14 And David said to Gad, This is a hard decision for me to make: let us come into the hands of the Lord, for great are his mercies: let me not come into the hands of men.
<To the chief music-maker. A Psalm. Of David. When Nathan the prophet came to him, after he had gone in to Bath-sheba.> Have pity on me, O God, in your mercy; out of a full heart, take away my sin.
Great is the number of your mercies, O Lord; give me life in keeping with your decisions.
I am in a hard position between the two, having a desire to go away and be with Christ, which is very much better:
Now is my soul troubled; and what am I to say? Father, keep me from this hour. No: for this purpose have I come to this hour.
Who is a God like you, offering forgiveness for evil-doing and overlooking the sins of the rest of his heritage? he does not keep his wrath for ever, because his delight is in mercy.
And he made prayer to the Lord and said, O Lord, is this not what I said when I was still in my country? This is why I took care to go in flight to Tarshish: for I was certain that you were a loving God, full of pity, slow to be angry and great in mercy, and ready to be turned from your purpose of evil.
I was angry with my people, I put shame on my heritage, and gave them into your hands: you had no mercy on them; you put a cruel yoke on those who were old;
An upright man has thought for the life of his beast, but the hearts of evil-doers are cruel.
And the Lord went past before his eyes, saying, The Lord, the Lord, a God full of pity and grace, slow to wrath and great in mercy and faith; Having mercy on thousands, overlooking evil and wrongdoing and sin; he will not let wrongdoers go free, but will send punishment on children for the sins of their fathers, and on their children's children to the third and fourth generation.
But there is forgiveness with you, so that you may be feared.
And he gave them into the hands of the nations; and they were ruled by their haters. By them they were crushed, and made low under their hands.
The Lord is kind and full of pity, not quickly made angry, but ever ready to have mercy. His feeling will no longer be bitter; he will not keep his wrath for ever. He has not given us the punishment for our sins, or the reward of our wrongdoing. For as the heaven is high over the earth, so great is his mercy to his worshippers. As far as the east is from the west, so far has he put our sins from us. As a father has pity on his children, so the Lord has pity on his worshippers. For he has knowledge of our feeble frame; he sees that we are only dust.
But you, O Lord, are a God full of pity and forgiveness, slow to get angry, great in mercy and wisdom.
You are good, O Lord, and full of forgiveness; your mercy is great to all who make their cry to you.
So the Lord his God gave him up into the hands of the king of Aram; and they overcame him, and took away a great number of his people as prisoners to Damascus. Then he was given into the hands of the king of Israel, who sent great destruction on him. For Pekah, the son of Remaliah, in one day put to death a hundred and twenty thousand men of Judah, all of them good fighting-men; because they had given up the Lord, the God of their fathers. And Zichri, a great fighting-man of Ephraim, put to death Maaseiah, the king's son, and Azrikam, the controller of his house, and Elkanah, who was second in authority to the king. And the children of Israel took away as prisoners from their brothers, two hundred thousand, women and sons and daughters, and a great store of their goods, and took them to Samaria. But a prophet of the Lord was there, named Oded; and he went out in front of the army which was coming into Samaria and said to them, Truly, because the Lord, the God of your fathers, was angry with Judah, he gave them up into your hands, and you have put them to death in an outburst of wrath stretching up to heaven.
And David said to Gad, This is a hard decision for me to make: let me come into the hands of the Lord, for great are his mercies: let me not come into the hands of men.
So the wrath of the Lord was burning against Israel, and he gave them up into the power of Hazael, king of Aram, and into the power of Ben-hadad, the son of Hazael, again and again. Then Jehoahaz made prayer to the Lord, and the Lord gave ear to him, for he saw how cruelly Israel was crushed by the king of Aram. (And the Lord gave Israel a saviour, so that they became free from the hands of the Aramaeans; and the children of Israel were living in their tents as in the past. But still they did not give up the sin of Jeroboam, which he made Israel do, but went on with it; and there was an image of Asherah in Samaria.) For out of all his army, Jehoahaz had only fifty horsemen and ten carriages and ten thousand footmen; the king of Aram had given them up to destruction, crushing them like dust.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on 2 Samuel 24
Commentary on 2 Samuel 24 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 24
The last words of David, which we read in the chapter before, were admirably good, but in this chapter we read of some of his last works, which were none of the best; yet he repented, and did his first works again, and so he finished well. We have here,
2Sa 24:1-9
Here we have,
2Sa 24:10-17
We have here David repenting of the sin and yet punished for it, God repenting of the judgment and David thereby made more penitent.
2Sa 24:18-25
Here is,