Two Notes on 1 Samuel 24

1 Samuel 24
          Let me note a problem and a lesson in this chapter.  The problem comes first, because it is in verse 1, namely, what does it mean that the Lord incited David to take a census?  We notice that the Lord's anger burned against Israel, but there is absolutely no indication of the reason.  We could hypothesize:  the Lord's anger has burned over Israel's chronic idolatry, over her complaining about everything, over her refusal to do things the way He said.  Whatever it is, I think that recognizing some unnamed sin in Israel's corporate, national life is the best way to understand God's 'inciting' of David.  The Scriptures assert over and over again that the Lord raises up and brings down kings for His own purposes, that the nations of the earth are His instruments.  What we have here, then, is the Lord doing in Israel what He claims often to do in and through the other nations.  The difference here is that He is 'inciting' His own anointed so that He can discipline His own chosen nation.
          Now, one could suppose that the Lord could have just skipped the middle man and left David out of it.  He did that repeatedly during the Exodus and wilderness periods.  But here the Lord 'hides His hand,' so to speak; He hides His agency and causation.  I suppose the unsettling question is how we can know if we ought to blame circumstances on the Lord or on human evil.  That's certainly a hard question, but I wonder if  we should pay a little more attention to the verb 'incite.'  Incite seems to suggest that the idea was already there in David and the Lord simply nudged him in a direction he was already leading.  Certainly David doesn't think that it's the Lord's fault!  He takes the blame himself.  Here, as so often, we don't have to make a choice between the Lord's agency and human agency; here, as so often, the Lord seems to be merely co-opting human evil for His own purposes.
          So much for the problem, now the lesson.  I owe this one to our campaign consultant, who pointed it out to me in its parallel spot in 1 Chronicles 21:24.  Araunah offers to give David his threshing floor as a site for sacrifice, his oxen for the sacrifice, and his farming equipment for the wood.  But David insists on paying for it and says, "No, I insist on paying you for it. I will not sacrifice to the LORD my God burnt offerings that cost me nothing."
          That's a convicting thought.  Let me tell you something:  as my wife and I have thought and prayed about our commitment to Divine Savior's fall campaign, our conversation has often centered around what we can afford.  That is, our conversation has centered around what gift we can make that won't cost as all that much.  But after our initial discussions, my wife and I have 'talked ourselves into more.'  We've grappled with  whether our gift is costly or not.  From a strictly human point of view, one of the disadvantages of being in on the campaign conversation from the very beginning is that we've had a lot of time to keep re-considering.  And frankly, I don't know that we're done yet.  Commitments won't be made until October, and I have a feeling this statement of David's will weigh on us for a while yet.
          I would hope that all sorts of people would wonder about David's statement, "I won't give a gift that cost me nothing," whether it is in terms of our regular giving to our congregations or extra campaign gifts.  To tell the truth, the more I think about it, the more I'd hope that that attitude would begin to shape several areas of our lives--whether the time we spend with our families (I know that I've told my children and my mother, "I don't have time;" but maybe I need to give gifts that cost me something) or the ways we think about gifts in general (if you're looking for a cheap way out of a gift, maybe you need to re-think the purpose of a gift!).
          One final thing needs to be pointed out:  the threshing floor of Araunah will become the site of Solomon's temple.  We'll unpack that a little when we re-read the story at the end of Chronicles.