David said to God, Isn't it I who commanded the people to be numbered? It is even I who have sinned and done very wickedly; but these sheep, what have they done? Please let your hand, O Yahweh my God, be against me, and against my father's house; but not against your people, that they should be plagued.
"Perhaps the one thing that impresses more than David’s sins in his life are his repentances (cf. 2 Samuel 12:13 ff., and, associated in its heading with the same incident, Psalms 51). We do well to let his willingness to come fully to terms with his deficiencies inform our own responses to our moral failures before God." [Note: McConville, p. 71.] 