Problem: David only sinned once, or more than that
Verses: 2 Samuel 24:10, 1 Kings 15:5; Status: Weak

According to 1 Kings 15:5, David was a righteous man, who did (almost) everything God told him:

David did what was right in the eyes of the LORD and did not turn aside from anything that he commanded him all the days of his life, except in the matter of Uriah the Hittite. (ESV)

On the other hand, 2 Samuel 24:10 records a major sin of David, for which he is later punished harshly:

But David's heart struck him after he had numbered the people. And David said to the LORD, "I have sinned greatly in what I have done. But now, O LORD, please take away the iniquity of your servant, for I have done very foolishly." (ESV)

I don't really see the problem. The verse in Kings doesn't exactly say David never sinned; it just says he did everything God told him to, with one exception. I suppose, in a sense, God tells us all not to sin, but this is a rather weak sense. To really establish a contradiction, we'd need a verse where God explicitly says "do X" and David doesn't (perhaps there is such a verse, but I haven't looked).

errancy.org - index

See also