1 Chronicles 28

“Then King David rose to his feet and said, ‘Listen to me, my brothers and my people.  It was in my heart to build a house as a resting place for the ark of the Lord’s covenant and as a footstool for our God.  I had made preparations to build, but God said to me, “You are not to build a house for My name because you are a man of war and have shed blood.”’” 1 Chronicles 28:2-3 (HCSB)

“Why can’t you build the Temple, David?”  Surely, that question was raised by citizens of his kingdom.  King David had to be forthright.  The Lord had told him directly that he would not build the temple in Jerusalem.  For all of the bewildered onlookers, David was forced to come clean, “I have shed blood in war.”  But was the military conquest of numerous Philistines and various Canaanites really the disqualifier?  The Lord did not have a problem receiving the spoils of Israel’s military victories as supplies for the building of the temple.  (1 Chronicles 26:27; 2 Samuel 8:11; 2 Chronicles 15:11)  Furthermore, every man of military age (20 years old and above) was ordered to pay a “ransom” for himself as atonement for lives he may take during war.

“Now the Lord spoke to Moses in the Wilderness of Sinai, in the tabernacle of meeting, on the first day of the second month, in the second year after they had come out of the land of Egypt, saying: ‘Take a census of all the congregation of the children of Israel, by their families, by their fathers’ houses, according to the number of names, every male individually, from twenty years old and above—all who are able to go to war in Israel.  You and Aaron shall number them by their armies.’” Numbers 1:1-3 (NKJV)

“This is what everyone among those who are numbered shall give: half a shekel according to the shekel of the sanctuary (a shekel is twenty gerahs).  The half-shekel shall be an offering to the Lord. Everyone included among those who are numbered, from twenty years old and above, shall give an offering to the Lord. The rich shall not give more, and the poor shall not give less than half a shekel when you give an offering to the Lord to make atonement for yourselves. And you shall take the atonement money of the children of Israel, and appoint it for the service of the tabernacle of meeting, that it may be a memorial for the children of Israel before the Lord, to make atonement for yourselves.”  Exodus 30:13-16 (NKJV)

We are safe to assume the “too much blood” shed during war was related to the blood of only ONE man: Uriah the Hittite.  Uriah’s was the only unjust killing of David’s reign: “Why then have you despised the command of the Lord by doing what I consider evil?  You struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and took his wife as your own wife—you murdered him with the Ammonite’s sword.” (2 Samuel 12:9)  Forever in Scripture, the Lord reminds us that Bathsheba was never legitimately David’s wife.  “Then David fathered Solomon by Uriah’s wife….” (Matthew 1:6b)  What sin must you deny today before it disqualifies you from ministry tomorrow?