecration, and thy wing shall cover us all the day. Thou knowest who we are and what we want the man with the burdened back, the sore heart, the scorched estate; thou knowest the broken in spirit, the weary and sad: they who laugh, when internally they are full of tears and crying bitterly: they who sit down to the feast and make believe they are eating when all the while they die of sad satiety; thou knowest the strong and the weak. Let a blessing come to every one of us some word our own, some message all for us, some tone picked out of the general speech and meant for our attention. If thou wilt hear us in this, we shall know at the end that our prayers have been turned at the Cross into a great Amen, because of the love that shall glow in our thankful hearts, Amen.