Sunday Sermonette: You didn ' t really expect it to make any sense, did you?

With Chapter 24 we come to the end of the Book of Samuel. The division seems arbitrary -- David is still around for the first couple of chapters of Kings. I suspect it has to do with the conventional length of a scroll rather than any literary consideration. In any event, this chapter is completely incoherent.God is angry at Israel for no apparent reason, so he orders David to take a census, which is somehow supposed to be a punishment? Note that Moses took several censuses, in fact that is the reason for the title of the Book of Numbers, in which there are three. Saul also took a census. This was never any problem. Anyway, under protest, Joab takes the census, which actually only counts military age men, and he finds 1.3 million of them, which is absurd. Even though David was following God ' s orders by taking the census, he decides for some reason that it was sinful, and God agrees, even though it was God ' s idea in the first place. So God gives David the option of three years of famine, three months of military defeat, or three days of pestilence. David chooses the epidemic, so God sends an angel of death, who is evidently visible to David. God decides he ' ll stop killing the people if David buys a specific threshing floor and builds an altar on it. The owner tries to donate it but David insists on paying him. That ends the plague.While this is batshit insane, I should note that the Book of Chronicles recapitulates some of this history, but with differences, the mos...
Source: Stayin' Alive - Category: American Health Source Type: blogs