Joab said, Yahweh make his people a hundred times as many as they are: but, my lord the king, aren't they all my lord's servants? why does my lord require this thing? why will he be a cause of guilt to Israel?
"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.] 