I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on 2 Samuel 23-24.

    The writer wraps up this book by listing who David’s core followers were. He gives us a few stories about the most renowned of them. It is here that we learn that Uriah, whose death David arranged to cover up his affair with Bathsheba, was a member of that core. From the perspective of the time of writing, this made David’s crime even worse: by arranging for Uriah’s death, David betrayed one of his most loyal followers.

    Then we have the story of David’s census. There is nothing about the story which tells us when it occurred although its placement in 1 Chronicles suggests that it occurred shortly after David’s married Bathsheba. One of the things which is not clear is what was wrong with taking a census. I did a little bit of searching to see if anyone gave a reason which I could understand. I found a couple of ideas suggested, but nothing clearly supported by the wording of the passage. However, I did find a couple of blogs which noted that the original Hebrew is ambiguous about WHO incited David to take this census. According to those blogs, the Hebrew merely states that David was incited to take a census. My understanding is that in other passages with similar construction in Hebrew there is a clear indication that the unnamed actor is God, which is what led the translators to say that it was God who got David to conduct the census. Take note that it was Joab who tried to convince David not to commit this sin.