אמר רב רבי דאתי מדוד מהפך ודריש בזכותיה דדוד מדוע בזית את דבר ה' לעשות הרע רבי אומר משונה רעה זו מכל רעות שבתורה שכל רעות שבתורה כתיב בהו ויעש וכאן כתיב לעשות שביקש לעשות ולא עשה
This is a controversy of Tannaim: 'They turned aside for lucre': R. Meir said, [That means,] They openly demanded their portions.<span class="x" onmousemove="('comment',' They were Levites, and personally demanded the tithes. Owing to their exalted position their demands were acceded to, while the humbler Levites might starve. But they did not actually pervert judgment. — R. Meir's interpretation may have been called forth by the troublous times before the overthrow of the Jewish state, when many High Priests abused their positions by such extortion; v. Halevi, Doroth I, 5, pp. 4 seq.
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Reshit Chokhmah
The benefit of one who protects his Brit is explained in the punishment, since he (King David) says that since he did not protect the sign of the covenant accordingly he would have been sent to Dumah had the Creator not been his defense attorney, as it says in the Prologue of the Zohar, verse 137. David was afraid of Dumah even when he did something that was permitted, since everyone who goes to war for the House of David writes his wife a divorce document. The fact that he did not properly guard the sign of the covenant (brit) properly, his Torah was not enough to protect him from the suffering, and our Sages say that King David was the head of the Sanhedrin and the law is according to him in all places, as it says about him “a man of understanding, and God is with him” (Shmuel A 16:18) meaning that the Halacha is according to him, so who would have been a defense attorney for him without knowing all the laws? Surely he would have been sent to Dumah.
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