Bible Synapse
Did David do right in all things except the matter of Uriah, when he also sinned in the census?
Hard question · Israel’s history: Joshua to Esther · raised by 3 of the lists sceptics circulate
See the passages joined in the interactive mapThe passages
David did right and “turned not aside from any thing that he commanded him all the days of his life, save only in the matter of Uriah the Hittite”.
Because David did that which was right in the eyes of the Lord, and turned not aside from any thing that he commanded him all the days of his life, save only in the matter of Uriah the Hittite.
After the census David confesses, “I have sinned greatly in that I have done”.
And David’s heart smote him after that he had numbered the people. And David said unto the Lord, I have sinned greatly in that I have done: and now, I beseech thee, O Lord, take away the iniquity of thy servant; for I have done very foolishly.
In his song of deliverance David says the Lord rewarded him “according to my righteousness”.
The Lord rewarded me according to my righteousness: according to the cleanness of my hands hath he recompensed me. For I have kept the ways of the Lord, and have not wickedly departed from my God. For all his judgments were before me: and as for his statutes, I did not depart from them. I was also upright before him, and have kept myself from mine iniquity. Therefore the Lord hath recompensed me according to my righteousness; according to my cleanness in his eye sight.
God contrasts Jeroboam with David, who “followed me with all his heart”.
And rent the kingdom away from the house of David, and gave it thee: and yet thou hast not been as my servant David, who kept my commandments, and who followed me with all his heart, to do that only which was right in mine eyes;
The objection
1 Kings 15:5 says David never turned aside from God’s commands except in the matter of Uriah. Yet in 2 Samuel 24 David confesses that he sinned greatly in taking the census, and elsewhere he speaks of his own righteousness and clean hands. Did David sin once, often, or not at all?
The answer
1 Kings 15:5 is not a claim that David sinned only once. It is a verdict on the course of his life, set against his great-grandson Abijam, whose heart “was not perfect with the Lord his God, as the heart of David his father” (15:3). ‘Turning aside’ is covenant language for leaving the Lord’s way (Deuteronomy 5:32): David never turned to other gods, and when he sinned he repented. The affair of Bathsheba and Uriah is singled out because it was a sustained, deliberate breach, adultery followed by deceit and murder by proxy, hidden until Nathan exposed it (2 Samuel 12:9); the census was a real sin, but David’s conscience struck him at once and he confessed it (2 Samuel 24:10). As Gill puts it, David did not turn aside ‘deliberately, studiously, and with design’ except in this matter.
The other passages make the same kind of claim. In 2 Samuel 22, David’s song of thanks for deliverance from Saul and his enemies, his righteousness is his integrity in that long conflict, not sinlessness; and 1 Kings 14:8 sets his wholehearted loyalty against Jeroboam’s idols. The same books record David’s failures openly, so these summaries were never meant to deny them.
Other answers Christians give
The gospel way of keeping the law
Matthew Henry’s Concise Commentary explains such praise as the ‘gospel manner of fulfilling the law’: sincere, whole-hearted obedience, accepted by God in Christ, rather than a flawless record.
From the classic commentators
and turned not aside from anything that he commanded him all the days of his life; especially in matters of religion, nor even in his moral walk and conversation, deliberately, studiously, and with designJohn Gill, Exposition of the Bible: 1 Kings 15 (1746–1763)
The gospel manner of fulfilling the law is, to believe in Christ who fulfilled the law for us, and to endeavour in the whole man to obey God in all his precepts. And this is accepted of God, as to all those that are in Christ. Thus David and others are said to fulfil the law.Matthew Henry, Concise Commentary on 1 Kings 15