GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
1 CHRONICLES 21:19
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19 So David went up, at the word that Gad had spoken in the name of the LORD.
We are returning now to 1 Chronicles. The context here is that David had been incited by the devil to count all of the men in his vast army, which was an unnecessary act of pride (David was not counting his men to see if he had an army strong enough to counter some move by an enemy). On account of this sin, the Lord prepared three punishments to restore David’s humility and devotion to God: either three years of famine, three months of being destroyed by his enemies, or three days of the sword of God in a plague on Israel. David chose to fall into the hands of the Lord rather than into the hands of his enemies, and on the third day of the destroying plague, David cried out to the Lord to put an end to it all. At that time the angel of God was on the hill above the city of Jerusalem. The plague ended, and the angel of the Lord told David’s seer, Gad, to deliver a message to the king: Go up and build an altar to the Lord where he had seen the angel.
At this time, the dimensions of Jerusalem show a much, much smaller city than the one known either in Jesus’ time, or today. The geography of this region resembles three finger pointing down from above, or the legs of a letter m. In David’s time the left (west) ridge was probably uninhabited except for a few tents. The right (east) ridge is the Mount of Olives, and we know that an ancient olive grove was already there an an olive-press, since it is mentioned in 2 Samuel 15:30. The central finger was wider on top and narrow to the south, lower down. The old City of David occupied that narrow southern crest, about 500 yards by 300 yards or so in a roughly rectangular shape, running north to south. The wider upper slope was sparsely inhabited, and there was not yet any surrounding wall for that part. It was probably there that Abraham had offered Isaac (Genesis 22:2,9). And it was there that David now ascended, to go build an altar to the Lord. The bare summit was called Mount Moriah (2 Chronicles 3:1), and one of the old Canaanites, a Jebusite, still lived there.
God did not command David to build anything more than an altar. It could have been a pile of stones in the open air, and it would have been a humble, faithful and obedient response to God’s words. God’s directions for building an altar were always to take a simple approach. He said to Moses, “If you make an altar of stones for me, do not build it with dressed stones, for you will defile it if you use a tool on it. And do not go up to my altar on steps, so that your nakedness will not accidentally be exposed on it” (Exodus 20:25-26). So, a simple altar of piled stones was all God wanted, with a ramp of stone or earth for the priest to climb. “The Lord forbade an altar to be built for him out of cut stones, that is, he forbade a way of worshiping him that was polished and adorned by our effort” (Luther). The only thing that the Lord asked of David that was any different was that he build the altar at this specific place, on the peak of the mountain above the City of David, where the angel stopped the destroying plague. David had no foresight into the distant future. He did have an idea hidden in his breast that he would build more than an altar in the end; that he would build a beautiful temple to the Lord. He even had plans in mind, a budget, and he was beginning to collect raw materials (1 Chronicles 22:14).
David “went up.” What does that mean? It means that he walked up the hill, to the summit, where the Lord commanded him to go through his prophet Gad. But it also means that David obeyed God’s command without questioning it, and without adding anything to it. This is what the Lord said, and this is what David did. Therefore David’s action was in line with the first table of the law, obedience to God. Specifically we must say that David was obeying the Third Commandment, not despising the word of God, and putting the word of God into action without hesitation. On the surface, one might try only to apply the Third Commandment to the Sabbath day, thinking, “If I keep the Sabbath, and if I am careful not to do any work on the Sabbath day, I am holy and righteous because I have obeyed the letter of the law.” But why did God give man a Sabbath day? It was only in a small way a day of rest for the body, since God also gave all the hours of night so that the body can rest. In fact, most people get far more rest by sleeping than by taking a day off from working once a week. No, the Sabbath is a day for God’s people to take time to listen and ponder the word of God, especially those who do not find themselves immersed in the word of God on the other days of the week. For what pastor actually has a Sabbath rest? And in the days of Moses, what priest ever kept a Sabbath? Didn’t Aaron and his sons work and sweat harder than ever on a Sabbath day? The servants of the Lord are the tools of God that grant the spiritual rest to God’s people by means of their labor and work on the Sabbath day. For what does “keeping it holy” mean with regard to any holy day apart from devoting it to holy words, holy works, and a holy life. The Sabbath day is already holy (since it was created by God as a holy things), but “it becomes holy or unholy on your account, according to whether you spend the day in doing holy or unholy things” (Luther, Large Catechism).
Pray that the Lord will guide your faithful path, saying, “I obey your words, for I love them very much!”
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
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Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, New Ulm, Minnesota
God’s Word for You – 1 Chronicles 21:19 The Obedience of David