1 Satan stood up against Israel, and moved David to number Israel. 2 David said to Joab and to the princes of the people, "Go, number Israel from Beersheba even to Dan; and bring me word, that I may know the sum of them." 3 Joab said, "May 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?" 4 Nevertheless the king's word prevailed against Joab. Therefore Joab departed, and went throughout all Israel, and came to Jerusalem. 5 Joab gave up the sum of the numbering of the people to David. All those of Israel were one million one hundred thousand men who drew sword: and in Judah were four hundred seventy thousand men who drew sword. 6 But he didn't count Levi and Benjamin among them; for the king's word was abominable to Joab. 7 God was displeased with this thing; therefore he struck Israel. 8 David said to God, "I have sinned greatly, in that I have done this thing. But now, put away, I beg you, the iniquity of your servant; for I have done very foolishly." 9 Yahweh spoke to Gad, David's seer, saying, 10 "Go and speak to David, saying, 'Thus says Yahweh, "I offer you three things. Choose one of them, that I may do it to you."'" 11 So Gad came to David, and said to him, "Thus says Yahweh, 'Take your choice: 12 either three years of famine; or three months to be consumed before your foes, while the sword of your enemies overtakes you; or else three days the sword of Yahweh, even pestilence in the land, and the angel of Yahweh destroying throughout all the borders of Israel. Now therefore consider what answer I shall return to him who sent me.'" 13 David said to Gad, "I am in distress. Let me fall, I pray, into the hand of Yahweh; for his mercies are very great. Let me not fall into the hand of man." 14 So Yahweh sent a pestilence on Israel; and seventy thousand men of Israel fell. 15 God sent an angel to Jerusalem to destroy it. As he was about to destroy, Yahweh saw, and he relented of the disaster, and said to the destroying angel, "It is enough; now stay your hand." The angel of Yahweh was standing by the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite. 16 David lifted up his eyes, and saw the angel of Yahweh standing between earth and the sky, having a drawn sword in his hand stretched out over Jerusalem. Then David and the elders, clothed in sackcloth, fell on their faces. 17 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." 18 Then the angel of Yahweh commanded Gad to tell David that David should go up, and raise an altar to Yahweh in the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite. 19 David went up at the saying of Gad, which he spoke in the name of Yahweh. 20 Ornan turned back, and saw the angel; and his four sons who were with him hid themselves. Now Ornan was threshing wheat. 21 As David came to Ornan, Ornan looked and saw David, and went out of the threshing floor, and bowed himself to David with his face to the ground. 22 Then David said to Ornan, "Give me the place of this threshing floor, that I may build thereon an altar to Yahweh. You shall sell it to me for the full price, that the plague may be stopped from afflicting the people." 23 Ornan said to David, "Take it for yourself, and let my lord the king do that which is good in his eyes. Behold, I give the oxen for burnt offerings, and the threshing instruments for wood, and the wheat for the meal offering. I give it all." 24 King David said to Ornan, "No; but I will most certainly buy it for the full price. For I will not take that which is yours for Yahweh, nor offer a burnt offering without cost." 25 So David gave to Ornan six hundred shekels of gold by weight for the place. 26 David built an altar to Yahweh there, and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings, and called on Yahweh; and he answered him from the sky by fire on the altar of burnt offering. 27 Yahweh commanded the angel; and he put up his sword again into its sheath. 28 At that time, when David saw that Yahweh had answered him in the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite, then he sacrificed there. 29 For the tabernacle of Yahweh, which Moses made in the wilderness, and the altar of burnt offering, were at that time in the high place at Gibeon. 30 But David couldn't go before it to inquire of God; for he was afraid because of the sword of the angel of Yahweh.
The resemblance to the parallel passage in Samuel is throughout less close than usual; the additions are more numerous, the supernatural circumstances of the narrative being brought out into greater prominence. The history is evidently not drawn from Samuel, but from some quite separate document, probably a contemporary account of the occurrence drawn up by Gad.
David is tempted by Satan to take the numbers of the people of Israel and Judah, 1-Chronicles 21:1, 1-Chronicles 21:2. Joab remonstrates, but the king is determined, and Joab pleads in vain, 1-Chronicles 21:3, 1-Chronicles 21:4. He returns, and delivers in the number to the king, but reckons not Levi and Benjamin, 1-Chronicles 21:5. The Lord is displeased, and sends Gad to offer David his choice of three great national calamities; famine, war, or pestilence, 1-Chronicles 21:6-12. David submits himself to God, and a pestilence is sent, which destroys seventy thousand, 1-Chronicles 21:13, 1-Chronicles 21:14. At David's intercession the destroying angel is restrained at the threshing-floor of Ornan, 1-Chronicles 21:15-17. He buys the piece of ground, builds an altar to the Lord and offers sacrifices, and the plague is stayed, 1-Chronicles 21:18-30.
INTRODUCTION TO 1 CHRONICLES 21
Excepting the three last verses, is contained in 2-Samuel 24:1 with some few variations, which are there observed; see the notes there.
David's numbering the people.
The Numbering of the People, the Pestilence, and the Determination of the Site for the Temple - 1-Chronicles 21-22:1
The motive which influenced the king, in causing a census of the men capable of bearing arms throughout the kingdom to be taken in the last year of his reign, has already been discussed in the remarks on 2 Sam, where we have also pointed out what it was which was so sinful and displeasing to God in the undertaking. We have, too, in the same place commented upon the various stages of its progress, taking not of the differences which exist between the numbers given in 2-Samuel 24:9, 2-Samuel 24:13, 2-Samuel 24:24, and those in our record, 1-Chronicles 21:5, 1-Chronicles 21:12, 1-Chronicles 21:25; so that here we need only compare the two accounts somewhat more minutely. They correspond not merely in the main points of their narrative of the event, but in many places make use of the same terms, which shows that they have both been derived from the same source; but, as the same time, very considerable divergences are found in the conception and representation of the matter. In the very first verse, David's purpose is said in 2nd Samuel to be the effect of the divine anger; in the Chronicle it is the result of the influence of Satan on David. Then, in 2-Samuel 24:4-9, the numbering of the people is narrated at length, while in the Chronicle, 1-Chronicles 21:4-6, only the results are recorded, with the remark that Joab did not complete the numbering, Levi and Benjamin not being included, because the king's command was an abomination to him. On the other hand, the Chronicle, in 1-Chronicles 21:19-27, narrates the purchase of Araunah's threshing-floor for a place of sacrifice, and gives not merely a more circumstantial account of David's offering than we find in Samuel (2-Samuel 24:19-25), but also states, in conclusion (vv. 28-30), the circumstances which induced David to offer sacrifice even afterwards, on the altar which he had built at the divine command, on the threshing-floor bought of Araunah. The purpose which the author of the Chronicle had in view in making this concluding remark is manifest from 1-Chronicles 22:1, which should properly be connected with 1 Chron 21: "And David said, Here is the house of Jahve God, and here the altar for the burnt-offering of Israel." Only in this verse, as Bertheau has correctly remarked, do we find the proper conclusion of the account of the numbering of the people, the pestilence, and the appearance of the angel, and yet it is omitted in the book of Samuel; "although it is manifest from the while connection, and the way in which the history of David and Solomon is presented in the books of Samuel and Kings, that the account is given there also only to point out the holiness of the place where Solomon built the temple even in the time of David, and to answer the question why that particular place was chosen for the site of the sanctuary." This remark is perfectly just, if it be not understood to mean that the author of our book of Samuel has given a hint of this purpose in his narrative; for the conclusion of 2-Samuel 24:25, "And Jahve was entreated for the land, and the plague was stayed," is irreconcilable with any such idea. This concluding sentence, and the omission of any reference to the temple, or to the appointment of the altar built on the threshing-floor of Araunah to be a place of sacrifice for Israel, and of the introductory words of the narrative, "And again the wrath of Jahve was kindled against Israel, and moved David against them," (2-Samuel 24:1), plainly show that the author of the book of Samuel regarded, and has here narrated, the event as a chastisement of the people of Israel for their rebellion against the divinely chosen king, in the revolts of Absalom and Sheba (cf. the remarks on 2-Samuel 24:1). The author of the Chronicle, again, has without doubt informed us of the numbering of the people, and the pestilence, with its results, with the design of showing how God Himself had chosen and consecrated this spot to be the future place of worship for Israel, by the appearance of the angel, the command given to David through the prophet Gad to build an altar where the angel had appeared, and to sacrifice thereon, and by the gracious acceptance of this offering, fire having come down from heaven to devour it. For this purpose he did not require to give any lengthened account of the numbering of the people, since it was of importance to him only as being the occasion of David's humiliation.
*More commentary available by clicking individual verses.