NOTES for Sa2 24:17

It had probably often happened to everyone to hear that there is all the same justice in the world, that evil committed by man returns to him and other such maxims, which maybe help man to accept the injustice that exists in the world.

Moreover, it happens again more often to hear that there is no justice in the world, that the misfortunes often fall on the heads of those who don’t deserve them at all, and those who by their actions really deserve them, on the contrary prosper. Who is thus right? Indeed, one side as another, referring on certain concrete cases, could bring quite a lot of proofs for its own reason. But what, if are right those who find that there is a justice in the world, and those who find that there is not? Or, more exactly what if none of them is right? Maybe, such notions as justice and reward for sin or righteousness, for what is happening in our world are not applicable.

God's will is violated by one man, but the disaster fall on all the people. Of course, this person is the ruler of the people, their leader, but all the same … Indeed, it turns out then that the life of man in God's eyes is nothing, that the collective punishment for the fault of one man is norm for Him, in brief it thus turns out that God is already similar not to God at all, but to somebody completely different.

But indeed, after the fall, the world was in particular under the power of this "different! If so, then everything is set up. But then in the non-transformed world it doesn’t come to seek either for justice, or for adequate reward for sin or for righteousness. We can find all this only in the Kingdom. Or receive, if God intervenes directly in the situation. If of course, is found the one who will ask Him for that.

The account of the census begins by mentioning the Lord’s anger against the Israelites. The narrator does not specify what provoked His anger on this occasion, but we are nevertheless entitled to view the census initiated by David in connection with the people’s general sinful condition, for which an account had to be given. Through the prophet Gad, the Lord offers David the choice of punishment, and David chooses the shortest one.

But even the brief epidemic proved excessively devastating. When David sees the scale of the calamity, he not only implores the Angel to stop the destruction, but also asks that he himself be punished if only the people may be spared. Significantly, when David addresses the Lord, he compares the people to sheep and thereby likens himself to a shepherd. Indeed, in this episode David acts like that very good shepherd who is ready to suffer for his sheep, of whom the Son of David will speak many years later.