1 Chronicles 22:7-8

"Handfuls of Purpose,"

For All Gleaners

"And David said to Solomon, My son, as for me, it was in my mind to build an house unto the name of the Lord my God: but the word of the Lord came to me, saying, Thou hast shed blood abundantly and hast made great wars: thou shalt not build an house unto my name, because thou hast shed much blood upon the earth in my sight." 1Ch 22:7 , 1 Chronicles 22:8 .

How the word of the Lord came to David we do not know. He says the word of Jehovah came upon him. Possibly he may only be putting into words his own spiritual impressions on a review of his sanguinary career. We are not to understand that the words were delivered articulately to David, as he listened to a voice from heaven; they may have been so delivered, or an impression may have been wrought upon his mind that these words alone can correctly represent. In what way soever the communication was made to David, the communication itself is of singular moral value. Say that the Lord delivered the message immediately in audible words, we have then the doctrine that God will not permit men of blood to end their career as if they had been guiltless of bloodshedding. He will make a distinction between them and the work to the execution of which they aspire. Say that David uttered these words out of the depths of his own consciousness, then we have the doctrine that there is a moral fitness of things: that hands stained with blood should not be put forth in the erection of a house of prayer. There are innumerable difficulties connected with the whole situation, for we have been given to understand that the Lord himself commanded certain of the wars to be undertaken; but what know we of God's idea of undertaking a war? There may be a war within a war; it may be that God scrutinizes even the motives of warriors, and notes when the warrior degenerates into a mere murderer, or when the warrior begins to thirst for the blood which he has once tasted. Into these mysteries we cannot enter; it is enough for us to know that God will separate his temple, his house of prayer, from every hand that is destructive of human life, from all that is sanguinary, and from all that is personally or nationally ambitious. The house of God is to be the house of peace, the sanctuary of rest, a Sabbatic building, calm with the tranquillity of heaven, unstained by the vices and attachments of earth. David submits to this view of the case with a modesty which is truly pious. Not one word of reproach does he utter against God. If David could have found an excuse in having received the commandment of God to execute certain wars he would have remembered the giving of that commission, and would have reminded God that as a soldier he was not acting in his own name, but in the name of heaven. As David quoted no such precedent or authority we may safely conclude that there was something unrecorded in the history which would explain God's condemnation of David's sanguinary conduct. It is not incumbent upon annotators and theologians to whitewash Old Testament saints; God himself has permitted their lives to be traced in his book with graphic and even revolting clearness, and nowhere are Old Testament saints so sharply rebuked as in the Old Testament itself.