The scheme for May – June can be found here

2 Sa 23-24; Rev 9-10; Psalm 50

The concluding chapters of the story of David are in some regards quite perplexing. We see the LORD inciting David to count Israel – there is an echo here of his unexplained anger against Moses in Exodus 4. Of course we say it is unexplained, but Moses has doubted God, and David is a man of much blood.

So the text tells us in effect, do not take the name of the LORD your god in vain. Faith is not a game

And then the whole question of numbering? Of course in our age this seems ever so strange? What can be wrong with seeking to know the size of your forces, or the extent of your provisions??? But once more we are undone. Again we turn our back on the Living God, the one who Owns Everything. Why does what we have matter in the least?

Except of course for us, in truth it means all but everything – and it is in that ‘all but’ that our hope lies, the sign that we have not entirely turned away from God