We will understand today's story more easily if we realize that God never wanted a king in Israel. It was Israel itself which wanted a king, so as to be like other nations. God, as it were, reluctantly went along with Israel's desire, trying to save this stubborn and hardheaded people from its own foolishness. In the end, scarcely one of the kings turned out to be entirely admirable.

David's ordinary small administrative decision broke Israel's relationship with God. Kingship became more important than humble trust. His census showed that he presumed that his strength lay in numbers, that kingship in Israel was a political and military affair and not a humble service of the people.

Like the people of Israel and King David, we often set our own desires above divine providence, forcing God to follow our ways. At first, God may reluctantly go along with us but in the end be forced, as with Israel and David, by our hardness of heart to steer us dramatically and painfully away from our own perversity.