"David said to Gad, “I am in deep distress. Let me fall into the hands of the Lord, for his mercy is very great; but do not let me fall into human hands.” So the Lord sent a plague on Israel, and seventy thousand men of Israel fell dead."

1 Chr 21:13-14

Taking a census of military age men in Israel was wrong. Joab knew this. Why did David do it? Was he proud of the size of his army? Was he too taken up with Bathsheba? In the harrowing sequence of sin, punishment, realization, and repentance, God overrules the evil and brings about something that could not then be foreseen. The site of Araunah’s threshing floor was on a hill in the area called Moriah, where Abraham had been told to sacrifice Isaac—who was redeemed by a ram—and where, later, the Lamb of God, the ultimate sacrifice, would die on a cross and finally halt the plague of sin.

Psalm 51 is normally associated with David’s penitence over the Bathsheba-Uriah affair, but how must he have felt to have been responsible for these seventy thousand deaths (v. 14)? He could only cast himself on God’s mercy (vv. 13–15). God is still able to overrule evil and bring something good out of it. Our part is sincerely repent and turn from sin, trusting His great mercy.

Closing Prayer

Lord, thank you that there is no believer’s sin so great that it is beyond the reach of your mercy. Thank you that confession always brings forgiveness, and that, where there is repentance, there is opportunity for change (edited from Encounter with God).