Read: 2 Samuel 23:24-24:25; Acts 3:1-26; Psalm 123:1-4; Proverbs 16:21-23
If we were to look up the meaning of the names of God’s mighty men we would get a picture of what his army looks like.
1. God has made; God-fathered
2. God is gracious; loving; from the house of bread.
3. desolation, trembling
4. God of rejection, trembling
5. striped as for battle; my escape
6. wakefulness; perverse; a trumpet blast
7. father of help; answers
8. built up; haste
9. shady; rest
10. hasty; dropping
11. fatness; in affliction; dropping
12. with me; contentious; from the mountain of the son of the right hand
13. God has built; nakedness
14. my echoes; from the brooks of quaking
15. father of strength of four
16. strong one of death; in the pitied
17. God will hide; he guarded the hearts; of those asleep - Jehovah-given
18. a hearkener; a mountaineer
19. brother of the mother; hostile; a mountaineer
20. God of deliverance; I will take revenge in my arms; pressure
21. God of the people; of the brother of folly; striped as a captive
22. enclosure; fruitful field
23. yawning; the Arab people
24. avenger; given of a station
25. built; of the descendants of troop or a fortune
26. to split; the faithful
27. snorer; the wells - the armor-bearer of God the Father; wounded
28. wakefulness; abundance
29. scrabby; abundance
30. flame of God; terror
God moved David to number the people because He was angry with Israel. To number means to call to accountability. When they were numbered, they were suppose to give a ransom for themselves of a half shekel to the temple (Exodus 30:13) but David didn’t require this of them causing many of them to die in the plague. The plague stopped on the threshing floor of Araunah which means “cause to shout for joy and make to shine.”
David bought this piece of land for the cost of one hundred people if every person was to pay a half of a shekel to be counted. Here would be where he would build the temple.
I looked up the value of a half shekel today and it is worth 14 cents in US money. Not much now but I think back then it was worth much more.
In Acts, Peter and John were at the very place that David had bought for 50 shekels and had no money. With their words of faith they raised a lame beggar to walk which was worth so much more than money. He went leaping and praising into the Temple. That was his first time to be able to go into the Temple in his life.
When a crowd formed to see this great miracle, Peter saw it as a great opportunity to preach the gospel. He explained that all the prophets from Samuel to John the Baptist had prophesied a greater Prophet would come. He had come in the person of Jesus Christ and now they could all have the salvation that he came to give them if they would repent and turn from their sins.
Lord, may we be one of your mighty men who take our place in your army. May we speak to the lame and see them rise and walk in newness of life.
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