NOTES for Sa2 24:14

King David is truly great! How often we catch ourselves thinking that we would have acted quite differently, guided by our ideas of what is proper or improper, useful or useless, realistic or unrealistic, fair or unfair. But he sweeps all these considerations aside, taking into account only his relationship with God. And no one has the right to stand between him and the Lord, because he is the king of God's people. No human being may raise a hand against the anointed one, while David gives God the full authority over his life. David's highest dignity is bound inseparably to his full responsibility before the Lord.

Do we understand that this also has to do with us? For it is to us that it is said: “You are a royal priesthood” (1 Pet. 2:9). And we are always trying to put someone between ourselves and God: now a tsar or some other superior, now a priest or some other minister, anything so that we do not have to bear responsibility for our life. But already David, in Old Testament times, understood that God's mercy is great, while to us this has been revealed in all its fullness by the Son of God. Why, then, are we still afraid and afraid?