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Context No. 1967 of 4322 · 1 Chronicles

Context · Reflection

1 Chronicles 21:13-17: in context

13David said to Gad, “I am in distress. Let me fall, I pray, into the LORD’s hand, for his mercies are very great. Don’t let me fall into man’s hand.” 14So the LORD sent a pestilence on Israel, and seventy thousand men of Israel fell. 15God sent an angel to Jerusalem to destroy it. As he was about to destroy, the LORD saw, and he relented of the disaster, and said to the destroying angel, “It is enough. Now withdraw your hand.” the LORD’s angel was standing by the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite. 16David lifted up his eyes, and saw the LORD’s angel standing between earth and the sky, having a drawn sword in his hand stretched out over Jerusalem. Then David and the elders, clothed in sackcloth, fell on their faces. 17David said to God, “Isn’t it I who commanded the people to be counted? It is even I who have sinned and done very wickedly; but these sheep, what have they done? Please let your hand, O LORD my God, be against me and against my father’s house; but not against your people, that they should be plagued.”

After David sins by numbering the people, a plague falls on Israel, and seventy thousand die. As the angel of the LORD stretches out his hand over Jerusalem to destroy it, God relents and stops the angel. And David, seeing the angel and the suffering his sin has brought on the people, cries out: was it not I who commanded the people to be counted? It is I who have sinned and done wickedly; but these sheep, what have they done? Let your hand be against me and my father's house, but not against your people.

David's cry reveals the heart of a true shepherd and a responsible leader. Seeing the people suffer for his sin, he does not make excuses or shift the blame; he takes full responsibility, it is I who have sinned, and then pleads that the punishment fall on him rather than on them: these sheep, what have they done? Let your hand be against me, not against your people. He owns his fault completely, and seeks to bear the cost himself, to shield the flock from suffering for his sin. There are two things here worth learning. The first is the taking of responsibility. David does not blame others, minimize his fault, or shift the guilt; he says plainly, it is I who have sinned and done wickedly. This is the mark of true responsibility, especially in a leader: to own our fault fully rather than deflect it, to say it is I, without excuse. And the second is the willingness to bear the cost oneself, to shield others. David, seeing that his people were suffering for his sin, longed to take their place, to have the punishment fall on him rather than on them. Let your hand be against me, he prayed, but not against these sheep. This is the heart of a shepherd who would suffer for his flock rather than let them suffer for him, of a leader who takes the blame and would bear the cost rather than pass it to those under him. It is a faint echo of a greater shepherd, Christ, who, though without sin, took upon himself the punishment his sheep deserved, saying, as it were, let your hand be against me, not against them. David's cry points toward the cross, where the true Shepherd bore the cost for the flock. And it calls us, in our own places of responsibility, to the same spirit: to own our faults fully rather than shift the blame, and to be willing to bear the cost of our failures ourselves rather than let others suffer for them. The one who says it is I who have sinned, and let the cost fall on me, not on them, has the heart of a shepherd, and reflects, however faintly, the Shepherd who bore our cost at the cross.

When others suffer because of my fault or failure, do I make excuses and shift the blame, or can I take responsibility as David did, saying plainly it is I who have sinned, and seek to bear the cost myself rather than let others suffer for it, reflecting the heart of the Shepherd who took upon himself the cost his flock deserved?

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