Do you think of God as having emotions? If God is perfect, wouldn’t it follow that he doesn’t have emotions like humans? Can God feel feelings? Or is he more like a robot? Theologians and bible scholars have debated these questions for centuries. The answers are not easy to come by. Take a look at the passage today, 2 Samuel 24, verses 14–17, and we’ll read about God seemingly expressing emotion.
As we learned in the previous post, David has just sinned greatly, and as a result God requires him to pick one of three awful punishments. (1) Three years of famine in the land, (2) Three months of losing to enemies, or (3) Three days of plague. Considering whether or not God feels emotions, these drastic punishments make God seem extremely cold and unfeeling. How should we understand God in light of these devastating punishments?
Let’s keep reading. Which punishment does David choose? In 2 Samuel 24, verses 14–15, David reasons that he cannot allow the people to fall into the hands of enemies. He believes that options (1) and (2), famine and military loss, will do just that. So David chooses punishment (3), three days of plague.
And 70,000 people die.
Is that what you expected? 70,000 dead? That’s astronomical. And in only three days. I wonder if the people knew that the plague was David’s fault. I wonder if any of them wanted to rebel against him because he disobediently commanded the census that started this horrific tragedy. 70,000 dead in three days because of David’s selfishness and lack of trust in God.
These are dark, dark days in the life of the nation. David is at least partially responsible because he committed a huge sin (the census), and it affected so many people. Imagine all the families in mourning across the land. 70,000 funerals.
Then we learn that the plague is headed for Jerusalem. In 2 Samuel 24, verse 16, though, God stops the plague before it devastates Jerusalem.
Who lives in Jerusalem? David. David’s palace was in Jerusalem. That means neither David nor his family are affected by the plague. Why? Verse 16 says “God relented.” It’s a word that carries the idea of being sorry, of regretting. Through this phrase, we see that God is a God who feels. God expresses emotion. He’s not callous or cold or unfeeling toward human suffering.
God calls for the plague to cease, and we learn that one of God’s angels is administering the plague. The angel stops at a place called the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite. A threshing floor is a place where a wheat farmer would bring his wheat harvest to be threshed. Threshing wheat is when you shake or beat the stalks of wheat to separate the good wheat kernels from the unusable shells, called chaff. Araunah was the man who owned this wheat processing facility inside the city limits.
We learn next that David goes to Araunah’s wheat processing plant in the city. Here’s how David responds in verse 17,
“When David saw the angel who was striking down the people, he said to the Lord, ‘I have sinned; I, the shepherd, have done wrong. These are but sheep. What have they done? Let your hand fall on me and my family.’”
I agree, David. How unfair is it that 70,000 innocent people died for David’s sinful census? Remember verse 1, “The anger of the Lord burned against Israel.” So there are multiple layers to why this tragedy happened, and it is possible that the death of 70,000 people is not solely David’s fault. It is possible that the Lord’s anger burned against Israel because of something the people did, something rebellious, like throwing their lot in with David’s traitorous son Absalom, rather than remaining faithful to David. And yet, David is also clearly at fault here.
Let me say what I mentioned previously. There are unsatisfying parts of this story. Questions without answers. Things that seem unfair. Mysteries. The topic of God and emotion is a mystery, but in this story we get a sense that God feels things. He is not ruled by cold, calculating laws. He relents. I will not admit to fully understanding how emotion works in the life of God. But I am glad that I cannot fully understand God. I want God to be a God who is mysterious to some degree. Though I believe God has significantly revealed himself, including his emotion, so that we can have a deeply meaningful relationship with him, I do not believe that humans can know and understand God fully. I am glad that he is above us.
Therefore, some questions remain, and those questions will always remain. But there are some questions that get answers, and some important lessons we can learn from this story.
First, how will this awful plague get resolved? We find out in the next post.
Photo by David Lezcano on Unsplash
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