2 Samuel 24 Part 1

Matt, you'll open us up with a word of prayer. Father, we come to you this morning, Lord, so grateful that you sent your son that he died on the cross and by doing so, we can call you

Father. It's through him and him alone, Father, that we're able to do that. Father, I thank you for these men that you have raised up,

Mike, Andy, Pastor Keith, that they are so zealous to teach your word to your people,

Father. And as we sit and listen this morning, just prick our heart and when we have the opportunity to raise our voice in harmony, to sing praises to you, may it be a pleasant sound on your ears,

Father. For these things I pray in the name of Jesus Christ, amen. Amen. All right, 2

Samuel, chapter 23. Thank you,

Bert, for filling in for me last week. I enjoyed you.

Yes, 2 Samuel would be best instead of first. There we go. All right, you're gonna have to bear with me with the crazy names.

And I'm gonna, I'm sorry, Mike. And I'm just gonna, yeah, this is gonna be fun. So if I get to something

I can't pronounce and I say Bob, Jack, or Larry, just bear with me. And we're just gonna begin in verse eight.

And these are the names of the mighty men whom David had. Jish -bosh -veth, a

Tacama knight, chief of the captains. He was called Adino the Esnite because 800 slain by him at one time and after him was

Eliezer, the son of Dodo, the Ohahite, one of the three mighty men with David.

When they defiled the Philistines who were gathered there to battle and the men of Israel had withdrawn.

He arose and he struck the Philistines until his hand was weary and clung to the sword and the

Lord brought about a great victory on that day and the people returned after him only to strip the slain.

Now after him was Shema, the son of Agi, a Herorite and the

Philistines were gathered into a troop where there was a plot of ground full of lentils and the people fled from the

Philistines but he took his stand in the midst of the plot. He defended it and struck the Philistines and the

Lord brought about on that day a great victory. Then three of the 30 chief men went down and came to David at the time of harvest at the cave of Adullam while the troop of the

Philistines was camping in the valley of Rethaim and David was then in the stronghold while the garrisons of the

Philistines was then in Bethlehem. David had a craving and said, oh that someone would give me a drink of water from the well of Bethlehem which is to be by the gate.

So the three mighty men, they broke through the camp of the Philistines, they drew water from the well of Bethlehem which was by the gate and he took it and he brought it to David.

Nevertheless, he would not drink it but poured it out to the Lord and he said, far be it from me, oh

Lord, that I should do this. Shall I drink the blood of the men who went in jeopardy of their lives?

Therefore, he would not drink it. These things the three mighty men did.

Abishai, the brother of Joab, the son of Zeruiah was the chief of the 30 and he swung his spear against 300 and killed them and had a name as well as the three.

He was most honored of the 30. Therefore, he became the commander and however, he did not attain to the three.

Then Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada, the son of a valiant man, Kavaziel had done mighty deeds.

He killed the two sons of Ariel of Moab. He also went down and killed a lion in the midst, in the middle of a pit in a snowy day.

He killed an Egyptian, a handsome, impressive man. Now the Egyptian had a spear in his hand and he went down to him with a club.

He snatched a spear from the Egyptian's hand and he killed him with his own spear. These things Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada did and had a name as well as the three mighty men.

He was honored among the 30 but he did not attain to the three. David appointed him over his guard.

Asahel, the brother of Joab, was among the 30. Eliahim, the son of Dota of Bethlehem.

Shema, the Herodite. Elikai, the Herodite. Halleis, the

Pelletite. Ira, the son of Akish, the Tokolite. Ebeazer, the

Anathothite. Benaiah, the Hushethite.

Zalmon, the Ahoethite. Meherahri, the Natofemethite.

Helab, the son of Benah, the Natofemethite. Atai, the son of Rabiah, of Gibeah, of the sons of Benjamin.

Benaiah, and this is not the same Benaiah. Benaiah, a Perithonite.

And Hedayah, at the brooks of Gahosh. Abiah, Albon, a

Barathite. Asmavav, the Barahumite. Ahilabah, the

Shalbenite, the sons of Jashon. Jonathan, hey, how about that one?

An easy one. Jonathan, Shema, the Herorite. Ahim, the son of Shirar, the

Ararite. Eliphelite, the son of Ahishabai, the son of Machiathite and Elyam, the son of Ahithophel, the

Gileonite. Hezra, the Carmelite. Parari, the Arbite.

Igal, the son of Nathan, of Zoba. Benaiah, the Gedite. Zalik, the

Ammonite. Nahari, the Barathite. Armorbears are Joab and the sons of Zariah.

Ira, the Ithrite. And Gerub, the Ithrite. And Uriah, the Hittite. 37 in all.

So if I mispronounced any of those, please forgive me. I'm sorry. I think we ought to do it again. Man. Well, as Burt was saying last week,

God raises up men. And I do believe that that is why this falls after, and this could be conjecture on my part, if you disagree, that's fine.

But as he raised up David, he raised up these men after David. Not after him, but to follow him.

David wasn't a self -made man, was he? What was he doing when God called him?

Sheep raising sheep. Yeah, he was playing with sheep, counting sheep. Obviously, he was a good shepherd. Was he trained with his sling?

Yeah, I mean, that's what they used to defend animals from, I mean, defend the sheep from wild animals.

And in this case, David was raised up to fight Goliath. He killed

Goliath. And then God raised him up to be a mighty man. And do you see the men that follow David?

And from what we understand is the majority of these men followed David from the time that he began his run when he fled and ended up in the cave of Adullam.

So as we look at some of these names and the reason for their fighting is to show that God gave him men that were, one, valiant.

And where did they get their vigor? Where would they get that from? From the Lord, yeah. I mean, all the bad things we can say about Joab.

Was he a wicked man? Yes, he was a wicked man. The scripture is very clear about him and Abishai. But who gave them the strength to do these mighty defeats of their enemies so that they could continually defend

David and his throne? It was God that did that. Now, as we just look at a couple of these, if you look at the parallel passage in,

I think it's in 1 Chronicles 11, you're gonna see some discrepancies in the numbers. The one right off rip is the one you're gonna see where Deshoshabesh b'Sheshaphife, the

Techanite. It says, he was called Enad the Esnite because 800 men were slain by him at one time.

But if you flip over to the Chronicle passage, it's gonna say 300. Okay, so how do we bring those two together and say, hey, this is what liberals do.

They'll say, look, here's a contradiction in scripture. One, we see this as this man was elevated above Abishai.

If you look at the next person that kills a great mighty defeat, it was Abishai and he was 300. So in the

Samuel passage, they show him being elevated higher than Abishai by showing it was actually 800.

And when you go to Chronicles, they can reduce that number and still be consistent with scripture.

That's how it's explained. Now, am I, is that sufficient for me?

It's not. But that's the only way that the scriptures can explain it other than to say that it has been corrupted over time.

That's the only two options that we have. I'm not comfortable with either.

But I'm comfortable saying this, that this man was a mighty man of God and he was a mighty man that was filled with vigor and with honor to fight for David.

Then you get to down here where it talks about, where it is, and then the son of Doda, the

Eleazar, the son of Doda, one of the three mighty men of David. And when he defied the Philistines who gathered there to battle, the men of Israel had withdrawn.

He arose. Look at it. So they went to fight and man, look, all of his comrades did what?

They dipped. Yeah. And it says that he, when they had withdrawn, he arose and he struck down Philistines until his hand was weary and clung to the sword.

And the Lord brought about that day a great victory. Was it Eleazar that brought about that victory? No. It's the

Lord that brought about that. And you will see that consistently through that none of these are these men.

It's the Lord. Go ahead, Mike. It's just instruments of the Lord. That's all they are. Yeah. I mean, we think about, think about Samson.

Was there anything about Samson that made Samson do what he did? No, I mean, for all we know, he could have looked like Barney Fife with long hair.

That's all we know. There was nothing about his physical stature that would have said, hey, this guy has got the power to slay all these

Philistines. Well, look at these men, although these men were mighty men, I don't know anybody that can kill 800, 300, a whole platoon of men with a spear or a sword.

Gotta remember, this is not the time of machine guns. You can just mow down people. This was eye to eye, hand to hand.

You're looking the person in the eye as you dispatch his life. You have now, you go to where it says, and the

Lord gave about that great day, and the people returned after him only to strip the slain.

Look at these guys. They're like, check this out, all right? Eleazar has defended our camp.

He has killed everybody, but we're going to now partake in the stripping of the booty. Yeah, and I know it doesn't say anything, but Eleazar, I mean, it almost, he seems happy.

I mean, you would go, okay, this man has now defeated, we don't see any pushback of him going, hey, wait a minute, I killed, because technically speaking, that's his stuff.

Yeah, his stuff, but what do we know about David? He acts. The Bible does say he was tired. He was.

He was probably loud, but now I'm going to let it go back. He said, all right, if anybody can pry the sword out of my hand.

You can have all the gold you want. Yeah, but what did David do when he went out and he slayed all those people?

What did he do? He took the stuff in for himself, and then he gave it away. He gave it away.

So what was this man doing? He was following his leader. He was following his leader. It says, and now after that, you had

Shema, the son of Agi, the Harite. Philistines gathered into a troop where there was a plot of ground full of lentils.

I think in another translation, it says barley. Can't remember which one that is, but it says barley.

But I understand this is a place where it was obviously at the time of harvest, and the people fled from the Philistines, but he took in his hand and amidst and defended it, and he struck the

Philistines down, and once again, what does it say? The Lord brought about that great victory. The Lord brought about that great victory.

Then you get to, then the three of the 30 went down and came to David at the time of harvest in the cave of Adullam.

Remember what the cave of Adullam was? That's where the riffraff came out to him. That's why I understand these men as coming at that time.

If you remember early on when David fled from Saul, he went to Gath, he deceived, what's his face,

Achish, by drooling out of his mouth, scratching on him, and when he left there, he went to the cave of Adullam, and then it says all of those who were discontented, didn't pay their taxes, yeah, and were disgruntled with the way things were being run, they met

David out at the cave of Adullam, and that's where I would say this rowdy bunch came. Yeah, that's where I would say these guys came from.

It says that while they were there, while the troop of the Philistines was camping in the valley of Rephaim.

What was Rephaim? Anybody remember what the valley of the Rephaim was? The Valley of the

Giants. And I could have better explained to you when you asked that question, you know, how do we say this is four and five?

There is a, hey, if I ever don't explain it clear enough, say, Mike, that's not working for me.

We just pray for you. Okay, well, there is a textual variant there that says, hey, it was a descendant of the

Repha, which means the Rephaim. So the Valley of the Rephaim was the Valley of the Giants.

Where did Goliath descend from? The Rephaim, which ultimately was the descendants of Anak when they came into the land.

So it says while the Philistines were camping in the Valley of Rephaim, David was in the stronghold.

There was a number of strongholds. One was, we know of, was the Dullum. The other one was somewhere on this side.

When he came across, it said he was in the stronghold when he brought his family over here and running from King Saul.

But there was also one in En Gedi. And it most likely, based on where they say they were at from the

Dullum, was probably at En Gedi. It says David was then in the stronghold while the garrison of the

Philistines was in Bethlehem. And David had a craving and said, oh, I wish that someone would go get me a drink of water from the well of Bethlehem, which is by the gate.

Man, that must be some good water. I mean, what? Other than the fact that, hey man, you know what?

I would really like some water from my hometown. Where was David from? He was from Bethlehem.

Now, what I don't understand is these dudes breaking camp going, hey,

I'm gonna go get this guy a cup of water. For the life of me, I don't, no explanation.

David's thirsty. They see there, he wants a specific type of water. So they get up, they break the camp, they head to Bethlehem.

Now, I'll understand this to be before David had consolidated the kingdom.

And here's the reason why. The Philistines, he had ran, by the time David had united the kingdom, he had ran all the

Philistines out of this area. He had pushed him back. So I take this to be before David had united the kingdom.

I could be wrong, but that's how I understand it. We don't have any indication that the Philistines had raided this close to Jerusalem.

Remember, Bethlehem's only right here. We have no indication that they had ever raided after David ran the

Jebusites out and all that. The Philistines ever came that close again, never. Because we know this, they never raided

Bethlehem, Jerusalem, or those surrounding areas.

But we do see David, as we went through his time where they say, hey, he was getting weary.

What did they do? They attacked the Philistines over here. We know they went and chased them. So that's how

I understand that. So these men broke camp. They took off to the Philistines.

They drew the water from the well of Bethlehem, which was by the gate, and they took it and brought it to David.

Now, I can only imagine how many men that they had to kill in order to get a drink of water.

They just had to break back through to get back to them. And to get out, and all the men they had to fight on their way in to get wherever this well was to get some water.

And then here it says, they brought it back to David, and nevertheless, he would not drink it, but he poured it out to the

Lord. Man, you imagine that. You're going at the risk of your life to get this guy a flask of water, jug of water, wine skin of water, whatever it is.

When he comes back, you think he pops that cap off, and you think he's fixing to guzzle it, and he goes and just pours it out on the ground.

And he says how, what was the reason for doing that? He was grieving that these men had risked their lives to give him something to drink.

Sure. And in my mind - I don't think he was giving them instructions when he said it. He was just saying, and they heard it.

Yeah, but in my mind, I go, what did he think that we're gonna do? You know what

I mean? What did they think? Hey man, I sure would like some, I mean, he's practically their king at this point.

You know, what do you think that we're gonna do? Yeah man, I'd sure like a Egg McMuffin from McDonald's, and one of my guys will go.

You know what I mean? In this case, these guys said, hey man, our leader wants something to drink, and they peeled out.

And when they got back, David didn't drink it. I do wonder what their thoughts were. Oh, all of that.

Yeah. Or did they see it as a drink offering poured out to the Lord? Did they see it as that?

And that, we don't know. Therefore, he would not drink it. These were the mighty men. Abishai.

Once again, Mr. Consistent. Regardless of him being wicked, man,

I like Abishai. I mean, he was not gonna let anybody come up against David. He protected him.

Obviously, he was his uncle, but he loved David. It says, the brother of Joab, the son of Zeriah, was chief of the 30, and he swung his spear against 300 and killed them, and he had a name as well as the three.

And he was most honored of the 30. Therefore, he became their commander. However, he did not attain to the three.

So, Abishai did not reach that top tier. Never before. Man, you're like, man,

I just missed it. But he was a bad dude. Yeah, and we knew this, even before this, that he had no problem whacking off somebody's head.

Yeah, yeah, had no problem. And then we have Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada, the son of a valiant man of Kabeez, of Kabzeel, who had done mighty things.

He killed two sons of Ariel of Moab. Does anybody else's translation say? Two lion -like men.

Okay, that's actually what an Ariel is, lion -like men. If you look up the word Ariel, that's what it is.

It's lion -like of Moab. He also went down and he killed a lion in the middle of a pit on a snowy day.

Why do they say snowy day? Because it wasn't often that it snowed. And when it did snow, it was a marker.

I mean, it snowed up in the mountains, but not where they're gonna be walking and fall into a pit.

I don't know if you've ever been up in the mountains, and if you ever went to Mossad or any of these places over here, there's no pits up in the mountains.

So he said he killed a lion in the pit on a snowy day. Then he killed an

Egyptian, an impressive man. Anybody else say anything else? Handsome, what else? A godly man.

A who? Goodly. Goodly? A spectacular man. It's interesting that they use this because they want you to know that this guy was, one, is anybody trying to say large or giant?

I read one translation that said giant. Most of them, I think, say impressive or handsome.

Whatever it was, he killed the guy. He took it, he went down there with a club. He disarmed this man with his own spear and then killed him with his own spear.

And then it says in verse 22, these were the things that Benaiah the son of Jehoiada did, and he had a name, as well as the three mighty men.

What we, and we're not gonna get into that far because we're not going into 1 Kings, but Benaiah actually becomes

Solomon's head of guard, basically commander of the army. Joab, when he's giving his final words,

David's final words weren't last week. David's final words are actually in Kings in the sense of what he's giving as his parting speech right before he dies.

He tells Solomon, there's a couple of people you need to take care of, Joab being one of them. And he says, he struck two men down while in the time of peace.

Righteous men. I mean, he mourned over Adner. And who was the other guy? He killed

Adner. I don't know either, I forgot. Father of Joab, right?

He killed Amasa. He killed Amasa. Yeah, he's related to Joab.

Cousin something, anyway. Remember, he had removed, David had removed Joab from his position.

My conclusion was because he killed his son. He put Amasa in that spot. Amasa didn't quickly go take care of the rise up between, what's his face?

Sheba. He didn't take care of that. My understanding is Joab felt that he had violated the king's command.

Now the king's life was in jeopardy. And on top of that, I can avenge my spot, kill him for putting the king's life in jeopardy, and take his place.

Both those men were killed in a time of peace. And he told Solomon, you don't let his hair go down to the ground, you let his blood go.

So as he tells Solomon that, Solomon tells Benaiah, hey, I need you to go whack him.

He said, what kills me is when you're reading that, this guy's been with him probably 40 years.

I mean, if David was on the throne for 40 years, and they had been with him since the time they were in the cave of Adob, they've been together, they have fought together.

He was one of the three mighty, they were, man, they were brothers. And he says, hey,

I need you to go whack that guy. Okay. Okay. And then he comes back and he says, well, he ran to the altar.

He said, well, if he won't move, whack him there. And that's what he did. So Benaniah was one of the three mighty men, and then

David had appointed him over his guard. I don't see that as over the army. I see that as over basically his secret service, his, basically his bodyguard.

And then I'm not gonna go through every one of these names again. But we have another name that we haven't heard in quite some time, since way back at the beginning of the book,

Asahel. Anybody remember Asahel? Who was he? What happened to him?

He did get whacked. Remember, they were, when the Civil War broke out between Ishbosheth, actually it was between Abner and between David's men, and they were pursuing

Abner, and it says that Asahel was swift on his feet like a gazelle. And he was running after Abner, and as they were catching, he says, hey,

Asahel, is that you? He said, yes, it is. He says, I'm telling you, why don't you turn around to the right or to the left and get you one of these younger guys and kill them and take their, he didn't say kill them, but he says, take their armor, take their swords.

And what he's basically saying is, hey, don't come after me, go ahead and get them. And he says, but if you keep pursuing me, this isn't gonna end well for you.

And being the young, vigorous young man that he is, feeling bulletproof or spear -proof, he continued on, and he said, hey,

I'm telling you, this is the last time. You need to turn around. And he did not, and he continued on, and now we understand it, because the scripture says that he hit him with the blunt end of the spear, and everybody, y 'all remember what the blunt end looked like?

It wasn't like rounded off like a shovel. Spears had counterweights on them so they could throw and glide.

So the back of the spear had a piece of metal on it that was sharp, but not a blade like on the front.

So as he's running, he just, and it goes right through him. And Asahel dropped dead.

It did not end well for him, just as the old guy told him. My boys used to tell me, because we'd wrestle and teaching

Jake, he was kind of scrappy, and he liked to learn how to, he wanted to learn how to box and all that.

So we would play around, and I would always pop him, or you'd kick his front leg out from under him, make him fall forward, and yeah.

And he's like, that's old people's strength, Dad. I was like, well, here it is, Abner. You don't mess with an 80 -year -old man that has killed men for 60 years or whatever.

Yeah, and that's what Abner was trying to tell Asahel, and it did not end well.

But that is why Joab killed Abner. But he killed

Abner at a time when peace had already been given by David. Now, had he had killed

Abner in a time when they were still warring, David would not have said a word, and that is why he doesn't say anything about Absalom.

There was an actual war going on with Absalom, and Absalom did deserve to be put to death.

So what he did was only against the command of the king. I do believe that he was trying to preserve, that Joab was trying to preserve the kingdom and David when he killed

Absalom. In this case, he killed Abner because he killed his brother.

And how do we know that? Because the scripture tells us that's why he did it, because he killed his brother. Then we can go on, and we can look at all these crazy names, and more so, we can recognize more places that these men came from.

We have, where it says, some of them will say the

Dachoite, okay, wherever he's from. He was from Dachoa, or we have Abiezar. He was from Anathoth. Anathoth was just outside Jerusalem.

It was considered a, it was part of a Levitical city. And you have some that were from Benjamin.

You have some that were from, where was the other one at?

Carmelite, so here we have some that were up in the Carmel area. But then we have some that come up, you go, well, wait a minute.

This guy, one of them was a, let's take Uriah. He was a Hittite. Go ahead, Mike. You got some of them that were

Ammonites. If you see, one of them was an Ammonite. Probably Proselyte. No doubt, no doubt these men were

Proselytes. And one, we know for a fact that Uriah was, because what did he say when

David tried to get him drunk to go home to sleep with his wife? He said, man, how can I go and be with my wife when, you know, yeah, it's in a tent and my men are out fighting in the field.

So there was a dedication to the Lord and to the, obviously to the crown as well.

So you have all of these men who were raised up, once again, as Burt brought up last week, raised up by God to be

David's men. Now, how many of these men go on into the next kingdom? I mean, with Solomon, I am not sure.

We know Benaiah does and some of these others, but we don't know how many of them died along the way. We don't know how many of them decided to retire from their services.

Yeah, I mean, hey, we think about that. These guys would have come, they were able to fight in their 20s.

These guys could have, well, in their 60s. And we just don't think like that. I mean, even

Abner, if you think about what Abner was, he was probably in his 60s and 70s. King Saul, probably 70, 72, when he went, you're right, when he went to battle and he died in Gilboa.

And we just don't think like that. And those men still being able to go out and do that. We think of such men as we said before,

Joshua and Caleb, preserved by God. Yeah, well, even Moses. Moses, it says, he was 80 years old when he walked to his own death.

Is that correct? All right, so when he - Can I look? Yeah, and it says, his eyes had not faded nor had his strength abated.

So that means he was still able to go out and fight and do the things that God required of him had he not been disobedient.

So what can we learn from the list of these men? God raised them up for the specific reason of being

David's mighty men. These men are significant and they're listed here to let us know that God does raise up men to go alongside men he raises up.

Hey, this is not a, we're not in this alone. Was David in this alone? No, not at all.

God raised up men to walk alongside of him and some of them had enough brains as we saw just a couple of chapters ago or last chapter that when he got weary and they says, hey, you're gonna cost us more than you're helping us.

So they basically told him, yeah, we're gonna take your driver's license, we're gonna take your chariot and you're gonna have to be drove everywhere you go from here on out.

And a lot of good advice, like with Abigail, he was gonna go and his advisor says, oh, come on.

Sure, and had he not, had he not had those men speaking into his ear and he did not listen.

You know, one thing about, go ahead. Oh, he would have done the same thing that he had. Sure, well, that's a little, in his case, it would have been, it would not have, because it was not a consolidated kingdom.

I think it would have been murder, yeah. I think he had a right to be angry for what

Nabal, yeah, Nabal did, but I don't think he had the right to go slay him,

I don't think so, out of retribution. And that's what he was going to do. And even Abigail tells him, you're gonna do this and when you become king, it's gonna be on your conscience forever, so don't do it.

And what did he do? He listened. One thing we do see about David, when he is confronted in his sin, or he, or we'll see as next week, yeah, or as we'll see as next week, when he's convicted in his heart, what did he do?

He repented. What do we see about King Saul? He didn't care, yeah, he didn't care.

All he said was, Samuel, I know what I did was wrong, but will you walk ahead with me as we go back into the city so they'll still think

I'm the man? You know, you'll still be with me. That's all he cared about. So that brings us to Uriah the

Hittite at the tail end, and he was numbered among the 37, and Uriah was a righteous man.

Why did David put him in here? Why did he list him last? Why didn't he put him in the middle?

As a reminder, what I did was wrong. And this man was more righteous than I, more righteous than I.

Oh, one I did miss, I didn't want to go up back here, Elyon, I say

Elyon, the son of Ahithophel the Gileadite. You may remember who Ahithophel was.

He was the co -conspirator, counselor, with Absalom against David.

You see who his son was? Elyon, who was that?

That was Bathsheba's daddy. Now we can look at this, as I tried to explain when

Ahithophel tried to get David killed with his counsel, now we know why. He was a homewrecker.

Ahithophel saw what David had done. He had had his grandson -in -law, basically, murdered, and he saw that, and he had the opportunity to get

David whacked for some retribution, and he tried to do that. Anyway, but Elyon, Bathsheba's daddy, was one of those.

Now, we've got probably 10 minutes or so. Any questions, comments, lack of understanding, explanation?

I think it's interesting that, I mean, they're all mighty men, or great men, but he still does break it into two groups.

You got the first three, it's like the top 10. Yeah, you had the chief of staff. The top three, yeah, and then he's got the rest of them, so there is an upper echelon of what's going on there.

Yep, and he made them commanders that way. Even if you remember, when he split them up, he sent

Etiab this way with some, he sent Joab this way, and he sent Abishai, so we see that he was very strategic in how he used those top echelon of men.

If we don't have any more questions, I'm gonna go ahead and read 24, because it's going to take us probably two weeks to get through this, and the reason being is the textual differences between two texts is going to take us a couple, probably two weeks.

So if there's no questions, I'm gonna go ahead and read 24, if that's okay with y 'all. You good? All right.

Now, again, the anger of the Lord burned against Israel, and it incited David against them to say, go, number

Israel and Judah. And the king said to Joab, the commander of the army who was with him, go about now, throughout all the tribes of Israel, from Dan to Beersheba, and register the people that I may know the number of the people.

But Joab said to the king, now may the Lord your God add to the people a hundred times as many as they are, while the eyes of my

Lord the king still see. But why does my Lord the king delight in this thing?

Nevertheless, the king's word prevailed against Joab and against the commanders of the army.

So Joab, the commander of the army, went out into all the presence of the kings to register the people of Israel, and they crossed the

Jordan, camped in Oror, at the right side of the city, that is the middle of the valley of Gad, and toward Jazir.

Then they came to Gilead and to the land of Tathim -Hadoshi, and they came to Dan -Jayin, and around to Sidon, and they came to the fortress of Tyre, to all the cities of the

Hivites and the Canaanites, and they went out to the south of Judah to Beersheba.

So when they had gone about through the whole land, they came to Jerusalem at the end of nine months and 20 days and Joab gave the number of the registration of the people to the king, and there were of Israel 800 ,000 valiant men who drew the sword, and the men of Judah who were 500 ,000 men.

Now David's heart troubled him after he had numbered the people. So David said to the Lord, I have sinned greatly in what

I have done, but now, O Lord, please take away the iniquity of your servant, for I have acted very foolishly.

And then David arose in the morning, and the word of the Lord came to the prophet

Gad, David Seir, saying, go and speak to David. Thus says the Lord, I am offering to you three things.

Choose for yourself one of these, which I will do to you. So Gad came to David and he told him, and he said to him, shall seven years of famine come to you in your land, or will you flee three months, or will you flee three months before your foes while they pursue you?

Or shall there be three days pestilence in the land? Now consider and see what

I shall return to him who sent me. And David said to Gad, I am great distress.

Let us now fall into the hand of the Lord, for his mercies are great, and do not let me fall into the hands of men.

So the Lord sent a pestilence upon Israel from the morning until the appointed time, and 70 ,000 men of the people from Dan to Beersheba died.

And when the angel stretched out his hand toward Jerusalem to destroy it, the Lord relented from the calamity and said to the angel who destroyed the people, it is enough, now relax your hand.

And the angel of the Lord was by the threshing floor of Arunah the Jebusite.

And David spoke to the Lord when he had saw the angel who was striking down the people and said, behold, it is

I who have sinned, and it is I who have done this wrong. But these sheep, what have they done?

Please let your hand be against me and against my father's house. So Gad came to David that day and he said, go up and erect an altar to the

Lord at the threshing floor of Arunah the Jebusite. And David went up according to the word of Gad, just as the

Lord had commanded. Arunah looked down and he saw the king and his servants crossing over toward him.

And Arunah went and he bowed his face to the ground before the Lord. And Arunah said, why has my lord the king come to his servant?

And David said, to buy the threshing floor from you in order to build an altar to the Lord that the plague may be held back from the people.

And Arunah said to David, let my lord the king take and offer up what is good in his sight.

Look, the oxen for the burnt offering and the threshing sledges and the yoke of the oxen for the wood, everything king that Arunah gives to the king.

And Arunah said to the king, may the Lord your God accept you. However, the king said to Arunah, no, but I will surely buy it from you for a price for I will not offer a burnt offering unto the

Lord that cost me nothing. So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen for 50 shekels of silver.

And David built an altar to the Lord of burnt offerings and peace offerings and thus was moved by the prayer for the land and the plague was held back on that day.

So here it is, this comes to the last chapter and we just got a couple of minutes.

I was gonna read through the Chronicles passage. We'll do it next week. This comes to the last chapter.

This is where David does make a census. And we have two things we need to look at and we'll read the

Chronicles passage next week in its entirety. But you have one saying God incited in Chronicles passage, it says

Satan. That has made liberal eggheaded liberal scholars say that God caused

David to sin. Now, if you read it in the

Septuagint and I may bring that next week and read it, it actually brings the two together.

If you look in the other passage, there is no object or noun connected to either one of these.

I just want you to know that. So, let me see,

Mike, what does yours say? First one. Yep. And again, the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel and he moved

David. Anybody see what mine said? Mine said it.

New American Standard says it. Is there a difference between that and that?

Huge. Yeah, huge. It is believed, why the

New American Standard does that is to believe that this is the wrath that incited.

This is God. Okay, based on King James. The Septuagint says

Satan. I mean, the Chronicles passage said Satan.

So Septuagint says, man, I wish I should have brought it. Do you have it by chance? English translation?

This is going from memory. I will bring it for sure next week because I didn't think I was gonna have a couple of minutes to go through this.

It says, and the anger of the Lord burned against Israel and Satan incited

David to take a census. I believe that is the way to understand it. One, because we don't, incited does not have an object.

It doesn't have a noun with it. So that's why this here in the New American Standard uses it because we don't know.

The King James, I think it says in the King James in the Chronicles passage, it says Satan incited.

So now we have a problem. If we take it the way it's worded in the

New American Standard and the King James, it says that God incited

David to do what? To sin. We know that's not the case.

Does God cause anyone to sin? No, he does not.

God's anger was against the nation of Israel for what? We have no idea.

We have no idea. Ultimately, I was going to, yes,

I was gonna use a blanket. Every sin is rooted in one sin and it's idolatry.

Every sin. So we can say, as you said, disobedience, idolatry.

But I will make the argument that I do believe that the reason why God's anger was incited against the people of Israel based on the context of what we have been reading with the

Absalom, okay, the uprising with Absalom, all Israel followed him.

Then immediately before they ever crossed the Jordan, what happened? Sheba comes along and he says, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

David doesn't deserve to be king. I'll take care of that. And what happens? All of Israel follows

Sheba, right? On the heels of that comes this, rather than the song,

David's song, right? So I believe that God was incited with wrath towards the people of Israel because they had rejected his king.

That's why I believe God's anger. And we'll have to be continued.

The first one? That's what we'll pick up. Is that okay? From the Septuagint, what you want? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

What does it say? Well, translate? Okay. Yeah, read it in Greek. I don't think they'll understand it.

An anger of the Lord added the blaze out against Israel and he incited David against them.

He incited, that's what, Britain's Septuagint, do you have that? No, no,

Britain's with me. Okay, that's the one that I use. I'll bring it and that's how they translate. I'll bring it next week.

I can probably pull it up on my phone. But it says, and Satan incited them. So what it's doing, it's bringing the two together, understand that there is no noun or subject connected to the verb.

So that's how you have two different, sorry if that bores y 'all, okay? But that's how you get that, hey, it says

Satan here incited, but then God incited. The New American Standard says it, and I know why it says it, because it wants to remove

God as being culpable of inciting David to sin.

So we'll pick up next week. We'll read the Chronicles passage in its entirety, because there are some differences in there.

One says three years and one says seven, and that's a textual difference. I do want, yes ma 'am?

If God used other nations to bring about judgment, would it be incorrect to use

David to bring it? He could use David. He can, but he didn't incite

David to sin. And I am going to show next week that I know

I'm in the minority position, okay? And that's just par for the course for me, okay? I don't believe he was sinful in taking the census, okay?

I don't think him taking the census was not wrong. I'm gonna prove that from Scripture, there's nothing wrong.

I don't believe, okay, and I know there's a lot, I don't believe that what he did was out of pride, okay?

I know that's probably not what the majority of people have heard. I think what he did was a procedural thing that was wrong that caused a plague on the land.

And I can show you from Scripture, if you don't do it this way, there will be a plague on the land and people die.

And it uses the word plague. The plague goes on the land. You go back to the Exodus, I'm getting all into it already, but when you go to the

Exodus passage, it said, if you don't do it this way, there will be a plague on the land. And that's how

I make the connection. I know I'm in the minority with that. People say, okay, it was David did it out of pride, but the texts don't say that, understand?

Text doesn't say pride, that he did it out of pride. Now we can try to draw some conclusions based on what Joab says, but one, we really don't know what the anger was.

Like I said, I'm drawing the conclusion based on the context of it. We don't know why God was angry with Israel. Neither do we know what actual

David's sin was by taking the census. So we have to draw conclusions based on what the text says.

There were other censuses, censuses, whatever, you know what I mean, taken that were not wrong.

I mean, there was two taken in numbers. Was there a plague on the land? No, because there were instructions on how to do it.

Did Saul make a census? Yeah. Didn't David take a census as well?

Before, before he went to fight. We gotta go. But didn't Jesus say, hey, before you go and you, he made the parable, before you go fight, you better take count of your men so you know you've got enough.

So anyway, Mike, pray for us so we can go. Thank you for your word. We thank you for giving us desire to know you better through it.

And we pray, Lord, that you would be with us as we read through it again this week, and as you bring us back,

Lord willing, next week, that you would bless our time together again. We pray to be with Keith as he brings forth your word.

We pray to bring repentance and faith and salvation, that you would be glorified in all that's said and done.