David’s sin in ordering a census
21
📚And Satan 📖 stood up against Israel, and stirred David up to number Israel. 2 📚And David said to Joab and to the leaders of the people, “Go, number Israel from Beersheba to Dan, and bring their number to me, so that I may know it”. 3 📚And Joab answered, “May the LORD make his people a hundred times more numerous than they are! But, my lord the king, are they not all my lord’s servants? Why then does my lord require this thing? Why will he be a cause of guilt to Israel?”
4 📚However, the king’s word prevailed against Joab. Therefore Joab departed, and went throughout all Israel, and came to Jerusalem.
21:4 Joab’s work on the census took nearly 10 months (2 Sam 24:8).⚜
5 📚And Joab gave the sum of the number of the people to David. And all of Israel who could draw sword were one million one hundred thousand men; and of Judah all who could draw sword were four hundred and seventy thousand.
21:5 These figures differ from 2 Sam 24:9. The census was incomplete (1 Chron 27:23-24), and Joab may have given two different estimates on two separate occasions to David. Of course, we can’t be sure of this.⚜
6 📚But he did not count Levi and Benjamin among them; for the king’s command had been abhorrent to Joab.
21:6 Verse 3; 2 Sam 24:3.⚜
7 📚And God was displeased with this matter; therefore he struck 📖 Israel.
The consequences of David’s sin
8 📚And David said to God, “I have sinned greatly by doing this thing. But now, I beg you, put away the iniquity of your servant, for I have acted very foolishly”.
9 📚And the LORD spoke to Gad, David’s seer 📖, saying, 10 📚“Go and tell David, saying, ‘Thus says the LORD, I offer you three things. Choose one of them for me to do to you.’ ”
11 📚So Gad came to David, and said to him, “Thus says the LORD, ‘Take your choice: 12 📚Either three years of famine, or three months to be destroyed before your foes while the sword of your enemies reaches you, or else three days of the sword of the LORD, that is, the plague, in the land, with the angel of the LORD destroying throughout the whole territory of Israel.’ Now therefore consider what answer I should take back to him who sent me”.
13 📚And David said to Gad, “I am in great distress; let me now fall into the hands of the LORD; for his mercies are very great. But do not let me fall into the hands of men”.
14 📚So the LORD sent a plague on Israel; and seventy thousand men of Israel fell dead. 15 📚And God sent an angel to Jerusalem to destroy it, but as he was destroying, the LORD looked and was grieved about the disaster, and said to the destroying angel, “It is enough. Hold back your hand”. And the angel of the LORD was standing by the threshing floor of Ornan 📖 the Jebusite.
16 📚And David raised his eyes and saw the angel of the LORD 📖 standing between earth and heaven, with a drawn sword in his hand stretched out over Jerusalem. Then David and the elders of Israel, clothed in sackcloth, prostrated themselves.
17 📚And David said to God, “Is it not I who commanded the people to be numbered? Indeed I am the one who sinned and did evil; but as for these sheep, what have they done? Let your hand, I beg you, O LORD my God, be on me and on my father’s house, but not on your people, that they should be plagued”.
Stopping the sword of God’s angel
18 📚Then the angel of the LORD commanded 📖 Gad to tell David that David should go up and erect an altar to the LORD in the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite. 19 📚And David went up in accordance with the word of Gad, which he spoke in the name of the LORD.
20 📚And Ornan turned back and saw the angel 📖; and his four sons with him hid themselves. Now Ornan was threshing wheat. 21 📚And as David was coming to Ornan, Ornan looked up and saw David, and went out of the threshing floor, and bowed down to David with his face to the ground.
22 📚Then David said to Ornan, “Let me have the place of this threshing floor, so I may build an altar in it for the LORD. You are to let me have it at the full price, so that the plague may be held back from the people”.
23 📚And Ornan said to David, “Take it for yourself, and may my lord the king do what is good in his eyes. See, I will also give you the oxen for burnt offerings, and the threshing instruments for wood, and the wheat for the grain offering. I give it all”.
24 📚And King David said to Ornan, “No, but I will certainly buy it at the full price; for I will not take what is yours for the LORD, or offer burnt offerings without cost”.
25 📚So David gave six hundred shekels 📖 of gold by weight to Ornan for the place. 26 📚And David built there an altar to the LORD, and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings 📖, and called on the LORD; and he answered him from heaven by fire 📖 on the altar of burnt offering.
27 📚And the LORD commanded the angel; and he put his sword back into its scabbard.
21:1-27 2 Sam 24:1-25. See notes there.⚜
21:27 David’s repentance and offerings turned away God’s wrath from the people. Compare Num 16:42-48.⚜
28 At that time, when David saw that the LORD had answered him in the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite, then he sacrificed there. 29 📚For the tabernacle of the LORD, which Moses made in the wilderness, and the altar of the burnt offering, at that time were in the high place at Gibeon. 30 📚But David could not go before it to inquire of God, for he was afraid because of the sword of the angel of the LORD.