But Levi and Benjamin counted he not among them: for the king’s word was abominable to Joab.
Joab did not fully carry out the command to number Israel, but left Levi and Benjamin out of the count because the king's word was abhorrent to him, so the census was incomplete. He recognized that the census sprang from wrong motives, and the numbering was an act of sin against God with which God was displeased. Although the king's order prevailed, David became convicted of his sin before the numbering was finished, leaving the work unfinished.
The verse belongs to the account of the threshing floor of Ornan, where sacrifice turned aside the destroying angel's sword, fittingly symbolizing the Savior's sacrifice and mediation for guilty people. The numbering exemplifies the selfishness of every age, the sin of selfish men who try to number Israel and count the people in order to monopolize eternal life as a local and national benefit and exclude the rest of God's family in the world. That selfish counting seeks to confine God's gift of mercy and love, which is as unconfined as the air breathed and the water drunk and is free to all the world from the Maker of all mankind, with no nationality, tribe, or clan with God. Against it stands Christ breaking down every wall of partition and proclaiming eternal life free to all who receive Him as a personal Saviour.
To number Israel is not to work after God's order. Taking that course brings on the time of trouble before the time. It builds a wall of separation between God's workers and the world by advancing human ideas and notions. Instead of numbering Israel while large numbers in nearby cities have not heard the message of warning, God's order is to do abundant earnest work in unworked cities. That work is to be done with pen and voice enlightening souls in simple, stirring presentations of faith and love.
Joab did not fully carry out the command to number Israel, but left Levi and Benjamin out of the count because the king's word was abhorrent to him, so the census was incomplete. He recognized that the census sprang from wrong motives, and the numbering was an act of sin against God with which God was displeased. Although the king's order prevailed, David became convicted of his sin before the numbering was finished, leaving the work unfinished.
The verse belongs to the account of the threshing floor of Ornan, where sacrifice turned aside the destroying angel's sword, fittingly symbolizing the Savior's sacrifice and mediation for guilty people. The numbering exemplifies the selfishness of every age, the sin of selfish men who try to number Israel and count the people in order to monopolize eternal life as a local and national benefit and exclude the rest of God's family in the world. That selfish counting seeks to confine God's gift of mercy and love, which is as unconfined as the air breathed and the water drunk and is free to all the world from the Maker of all mankind, with no nationality, tribe, or clan with God. Against it stands Christ breaking down every wall of partition and proclaiming eternal life free to all who receive Him as a personal Saviour.
To number Israel is not to work after God's order. Taking that course brings on the time of trouble before the time. It builds a wall of separation between God's workers and the world by advancing human ideas and notions. Instead of numbering Israel while large numbers in nearby cities have not heard the message of warning, God's order is to do abundant earnest work in unworked cities. That work is to be done with pen and voice enlightening souls in simple, stirring presentations of faith and love.