1 Chronicles 21:1

Numbering the people, one would think, was no bad thing. Why should not the shepherd know the number of his flock? But God sees not as man sees. It is plain it was wrong in David to do it, and a great provocation to God, because he did it in the pride of his heart; and there is no sin that has in it more of contradiction and therefore more of offence to God than pride. The sin was David's; he alone must bear the blame of it. But here we are told,

I. How active the tempter was in it (Ch1 21:1): Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to do it. Is is said (Sa2 24:1) that the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he moved David to do it. The righteous judgments of God are to be observed and acknowledged even in the sins and unrighteousness of men. We are sure that God is not the author of sin - he tempts no man; and therefore, when it is said that he moved David to do it, it must be explained by what is intimated here, that, for wise and holy ends, he permitted the devil to do it. Here we trace this foul stream to its foundation. That Satan, the enemy of God and all good, should stand up against Israel, is not strange; it is what he aims at, to weaken the strength, diminish the numbers, and eclipse the glory of God's Israel, to whom he is Satan, a sworn adversary. But that he should influence David, the man of God's own heart to do a wrong thing, may well be wondered at. One would think him one of those whom the wicked one touches not. No, even the best saints, till they come to heaven, must never think themselves out of the reach of Satan's temptations. Now, when Satan meant to do Israel a mischief, what course did he take? He did not move God against them to destroy them (as Job, Job 2:3), but he provoked David, the best friend they had, to number them, and so to offend God, and set him against them. Note, 1. The devil does us more mischief by tempting us to sin against our God than he does by accusing us before our God. He destroys none but by their own hands, 2. The greatest spite he can do to the church of God is to tempt the rulers of the church to pride; for none can conceive the fatal consequences of that sin in all, especially in church-rulers. You shall not be so, Luk 22:26.

II. How passive the instrument was. Joab, the person whom David employed, was an active man in public business; but to this he was perfectly forced, and did it with the greatest reluctance imaginable.

1. He put in a remonstrance against it before he began it. No man more forward that he in any thing that really tended to the honour of the king or the welfare of the kingdom; but in this matter he would gladly be excused. For, (1.) It was a needless thing. there was not occasion at all for it. God had promised to multiply them, and he needed not question the accomplishment of that promise. They were all his servants, and he needed not doubt of their loyalty and affection to him. Their number was as much his strength as he could desire. (2.) It was a dangerous thing. In doing it he might be a cause of trespass to Israel, and might provoke God against them. This Joab apprehended, and yet David himself did not. The most learned in the laws of God are not always the most quick-sighted in the application of those laws.

2. He was quite weary of it before he had done it; for the king's word was abominable to Joab, Ch1 21:6. Time was when whatever king David did pleased all the people, Sa2 3:36. But now there was a general disgust at these orders, which confirmed Joab in his dislike of them. so that, though the produce of this muster was really very great, yet he had no heart to perfect it, but left two tribes unnumbered (Ch1 21:5, Ch1 21:6), two considerable ones, Levi and Benjamin, and perhaps was not very exact in numbering the rest, because he did not do it with any pleasure, which might be one occasion of the difference between the sums here and Sa2 24:9.

Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

1. And Satan stood up against Israel] In 2 Sam. “And again the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel,” a former occasion being at the time of the famine (2Sa_21:1). By Satan (“adversary”) is meant some hostile spiritual being, such as is mentioned in Job_1:6 ff.; Zec_3:1 ff., the very opposite in fact of a guardian angel such as the Michael of Dan_10:13; Dan_10:21; Dan_12:1.

and provoked] R.V. and moved, as 2 Sam., the Heb. word being the same.

to number] (cp. 1Ch_27:23-24) should be like the stars, beyond numbering.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1Ch 21:1 And Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel.

Ver. 1. And Satan stood up against Israel.] That is, The devil, as Job 1:6 Psa 109:6 Zec 3:1-2. Satan signifieth an adversary. So the devil is to God and his people, {Rev 12:9; Rev 20:2} an adversary at law {a} {1Pe 5:8} hating them with an inward, spiteful hatred, as do also his instruments. {Psa 55:4} The Emperor Commodus - cunctis incommodus, saith Orosius; semper incommodus, saith Vopiscus, in vita Taciti - was commonly called the enemy of God and men, the very name of the devil. Howbeit God so chained him up, that, of all the emperors until Constantine, he was most favourable unto Christians, {b} by the mediation of Marcia, who favoured their doctrine, saith Dion; but especially by the overruling power and providence of God, who also had a holy hand in this that David here did: {See Trapp on "2Sa 24:1"}

{a} Aντιδικος.

{b} Mountag., Act. and Mon., cap. 7, par. 115.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1Ch_21:1-30

And Satan stood up against Israel and provoked David to number Israel.

Under a spell

(Compare 2Pe_1:21):--

I. All the world seems to be under a spell or charm; inward influences move men as steam moves a ship. There am three spells.

1. One is that of parentage. The spell of a virtuous parentage influences its childrens children, like a good charm, for thousands of generations; but, on the other hand, the wickedness of a parent generally ceases to influence his offspring at, as the Second Commandment says, the third and fourth generation.

2. Another spell is the outward influence of our surroundings. Faithful parents, wise teachers, inspiring books, virtuous companions, healthy atmosphere, and suitable food will train up a child in the way God and men would have him go; but many a bright apprentice lad has been cursed by bad example.

3. The third spell is that of inward influences. One of these is said in the Bible to be the movement of the devil, and the other that of the holy God.

4. What can be greater than the spell which moves the human appetite to intoxicating drink? To obtain drink people will sometimes descend to the lowest degradation of meanness. Yes; the evil spell of the appetite for drink upon its victims is great and overpowering. Drink may be no temptation to you and me, but many people find it a spell which moves them as the tide and wind sometimes drives a feeble ship on the rocks. And what stronger spell can there be than the inclination to war between men, and churches, and nations?

5. Again, is there a stronger spell than the desire for money, the greed of gold? See how men under the spell of an insane ambition for wealth sometimes forget honour, and become actual thieves!

II. Now, let us consider the good spell over mankind. One of these is the heaven-born spell of true love; it is a most powerful influence for good. Thus love will reform the prodigal life. There is no stronger spell than true love; God is love. It is by the wisdom of love that He converts mankind. Gods object in winning men to love Him is that they may be prompted to self-denial in themselves and to do good works to others. (W. Birch.)

Davids sin and repentance

I. Davids sin.

1. Its occasion: pride and vainglory--that I may know it.

2. Its unseen but real source: Satan (1Sa_24:1).

II. The Lords displeasure because of his sin (1Ch_21:9-17).

III. The atonement for his sin, made on the site of the Lords house (chap. 20:1-2; 1Ki_6:1-38; 1Ki_7:1-51; 1Ki_8:1-66); as the foundation of the spiritual house (2Co_6:16-17; 1Pe_2:4-5; Eph_2:21-22). The temple therefore rests as it were on--

1. An atonement for sin (Rom_5:11).

2. Sin put away, 1Ch_21:17 (Dan_9:24).

3. Wrath averted by sacrifice (verse 16:26-27; 2Sa_24:16; Isa_42:21; 1Pe_1:18-19; 1Pe_2:24; Col_1:20; Col_2:14-15). (Clergymans Magazine.)

Davids self-confidence

I. The sin of David in numbering the people was self-confidence, pride in his own strength, and forgetfulness of the source of all his strength, even of God. It was the greater sin in him because he had had such marvellous, such visible, witnesses of Gods love, and care, and guidance. Past experience might and should have taught him that his strength was not in himself, but in his God.

II. The sins of pride, and self-confidence, and forgetfulness of God are only too common amongst ourselves. When men dwell securely, in full peace and health, they grow careless in religion. God is not much present with them; they seem sufficient of themselves to keep themselves and to make themselves happy. (R. D. B. Rawnsley.)

David numbering Israel

I. Man, through the devil, bringing tremendous evils on the world. Satan stood up, etc. The existence and influence of this grand chief of evil agencies are here, and everywhere through the Bible, stated as facts too well authenticated to require argument. He tempted the progenitor of the race; he assailed the Redeemer of the world; and he leads humanity captive by his will. He now had access, by means not stated, to the mind of the monarch of Israel. One might have thought that age, which had cooled in him the fires of life, would also have extinguished all the fires of worldly ambition; but Satan can rekindle the smouldering embers of evil within us: he did so now. The ambitious feeling awakened was not one of those passing waves of emotion that rise from the depths of the soul and break upon the shore and are no more; it took the form of an obstinate purpose.

1. That Satans influence on man, however successful, interferes not with mans personal responsibility. David was held responsible for the crime which the devil suggested to his mind. Great is the might of Satan, and great are the influences which he can bring to bear upon us; albeit he has no power to break down our wills by force, no power to coerce us into the wrong. We feel we are not mere engines in what we do, that our actions, good or bad, are our own.

2. That one mans sins may entail misery on thousands. It was so now: Davids sin brought death on thousands and agony into the heart of the nation.

3. That the Eternal has agents ever at hand to execute His judgments. (Homilist.)

Sinful counting

It is easy for us to rise in petulant indignation against David, and to declare that he ought not to have counted his men; but let us beware, lest in so doing we provoke the spirit of David to retort that it is possible for us to count our money so as to disclose the very motive and intention which in him we condemn as vicious. Yes there is an atheistical way of counting money. A man may go over coin by coin of his property, and look at it in a way which, being interpreted, signifies, this is my strength, this is my confidence; so long as I have all these coins it is impossible that I can get far wrong, or know much trouble, these will be my answer and defence in the day of accusation and adversity! (J. Parker, D. D.)

The impotence of numbers

Palestine fills a large place in history, but a very insignificant one on the map. Davids enemies were on every side, and they were all mighty in war. He had the sea to his west but did not command the coast. That (with its harbours of Tyre and Sidon) belonged to the Phoenicians, who overlapped him also on the north. To the east were the barriers of Moab; to the south the plains, cities, and hosts of the Philistines. We do not wonder that he wished to know upon what swords he had to depend. And yet we are told that it was an ungodly thing for him to number Israel.

I. What made this deed ungodly? The answer is that it was a departure from the place he held in the kingdom of God. He was losing the heart which could make him say, I am small and of no reputation, yet do I not forget Thy commandments. Such a mood, such a ranging of himself with neighbouring powers, was a grievous departure from Davids position as king of a chosen race. Think for a moment how unique that race was. Nothing is so wonderful in history as the survival of the Jews. They were set in the midst of mighty nations which far outnumbered them, but which all lost their place and power in the world while the Jews remained. And yet in the early days of this race they were in danger of being spoilt, and really degraded, by an attempt to set themselves on the level of the nations around. Davids act was a forgetfulness of, a departure from, Gods purpose. In seeking to realise his material resources, and count the swords which he could draw, he so far gave up that unseen vital force, which distinguished his people the most, and descended to the meaner level on which those around him took their stand.

II. What is the lesson to be learnt from this incident? That in the conduct of society and of our lives, dependence on mere numbers may prove disastrous.

1. In national economy. The consent and unanimity of a thousand fools does not render the folly of one man harmless; it may arm it with the power to do a thousand-fold more harm. We should be specially cautious in finding our course by that weathercock public opinion.

2. On a small as well as a large social scale. A prominent tendency to-day is to uphold the value of company and co-operation. In many respects this is well. Union is strength. But along with this may grow up a new tyranny. In passing from a selfish individualism to the recognition of a righteous socialism, we are in danger of having our personal convictions overridden. In presence of all the associations, societies, and committees in the world, we must not forget that some of the greatest things the world owns and cherishes, have taken their beginning and drawn their power from solitary source, some halfhidden spring which the crowd would pass by or trample down. The Bible would point to Noah, Daniel, and Job, and above all to the lonely cross.

3. In the religious life. No persuasion may be taken as true because it is accepted even by all. There was a time when the whole world believed that the sun moved round the earth. The great convictions and changes in history are irrespective of numbers. They come like little seeds which spread until they cover the land. Faith in numbers is a slavery worse than Egyptian, which shows itself in the discharge of our business and the profession of our faith. It is the deadly hindrance to which David exposed himself and his people. It is the temptation which besets us in the formation of our opinions and the doing of our work. We are all tempted to number the people. It is of the first importance that we should be true to the voice of our Father in heaven, who never leaves His children to walk alone if they will only take His hand. (Harry Jones.)

Census reflections

I. References to and reflections on two official numberings of the children of Israel (Num_1:26.).

II. Some general reflections on our national census.

1. The number of inhabitants of England and Wales at this moment is definite.

2. The number of the living inhabitants at this moment on the earth is definite.

3. The number of individuals who compose the whole human race is definite.

4. The number of the elect, or of those who shall ultimately be saved is definite.

Application: I would address--

1. Those who were numbered at the last census.

2. I would call to your remembrance those who have appeared and again disappeared during this interval.

3. The object of numbering suggests consolation. The very hairs of your head are all numbered, this is one of the sweetest pledges of our heavenly Fathers personal care over us.

4. It also suggests warning. Lord, let me know mine end and the number of my days. For what purpose? That I may know how frail I am. (W. Bramley Moore, M. A.)

Man, through God, arresting the great evils that have come upon the world

1. Profound contrition for sin. And David said unto God, I have sinned greatly, because I have done this thing; but now, I beseech Thee, do away with the iniquity of Thy servant, for I have done very foolishly. In Samuel it is said, Davids heart smote him. His conscience was aroused to a sense of his crime and became his chastiser. It allowed him to make no excuse; it prevented him from charging the crime even on the devil who tempted him. I have sinned greatly, I have done this thing, Is it not I that commanded the people to be numbered? Even I it is that have sinned and done evil indeed. Conscience, the deepest power within us, ever vindicates our personality, our freedom, our responsibility. An awakened conscience detaches us from the universe, from all, and places us as guilty personalities in conscious contact with Him who is the Eternal Judge of right and wrong. The first step to true prayer is this.

2. Unbounded trust in God. When Jehovah, through Gad, Davids seer, proposed to the monarch the choice of one of three judgments--famine, war, or pestilence--what was Davids reply? I am in a great strait: let me fall into the hand of the Lord; for very great are His mercies: but let me not fall into the hand of man. His sin had consisted in some measure in placing trust in men; why else did he require a census? Was it not because he thought that numbers were power for defence and conquest? That confidence is gone now, and God appears to him as the only object of trust. Wonderful trust is this. When all things go well and fortune smiles, when providence showers its blessings upon our path, skirting our way with verdure and flowers, we may feel some trust in Him; but when all is dreary, dark, and tempestuous, when we see, as David saw, in the black heavens the destroying angel with a sword drawn in his hands about to smite us, then to trust Him is to have a trust of the highest sort.

3. An atoning self-sacrificing benevolence.

(1) With a generosity rejoicing in sacrifice, he rears an altar. He was divinely commanded to rear an altar unto the Lord on the threshing-floor of Ornan the Jebusite.

(2) With a soul benevolently oblivious of all personal interest he pleads with heaven.

1. The solemnity of mans existence on this earth. Man here is the subject and organ of spiritual and invisible agents. The same man, as in the case of David, might be the organ of the devil and the organ of God. Under the influence of the devil, David became proud and rebellious, incurring the displeasure of his Maker and bringing ruin on his country; under the influence of God, he became profoundly contrite, trustful, and most benevolently prayerful; arresting the progress of evil and securing again for his country the mercy of Heaven. How terribly solemn is our life!

2. The ruinous and restorative dispositions in man. Selfish pride and self-sacrificing prayerfulness are the two grand dispositions which David displays in this portion of his history; the former was at once the product and instrument of the devil, bringing ruin upon his country; the latter was the product and instrument of God, counteracting the evils. (Homilist.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1Ch 21:1. Satan stood up against Israel — Before the Lord and his tribunal, to accuse David and Israel, and to ask God’s permission to tempt David. Standing is the accuser’s posture before men’s tribunals; and consequently the Holy Scriptures (which use to speak of the things of God after the manner of men, to bring them down to our capacities) elsewhere represent Satan in this posture. See 1Ki 22:21; Zec 3:1. In 2Sa 24:1, it is said, The anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he moved David, or rather, there was who moved David; namely, Satan, as is here stated, by God’s permission. The righteous judgments of God are to be observed and acknowledged even in the sins and unrighteousness of men. But we are sure God is not the author of sin, and that, strictly speaking, he tempts no man, Jas 1:13. That passage, therefore, must be explained by this. But of this particular, and of the contents of this whole chapter, and of the variations and seeming contradictions between this narrative and that in Samuel, see notes there.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

CRITICAL NOTES.] The events here given appear in 2 Samuel 24, where the manner in which the census was taken is fully described, which took Joab nine months and twenty days. This narrative is condensed.

1Ch_21:1-6.—Numbering of people. Satan, the Lord in Sam. “Both had their hand in the work—God by permission, Satan by suggestion” [Bp. Hall]. Provoked, stirred up. Trespass (1Ch_21:3), the results of trespass—i.e., punishment. 1Ch_21:4. A summary of five verses of 2Sa_24:4-8, which give route taken by Joab and assistants, and time occupied to their return. 1Ch_21:5. Number of all lists added together. Discrepancy not easy to explain. “It seems far better to explain, with most commentators, that the numbers have, in one passage or the other (or possibly in both), suffered corruption” [Speak. Com.]. 1Ch_21:6. Levi, following precedent in Num_1:47-49; Benj., because Joab desired to frustrate king’s intention, or because taken on former occasion (ch. 1Ch_7:6-11), and register preserved in archives of the tribe.

1Ch_21:7-8.—God’s displeasure. These words an anticipation of 1Ch_21:14-15; are placed here, interrupting the narrative, to show that Joab’s artifice was not successful—it did not avert God’s wrath. David was punished for his intention, though that intention was not completely carried out by his subordinate [Speak. Com.].

1Ch_21:9-13.—God’s message. Seer, prophet elsewhere; perhaps a pupil of David (2Sa_22:8), and successor of Samuel in office. Offer, stretch out to thee. Choose, take to thee. Three things, famine, sword, or pestilence, which often recur in Scripture (Deu_28:21-25; Rev_6:4-8). “This beautiful agreement in the numbers is completely destroyed by the reading seven” [Keil]. Strait, one form of the evil must be taken, cannot be avoided. Experience taught him which to choose.

1Ch_21:14-17.—God sends pestilence. Its form not given; results most sweeping. At length reached the capital. Angel to destroy it. Ornan and his sons hid themselves on the apparition of the angel, but came out to welcome David. The king saw the vision, appeared with the elders in the garb and assumed the attitude of penitence, confessed their sins, and deprecated the wrath of God.

1Ch_21:18-22.—David builds an altar. Command to build and choice of site directly from God, through an angel, to Gad. Altar marked the site for the future temple. Threshing-floor, the level summit of elevated ground on eastern ridge on which Jerusalem was situated.

1Ch_21:23-26.—David buys the threshing-floor. In Eastern style of politeness, Ornan offers the whole to David, as Ephron to Abraham (Genesis 23). 1Ch_21:25. Gave value of the place here; that of threshing-floor and oxen in Sam. “The one writer states the matter of present interest, the other records the matter of permanent moment” [Murphy].

1Ch_21:27-30.—David sacrifices on the altar. Sacrificed. The whole code of regulations for offerings given in Leviticus 1 -

7. By fire, answer given on critical occasions (Lev_9:24; 1Ki_18:24-38). Sacrifice accompanied with cessation of plague. There (1Ch_21:28), regarding that spot as sacred. The altar of burnt-offering still at Gibeon, where he could not go in present emergency, for fear of the angel. After this divine institution Mount Moriah (2Ch_3:1) became a place of lawful sacrifice [cf. Murphy]. David knowing that by sacrifice on this altar he had caused the angel to stay his hand, was afraid to transfer his offerings elsewhere, lest the angel should resume his task, and pestilence again break out [Speak. Com.].

HOMILETICS

THE WICKED CENSUS.—1Ch_21:1-6

What wrong in numbering the people? A shepherd likes to know the number of his sheep. A census had been commanded and taken in the wilderness (Num_1:1-2) It was customary with other kings, that they might know what an army to muster for war. Judging from Scripture accounts, we learn the following truths—

I. It was an act instigated by mysterious influence. Supernatural influence. Satan the adversary was permitted in some way to move David. God is said in Scripture to do what he suffers or permits. Man’s free will not forced nor destroyed by the Divine will. “The web of human actions is very complex. The great Mover rules over all, but many undermovers intervene in the drama of life; so that it is not more difficult to foretell the course of the weather than of the will.” Yet sin is man’s own act, and the punishment of a righteous God presupposes its guilt.

II. It was an act of sinful pride. Enemies subdued, his rule undisputed, yet not content. Wanted to ascertain and boast in the military strength of the people, “that I may know the number of the people” (2Sa_24:2; cf. 1Ch_27:23). “This clear also from the fact that Joab delayed as long as possible carrying it into Benjamin, in order not to arouse the insurrectionary spirit of this tribe, which could not forget the leadership it had possessed under Saul” [Hengs.]. Kings proud, prosperous, and ambitious, often vain, confident in their own greatness, boastful of the number of their soldiers and the resources of their subjects. David remarkably successful, and thought himself invincible.

III. It was an act of treason against God. Israel were God’s people, not David’s to count and number as he thought fit. Disobedient to take a census without God’s command; perversion of God’s favours to turn them into schemes of self-aggrandizement, and the purposes of God, according to the laws of justice and moral order, cannot be obscured or hindered without impunity by proud acts and ambitious plans of kings. David’s sin akin to that of Nebuchadnezzar, whom Jehovah taught by bitter experience “to know that the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men.”

IV. It was an act of peril to the nation. Joab saw this and remonstrated, “Why will he be a cause of trespass to Israel?” It might endanger the liberty of the people, become a State device for heavy taxation, and would be sure to bring divine displeasure. “The apprehension of a Nemesis on an overweening display of prosperity,” says Dean Stanley, “if not inconsistent with the highest revelations of the Divine nature in the gospel, pervades all ancient, especially all Oriental religions.” Presentiments often forebode evil. “Be sure your sin will find you out.”

V. It was an act of obstinate persistence. Joab’s rebuke had no effect upon David. Foolish pride puffed up, and he neither took the counsel of God nor the advice of friends. With stubborn selfwill he would have his own way—“the king’s word prevailed against Joab.” Advice may demand hard and unpleasant things, involve humiliation and confession of mistake, and be very different from the words we expected. Hence disregard to warnings, persistence in evil, and ultimately inevitable sufferings. “The way of a fool is right in his own eyes; but he that hearkeneth unto counsel is wise.”

THE PROGRESS OF TRUE PENITENCE.—1Ch_21:7-13

In these words a beautiful picture of David’s repentance—successive steps of restoration to God, and the conduct of a real penitent under the chastening hand of God. I. In signs of God’s displeasure. “God was displeased” (1Ch_21:7). Displeasure revealed to vindicate God, aid us in apprehending our responsibility to him, and to secure right mind for due restoration. II. In the power of an awakened conscience. “David’s heart smote him” (Sam.). “The bitter thoughts of conscience born.” Suggestions from God; proofs that we are not left alone, nor hardened beyond hope. III. In the penitent confession of sin. Accuses himself, and is deeply grieved that others are involved in his sin (1Ch_21:17). I am guilty; these sheep, what have they done? He is so penetrated with sense of guilt, and with sympathy for his innocent people, that he desires God to send judgments “on him and his house” alone, and spare the people as his flock (these sheep). IV. In earnest prayer for pardon. “Take away the iniquity of thy servant” (Sam.). This only his resource. Acknowledgment of guilt, and entreaty for divine forgiveness, a proof of true state of heart. V. In the revelation of God’s will. The inner cry met by outer word. Gad announced punitive righteousness (1Ch_21:9). This without human means or occasion. God ever ready to give light and guidance, but in his way and time. VI. In humble submission to God’s will when known. He bows under divine judgments, yet with hope of delivering mercy.

THE AWFUL JUDGMENTS.—1Ch_21:11-15

The judgment descended in the form of a tremendous pestilence—“a death,” as it is expressly termed in the original, like “the Black Death” of the Middle Ages. Appearing in the heat of the summer months, aggravated by the greatness of the population which had occasioned the census, spreading with the rapidity of an Oriental disorder in crowded habitations, it flew from end to end of the country in three days, and at last approached Jerusalem. The new capital, the very heart of the nation, the peculiar glory of David’s reign, seemed to be doomed to destruction [Dean Stanley].

I. Judgments entailed by one man’s sin. David responsible chiefly for its results. Man’s power to entail tremendous evils or greatest blessings upon others. Seventy thousand human beings cut off by judgment. What deaths lie at our door!

II. Judgments easily prepared for execution. God has agents ever ready to do his will. Famine, sword, and pestilence, set in order, waiting the command to attack, and fearful in results. “The terrors of God do set themselves in (military) array against me” (Job_6:4).

III. Judgments sent according to human preference. “Choose thee.” Wonderful, mysterious offer! Not often done; would not always be consistent with God’s justice. We are not always able, enlightened enough to choose. This a special case, only a temporary fall from loyalty, and the design was the restoration to full trust. God wise and merciful.

IV. Judgments arrested by earnest prayer. Room in the purposes of God and in the operations of nature for prayer. “Natural law” interferes not with prayer and human freedom. Who knows what judgments may be averted, mitigated, or turned into blessings, by earnest petition? Scripture and ecclesiastical history full of illustrations. “More things are wrought by prayer than the world dreams of” [Tennyson].

DAVID’S CHOICE.—1Ch_21:11-13

David offered three things. To show him and the world that the evils denounced were no casual calamities, nor effects of any natural cause, he was permitted to choose which should be immediately inflicted. Regard the choice—

I. As the result of an awakened conscience. “I am in a great strait.” The natural feeling of one under the terrors of God; the voice of conscience in anguish and torture. “What must I do to be saved?”

II. As the revelation of the principle of Christian life. Famine would leave Israel dependent upon others for food; defeat, on the mercy of the heathen; in pestilence, they would have God only to deal with. God the only refuge; no human power could defend. He left himself confidently with God. Thus gave a public testimony that it is vain to trust in man; that God only is supreme, gracious, and wise.

III. As a picture of future doom to all. A choice for us to make. We must fall into God’s hands by voluntary submission now, or by compulsion at last. Decide to-day, before choice is taken away. “Now, therefore, advise thyself” (1Ch_21:12).

HOMILETIC HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS

1Ch_21:2. Know it. But what needs that, now that there was a general peace or truce with all nations? Curiosity, it was at least; yea, it was pride and creature confidence that pricked David on to this numbering of the people, and made him so peremptory. This Augustus Cæsar might do for his pleasure, and carry it away without punishment (Luk_2:1). Not so David. God will take that from others what he will not bear with in his own (Amo_3:2). The Philistines might cart the ark, but David smarted for so doing [Trapp].

1Ch_21:6. The interrupted survey.

1. Joab from policy did not number all the people. The work grew tedious, and Joab did not relish it, “for the king’s word was abominable to Joab.”

2. But God’s providence seen in result. Other agency beside man’s recognised. Two tribes not numbered, “partly because Levi was devoted to His service, and Benjamin had become the least of all tribes (Judges 21); and partly because God foresaw that they would remain faithful to the house of David in the division of the tribes, and therefore would not have them diminished” [Jamieson].

“There’s a Divinity that shapes our ends,

Rough-hew them how we will.”

1Ch_21:9-10. Gad an emblem of a true minister. His message was—I. Divine. So is the gospel message, of which there is evidence drawn from—

1. The facts of history.

2. Its congruity with the spiritual constitution of man.

3. Experience of those who feel its power. II. An appeal to choice: “Advise thyself.”

1. You can reject it.

2. You can accept it. III. Was to be accounted for: “What word, &c.”

1. Gad was responsible for its delivery.

2. David was responsible for its results [Bib. Mus.].

1Ch_21:8. Foolishly. He thought at first he had done very wisely; now he seeth his error, and disclaimeth it. We had before his contrition, confession, and supplication, all which make up his repentance for sin; here we have his conversion or reformation, which is his repentance from sin, his amendment of life [Trapp].

1Ch_21:13. Into the hand of the Lord. The reason for this choice was partly his confidence in God’s great goodness; partly because the other judgments, especially the sword, would have been more dishonourable, not only to David, but also to God and his people; and partly because he, having sinned himself, thought it just to choose a plague, to which he was as obnoxious as his people; whereas he had better defences for himself against the sword and famine than they had. True, it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God! Fearful indeed for those who have, by their impenitence, shut themselves from his mercy. But a penitent dares cast himself into God’s hand, knowing that his mercies are great [Benson]. The compelled choice of punitive infliction, and the dread alternatives. The Divine mercy amid calamity. There is here a Contrast between Divine and Human Chastisements. Strange that men, who are so near us, should be less trustworthy than God, who is unseen. Men treat us worse, God better, than we have deserved. David’s preference is justified when we consider—

1. The harsh judgments men pronounce on each other.

2. The harsh treatment of the guilty who are in men’s power.

3. The absence of sympathetic kindness in human warfare.

4. That when God punishes he does so in righteousness.

5. That in the treatment of the guilty God always shows mercy. The lessons are—

1. Submission to God.

2. Hopeful trust. David’s choice.

1. The option declined. Had too much of his own will already. Refers it back to God and resigns himself into his hands.

2. What are the reasons for this?

(1) “Great are his mercies.” The declaration of a truth, the ground of hope, and the testimony of experience.

(2) Not into the hand of man. The tender mercies of the wicked are cruel. Trust in man destroys freedom, dishonours character, and disappoints hope.

HOMILETICS

DAVID AND ISRAEL.—1Ch_21:17-27

The sad circumstances of David and Israel. David’s wisdom in giving himself into the hands of God. God’s hand is safest to hold the rod—the hand of a king, master, father.

I. The progressive course of sin.

1. Temptation (1Ch_21:1). Satan the black fountain of all transgress. David not conscious that Satan was so near. Insidiousness of Satanic influence.

2. Transgression (1Ch_21:2). In face of warning (1Ch_21:3). Its desperate folly seen by others (1Ch_21:6). The deadening, hardening power of any lust.

3. Punishment (1Ch_21:10-12). As soon will the magnet escape the influence of the pole, the sea the influence of the moon, an atom the binding force of gravitation, as the sinner escape punishment. “Be sure thy sin.”

II. The progressive course of reconciliation with God.

1. The messenger. God’s afflictive stroke (1Ch_21:7). The prophet Gad (1Ch_21:9). Every person or circumstance that reproves is God’s messenger. “God smote.” “The Lord spake to Gad, Go, &c.”

2. Conviction (1Ch_21:8). The true convict always confesses, never excuses. Not only owns the sin, but acknowledges its greatness. Text. “It is I, &c.”

3. Penitence (1Ch_21:16). “Sackcloth,” emblem of deepest grief; “fell upon their faces;” evidence of profound humiliation and utter prostration before God.

4. Acceptance. Expressly permitted to worship (1Ch_21:18). Consciously and visibly accepted in worship (1Ch_21:26). Delivered from the dread visitation.

5. Grateful acknowledgment (1Ch_21:24). Would not offer costless worship. Would not offer cheap worship—“full price.” We are to be living sacrifices.

III. Underlying truths.

1. Though man be tempted, sin is his own act. Satan suggested, “provoked” David, yet the sin was David’s. He might have had resisting strength.

2. Our sins affect others. How many widows and orphans! How much anguish and unutterable misery through David’s sin! Any man’s sins are a widespread and far-reaching curse. Text. David sinned: “these sheep” were terribly smitten.

3. Though sin be pardoned, it leaves terrible scars behind. In David’s memory. Gaps in the families and homes of the people. Avoidance of sin infinitely better than pardon. Christ the great and only sin-healer. O Holy Ghost, draw, &c. [R. Berry].

THE ANGEL ARRESTED.—1Ch_21:15-17

The infliction of pestilence briefly noticed, without account of duration or ravages; but minute description of visible appearance and menacing attitude of the angel. Notice—

I. The errand of the angel. “to destroy it.” Even angels ready executioners of God’s judgments. Sodom and Jerusalem; destruction of firstborn in Egypt and of Sennacherib’s army. Unseen agents often sent within sphere of things seen, to impress the heart through the senses and convince of God’s ways. But Christ came not to destroy men’s lives, &c.

II. The destiny of the angel. Pestilence had swept the country, now surrounded the capital. The centre of glory and empire, seat of the palace and the ark apparently doomed! God strikes at our dearest objects to chastise our sins and bring us to himself.

III. The attitude of the angel. “A drawn sword in his hand.” Indicative of wrong and determination to punish it. Giving opportunity to intercede for the city. God ready to punish, yet waits to be gracious. This attitude warns, yet encourages.

IV. The command to the angel. “Enough.” God knows exactly how far to go, how much is required to bring us to submission. “Stay now thine hand.” Prayer has been offered and the design accomplished. “The Lord repented him of the evil,” changed his method of procedure and stayed the plague. In this very spot Abraham countermanded from slaying his son. For the sake of the great Sacrifice and Intercessor our lives are preserved from destruction.

THE ALTAR BUILT AND THE PLAGUE STAYED.—1Ch_21:14-26

Here a national calamity traceable to David’s sin, and that sin apparently of minor magnitude. But what evil in it? It was the result of pride and vainglory, to see the army he could raise, and to which he trusted instead of God. It was ingratitude for past deliverances, &c., hence the wrath of God kindled. David soon became conscious of guilt. A prophet sent to announce God’s will, and choice had to be made. Observe—

I. A fearful evil. The evil—

1. Was the plague. Some fearful disease, swiftly mortal; for in nine hours, at most, some think 70,000 died. How awful! and beyond the power of human skill to deliver. Sudden, terrible, fatal!

2. An angel was the messenger employed. Now ready to fulfil his commission in Jerusalem, but God stayed him.

3. David beheld the angel and interceded for the people. A beautiful instance of lofty, conscientious feeling. Generous and magnanimous.

II. The divine remedy. An altar must be built, sacrifice offered, &c.

1. Human guilt was acknowledged.

2. God was glorified. Both his justice and wrath in punishing, and his great mercy in staying his judgments.

3. No doubt the typical end of sacrifices would be realised. Looking on to the coming of the Lamb of God. For both sin, evil, and remedy may direct us to the great subject of atonement for a perishing world. Besides, this altar finely symbolizes the erection of houses for the worship of God. For, through the divine agency of gospel truth, by these the plague of the world is removed. Ignorance displaced by knowledge, profligacy by moral order, irreligion by godliness, unbelief and death by bestowment of salvation and eternal life.

III. A generous proposal. Altar to be erected at a given spot. Nothing in religion left to fancy. David states the case clearly to Ornan. Then came the proposal.

1. This offer was beyond what David stated. “I give thee oxen, &c.”

2. It was prompt, the result of generous and pious resolution.

3. It was pressed on David.

4. It was followed with prayer (2Sa_24:23). How pious and noble! A finer specimen of godly liberality never was exhibited—the act, the manner, the spirit, the prayer!

IV. A noble and self-sacrificing spirit. Ornan did well. David did better. Selfishness or formality would have accepted it. David desired the offering.

1. To be his own. The guilt had been his; so the repentance, so the fruit.

2. He valued his religion more than his wealth. So he paid full worth for the place. This act of David’s the opposite of two classes in our day—

(1) Those who wish others to pay for their religion;

(2) those who wish to have religion without cost. Learn—

1. The frailty of good men. David numbered the people.

2. The necessary results of sin—misery and ruin.

3. The only way of averting it. By repentance, coming to the one sacrifice on the only perpetual altar reared for the world’s guilt.

4. The fruit of a sanctified heart. Holy zeal and liberality in the cause of God [J. Burns, D.D.].

THE PROPITIATION.—1Ch_21:18-27

Taking the altar and sacrifice as means of propitiation to reconcile, to restore man to God, we have an illustration of the atonement of Christ in its design, method, and results.

I. The moral condition which it is designed to meet.

1. Outward difficulties. Offence committed and punishment due. God’s anger must be taken away; his justice displayed. Man cannot remove penalty, dissolve law, nor deliver himself. In the work of Christ claims of justice satisfied, obstacles to pardon removed, demands of moral government met. Jehovah “a just God and a Saviour.”

2. Inward feelings. Man’s guilt creates fear and distance. “I was afraid and I hid myself.” “He was afraid because of the sword.” God’s love in Christ represents him unrevengeful, near and ready to forgive. The Holy Spirit renews the disposition, enlightens the mind, and takes away fear. Thus distance is destroyed, guilt overcome, and God and man reconciled.

II. The provision made for this condition. With the distinct understanding that we simply glance at one aspect of this profound subject, we assert that to make atonement for sin required great cost. Not “by the blood of goats and calves,” not “by gold and silver” are we redeemed, but by the precious blood of Christ. Christ himself was the sacrifice. Scripture and history rich in examples of benevolence and self-sacrifice; none like this. The gift of God’s beloved Son more costly than worlds upon worlds; inestimable, incomprehensive. “Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift.”

III. The results which it accomplished.

1. Danger warded off. When David repented of sin, God repented of judgment; plague arrested; destroying angel commanded to stay his hand (1Ch_21:15) and sheath his sword (1Ch_21:27).

2. Sacrifices accepted. “God answered from heaven by fire” (1Ch_21:26), to signify that anger was turned away and God propitious. “So the Lord was entreated for the land, and the plague was stayed from Israel.” This typical of the sinner’s reconciliation and acceptance with God through Christ. “He (himself) is the propitiation (propitiatory sacrifice) for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world” (1Jn_2:2).

THE COST AND SELF-SACRIFICE OF RELIGION.—1Ch_21:22-26

Sacrifice was to be presented; specific directions were given. David promptly obeyed. A generous scene of altercation takes place. A pious and self-sacrificing decision expressed by David. Acceptable religion is a religion of self-sacrifice—a religion of cost; and the cost must be personally paid. In illustration of this, contemplate the subject.

I. In reference to the spiritual expansion of the intellectual powers. Theology, the divine science of religion, one of boundless extent. The greatness, number, variety, and importance of the subjects. God—his works, his government, his will. The Lord Jesus Christ—the gospel, eternal life. To understand there must be reading, study, reflection. A course of divine training—religious education. We may be Christians without much knowledge, but our honour, glory, felicity, to abound in knowledge. The cost must be paid, in the attainment. The astronomer pays it, the man of literature, so the Christian.

II. Apply the subject to the spiritual cultivation of the moral nature. The soul before conversion like a barren heath, or desert, arid, &c. It must be cultivated, ploughed, sown, tilled. Much labour needful. Evil habits to be abandoned. Holy habits to be formed. Virtues to be grafted in; graces to be cherished. Hence duties, toils, and spiritual efforts necessary. Hence the exhortations, “Be diligent, &c.,” “Work out your salvation, &c.” Apply the subject—

III. To the influence of self-denial in adorning the Christian profession. Self-denial not the abandonment of sin, &c., but surrendering even of what might be lawfully retained. Hence the case of eating flesh, &c., as given by the apostle (Rom_14:1). Now our habits, costume, conversation, spirit, must all be sacrificed, if God’s glory and the good of others demand it. Our will sacrificed that God’s may be done. Apply the subject—

IV. To the importance of usefulness in the cause of the Lord Jesus Christ. This one great end of conversion. “I will bless thee and make thee a blessing, &c.” First, the heart must be given to Christ; then life, talents, influence, time, wealth. If we will be useful, the cost must be paid; the law of self-sacrifice must rule us; ease, sordidness, &c., must be cast off. “Brethren, I beseech you, by the mercies of God, &c.” These cases illustrate the subject. But I give additional thoughts. Not only must the cost be paid, but paid

(1) In the right spirit. Not the spirit of ostentation for display; of self-righteousness for merit; of backwardness and grudgingly; but in humble, cheerful love to Christ. Felt to be a privilege as well as a duty. Need no force nor threatening. Not the whip, but the curb. As David in the text. “Freely we have received, &c.” In the language of the poet—

“Had I a thousand hearts to give,

Lord, they should all be thine.”

(2) Observe, this cost paid in religion, is not equal to the demands of sin. Look at the sacrifice, the worldly, the proud, the sensual make. What money! what time! what energies! What peace! The way of transgressors is hard, and the end ruin.

(3) To pay this cost in the service of Christ, grace is both necessary and provided. “Without Me ye can do nothing.” “My grace is sufficient, &c.” Grace must inspire the desire, purpose, and motive—give the ability and elasticity. The grace of God is provided abundantly. It was found so by Abraham, Moses, David, Daniel, Paul. Our subject, then, should—

1. Lead to examination. What has religion done for us? What have we done for it? What has it cost us? Have you the inward sense of God’s full favour? Have you the testimony that you please God?

2. It condemns two classes of persons. Those who wish others to pay for their religion, and those who wish to have a costless religion. Not so David. Forget not—

3. That true religion is its own present reward. Peace, hope, and joy, now; hereafter, the glories of a blissful eternity. Let the spirit of the text ever dwell in you.

4. Address the sinner. Who is indifferent to religion altogether. “Godliness is profitable unto all things, &c.” [J. Burns, D.D.].

HOMILETIC HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS

1Ch_21:14-17. I. Judgments following sin. This a necessary, natural, and certain sequence. II. Judgments mixed with mercy.

1. Shortened in duration.

2. Ending in correction. “Mercy rejoices over judgment.

(1) The penitent man casts himself into the arms of God’s mercy;

(2) Mercy falls into the arms of justice, in order to stay its blows; punitive justice must yield to mercy at the command of the Lord. ‘It is enough: stay now thy hand’ ” [Lange].

1Ch_21:16 to 1Ch_20:1. David’s ready obedience.

2. David’s willingness to suffer alone.

3. David’s intercession for the people. “Most people, when judgments are abroad, charge others with being the cause of them, so they can escape; but David’s penitent and public spirit was otherwise affected. As became a penitent he is severe upon his own faults, while he extenuates those of the people and intercedes? for them.”

1Ch_21:24. Full price. Apply to ministers and Sunday-school teachers in preparation for pulpit and class.

1Ch_21:22-27. I. The altar purchased.

(1) By divine instructions. Concerning place, person, and purpose.

(2) By honourable transaction. In spirit of courtesy, generosity, and self-sacrifice. II. The altar accepted. Acceptance by fire, and hallowed by tokens of God’s presence. III. The altar perpetuated. Partly to meet David’s fears, also to fulfil God’s purpose. Reverence for Divine Being led him to stay at the place, to make additional offerings and seek favour by earnest prayer. God was gracious, approved and sanctioned. Mount Moriah became a place of lawful and continual sacrifice. “Rear an altar unto the Lord!

(1) In obedience to the Lord’s command;

(2) With dedication of thyself, and what is thine, to the Lord’s honour;

(3) For the continual preservation of spiritual offerings, which are acceptable to the Lord; and

(4) For the reception of the highest gift of grace, peace with the propitiated God” [Lange]. 1Ch_21:1.

1. David’s sin.

2. David’s self-reproach, penitence, and confession.

3. David’s punishment.

4. David’s supplication and expiatory offering.

5. David’s forgiveness and restoration. How God meets the presumptuouness of his favoured ones.

(1) He comes upon them with the edge of the sword;

(2) His sword is not to kill, but to loose the chains of pride

(3) Where the sword of the Lord has done its work, there he builds his temple of peace [J. Disselhoff].

ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 21

1Ch_21:2. The number. This attempt to take the census was not unnaturally suggested by the increase of his power, but it implied a confidence and pride akin to the spirit inculcated on the kings of the chosen people [Dean Stanley].

1Ch_21:4. King’s word prevailed. Wisdom is gotten by hearkening to good counsel, for none are born so naturally (Job_11:12). “Many had proved wise if they had not thought themselves so” [Bp. Hall]. There cannot be a more worthy improvement of friendship than in a fervent opposition to the sins of those we love [Ibid.].

1Ch_21:9-15. Punishment. He that would be safe from the acts of evil must wisely avoid the occasions [Bp. Hall]. How hard a master he serves where the devil gives the employment, and shame is his entertainment, and sin is his work, and hell is his wages [Bp. J. Taylor]. “Sinners labour in the very fire.”

1Ch_21:7. God was displeased.

“But Providence will intervene

To throw His dark displeasure o’er the scene” [Cowper].

1Ch_21:17. Plagued. The great design, both in judgment and mercies, is to convince us that there is none like the Lord our God; none so wise, so mighty, so good; no enemy so formidable, no friend so desirable, so valuable [Mt. Henry]. O God, I have made an ill use of thy mercies, if I have not learnt to be content with thy corrections [Bp. Hall]. How sweetly doth God dispose of all second causes, that while they do their own will they do his [Ibid.].

1Ch_21:24-27. Full price. A bargain is sometimes as unmerciful as a robbery [Nicholls]. Kindness will dictate much in carrying on business which law cannot take cognizance of. It will preserve from the wretched practice of exclusive dealing, of punishing a man for his religion or politics by withholding custom; of making commerce the instrument of bigotry and exclusiveness, a practice which all condemn when they suffer from it, and all approve when they are advantaged by it. It will teach us to give a tender consideration to the cases of others, to treat inferiors with courtesy and gentleness, to pay respect to those whose circumstances make them apt to suspect unkindness, not to make a vigorous exaction of mere rights, to allow for unavoidable causes, and by studious care smooth the path of honest poverty [A. J. Morris].

The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.

κ. The Census and the Plague: 1 Chronicles 21

1Ch_21:1.And Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel. 2And David said unto Joab, and to the rulers of the people, Go, number Israel from Beersheba even to Dan; and bring it to me, that I may 3know their number. And Joab said, The Lord add to His people an hundredfold as many as they are. Are they not, my lord the king, all my lord’s servants? Why doth my lord require this thing? Why shall it be a trespass 4to Israel? But the word of the king prevailed against Joab; and Joab de parted, and went through all Israel, and came to Jerusalem. 5And Joab gave the sum of the number of the people unto David; and all Israel were a thousand thousand and a hundred thousand men that drew sword; and Judah was four hundred and seventy thousand men that drew sword. 6But Levi and Benjamin he counted not among them; for the king’s word was abominable to Joab.

7And God was displeased with this thing; and He smote Israel. 8And David said unto God, I have sinned greatly, because I have done this thing: but now take away the iniquity of Thy servant; for I have done very foolishly. 9And the Lord spake unto Gad, David’s seer, saying, 10Go and tell David, saying, Thus saith the Lord, Three things I lay before thee; choose thee one 11of them, that I may do it unto thee. And Gad came to David, and said unto 12him, Thus saith the Lord, Choose thee either three years of famine; or three months to be driven1 before thy foes, and the sword of thy enemies to overtake thee; or three days the sword of the Lord and pestilence in the land, that the angel of the Lord may destroy in all the border of Israel; and now consider what word I shall return to Him that sent me. 13 And David said unto Gad, I am in a great strait: let me now fall into the hand of the Lord; for very great are His mercies: but let me not fall into the hand of man.

14And the Lord sent pestilence upon Israel; and there fell of Israel seventy thousand men. 15And God sent an angel to Jerusalem to destroy it; and as he was destroying, the Lord beheld, and repented of the evil, and said to the destroying angel, It is enough now, stay thy hand: and the angel of the Lord stood by the floor of Ornan2 the Jebusite. 16And David lifted up his eyes, and saw the angel of the Lord standing between the earth and the heaven, having a drawn sword in his hand stretched over Jerusalem; and David and the elders, clothed in sackcloth, fell on their faces. 17And David said unto God, Have not I commanded to number the people? it is I that have sinned, and done evil indeed; and these sheep, what have they done O Lord my God, let Thy hand now be on me and on my father’s house, and not on Thy people to smite.

18And the angel of the Lord commanded Gad to say unto David, that David should go up and set up an altar unto the Lord in the floor of Ornan the Jebusite. 19And David went up at the word of Gad, which he spake in the name of the Lord. 20And Ornan turned, and saw the angel; and his four 21sons with him hid themselves: and ornan was threshing wheat. And David went to ornan; and ornan looked, and saw David, and came out of the floor, 22and bowed to David with his face to the ground. And David said unto ornan, Give me the place of this floor, that I may build therein an altar unto the Lord: thou shalt give it me for the full price, that the plague be stayed from the people. 23And ornan said unto David, Take thee, and let my lord the king do that which is good in his eyes: lo, I give thee the oxen for burnt-offerings, and the threshing-rollers for wood, and the wheat for the meat-offering: I give all. 24And King David said unto ornan, Nay; but I will verily buy it for the full price; for I will not take that which is thine for the 25Lord, nor offer burnt-offerings without cost. And David gave to ornan for the place six hundred shekels of gold by weight. 26And David built there an altar unto the Lord, and offered burnt-offerings and peace-offerings; and he called upon the Lord, and He answered him by fire from heaven on the 27altar of burnt-offering. And the Lord commanded the angel; and he put his sword again into its sheath.

28At that time, when David saw that the Lord had answered him in the floor of ornan the Jebusite, he sacrificed there. 29For the tabernacle of the Lord, which Moses made in the wilderness, and the altar of burnt-offering, were at 30that time in the high place at Gibeon. And David could not go before it to inquire of God; for he was afraid before the sword of the angel of the Lord.

EXEGETICAL

Preliminary Remark. Relation of the Foregoing Account of Chronicles to 2 Samuel 24.—As clearly as the mostly verbal agreement of our account with the parallel text of Samuel points to one common source of both, so numerous and important are also their deviations from one another. They chiefly consist of the following:—a. The position of the history of the census in 2 Samuel is that of an appendix to the history of David’s reign already in the main completed. In our book, on the contrary, it closes only that section of the history of this king which refers to the external security and enlargement of his power by wars, buildings, etc.; but it thereby leads (in connection with the following description of his preparation for the building of the temple, 22.) to a new section, that by means of full details of his temple, state and war officers, is fitted to present a picture of the inner character of his government, b. The event is so introduced in 2 Samuel, that reference is made to a former plague, a famine (2Sa_21:1-14) which God had brought on the kingdom, so that David’s pernicious project of a census is represented as the direct effect of the divine anger (“And again the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel; and He moved David, etc.”), but, in our account, so that the whole is referred to a tempting influence of Satan on David, and connected neither with that famine nor any former visitation of Israel under David (not, for example, with the insurrections of Absalom and Shebna, which, like the famine, are entirely unnoticed by our author). For the question, whether the representation of Satan as the moral originator of the census rests on the influence of the religious ideas of a later time, see on 1Ch_21:1. c. The census executed by Joab at the command of David is described pretty fully in 2Sa_24:4-9, but only summarily in our chapter, with the chief emphasis on the numerical result, and the notice of a special circumstance unmentioned in 2 Samuel, namely, that Joab, because the royal commission was repugnant to him, neglected to enumerate the tribes of Levi and Benjamin (1Ch_21:4-6). d. On the purchase of ornan’s (or, as the Keri is in 2 Samuel, Araunah’s) floor and the sacrifice by David, our text (1Ch_21:19-27) is more full than 2Sa_24:19-25. e. The statement, forming the close of our account and its connection with what follows, regarding the selection of the floor of ornan for the constant place of sacrifice by David (and for the site of the temple), in 1Ch_21:28-30, is wholly wanting in 2 Samuel 24, as, indeed, an express reference to the fact that that place attained a special sacredness under David by the angelic appearance and the sacrifice during the plague is absent there, while the whole occurrence is presented under the prevailing view of such a judicial punishment as the rebellions of Absalom and Shebna, and the famine already reported there, but by our author entirely omitted. That the most of these deviations are occasioned by the peculiar pragmatism and the special tendency of the author of the books of Samuel on the one hand and of the Chronist on the other, is already apparent from this brief survey, and will receive further confirmation from the following exposition.

1. The Census, its Occasion and Effect: 1Ch_21:1-6.—And Satan stood up against Israel. That, instead of the divine anger, here Satan, the personal evil principle (see on Job_1:6; Job_2:1), is named as the hostile power that occasioned the pernicious expedient of the census, is now usually explained (even by Keil) as a later idea of the Israelites, and accordingly reckoned among the proofs that our book was composed after the exile. That this view is at least hasty, if it does not involve an error, is plain when we reflect—1. That the way in which the prologue of the book of Job presupposes the idea of Satan, as long naturalized in the belief of Israel, speaks for the origin of this idea, not only before the exile, but before the time of Solomon; 2. That passages such as Gen_3:1 ff. and 1Ki_22:19 ff., though the name שׂטן does not occur in them, show that the materials of this idea arose from that early time; and 3. That to the parallel passage 2 Samuel 24, though not using the name, the notion of an intervention of Satan in the temptation of David is by no means foreign; indeed, even a positive hint of this is implied in it. ew. and Wellh. justly assume that in the verb used, 2Sa_24:1, ויסת, “provoked,” lies an allusion to a personal tempting power, which cannot be God or the divine anger;3 that, indeed, according to the original, now mutilated, text of Samuel, probably הַשָּׂטָן was the subject of ויסת.—And provoked David to number Israel. The injury of the census, indicated by this expression, rests on this, that such an undertaking in and of itself counted as an act exciting the anger of God, and therefore demanding propitiation (comp. the expiatory customs in the enumerations of the Romans, according to Valerius, Maximus, Varro, and Livius, as also that census instituted by Moses, Exo_30:11-16., which did not provoke God, only because the money collected by it as a gift to the tabernacle had a holy purpose, and therefore an expiating significance in itself). But a special wrong and blame was attached to the census of David, because it was a work of proud boastfulness and wicked haughtiness, not valuing, but over-valuing, his own power and greatness (comp. Joab’s warning, 1Ch_21:3). The measure can scarcely be regarded as an expression of despotic wilfulness and tyrannic oppression of the people, or as a preparation for the imposition of an oppressive war tax or other tribute (Berth., etc.), or even as expressive of a lust for warlike conquest in the king (J. D. Mich.; comp. Kurtz in Herzog’s Real-Encyl. iii. 306); at least the text in nowise indicates that blame was attached to it on any of these grounds.

1Ch_21:2. Go, number Israel from Beersheba even to Dan, the usual formula to designate the land of Israel in all its length; comp. Jdg_20:1; 1Sa_3:20; 1Ki_4:25, etc. The plain customary phrases: “Go, number” (לְכוּ סִפְרוּ), are simplifying and explanatory for those selected in 2 Samuel: שׁוּט־נָא (specially addressed to Joab) and פִּקְדוּ (including the assistants of Joab in the enumeration, the captains or commanders of the army).—And bring it to me, that I may know their number, the number of the Israelites.

1Ch_21:3. Joab’s Warning.—The Lord add to His people a hundredfold as many as they are. In 2 Samuel stands, in accordance with the preference of this author for repetitions of the same phrase (comp. 1Sa_12:8), a double כָּהֶם, “so many as they are, so many as they are, a hundredfold,” or more briefly: “so and so many as they are a hundredfold.” For the present simpler expression, comp. Deu_1:11.—Are they not all . . . my lord’s servants? Does any one doubt that this great multitude of people is subject to thee? Will any one check thy joy in the greatness and power of thy kingdom? This question is wanting in the often deviating text of Samuel, in place of which are the words: “that the eyes of my lord the king may see it” (the hundredfold increase of the people).—Why shall it be a trespass to Israel?—a trespass (אַשְׁמָה) that brings divine punishment on the people instead of thee, the king, who art guilty of this wicked haughtiness.

1Ch_21:4. But the word of the king prevailed against Joab, literally, “was strong above Joab” (which form חזק על is perhaps to be restored in 2 Samuel in place of the present ח׳ אֶל), overcame his resistance (Luth.: “succeeded against Joab”); comp. 2Ch_8:3; 2Ch_27:5.

1Ch_21:5. And all Israel were a thousand thousand and a hundred thousand men that drew sword, literally, “that bare the sword;” comp. Jdg_8:10; Jdg_20:2; Jdg_20:15; Jdg_20:17; Jdg_20:46, etc. The number 1,100,000, compared with the 800,000 menatarms in 2Sa_24:9, involves an actual deviation, which either depends on an ancient variety in the traditions concerning the numerical result of the census, or what is more probable, must be derived from a confusion of the numbers; comp. the cases of this kind cited in the Introd. § 6, No. 5. The difference in the number of the Jewish men-at-arms is smaller, in which the 500,000 in 2 Samuel is merely a round number, for the more exact one, 470,000, contained in our text. Moreover, differences in the later traditions might the more easily arise in this Davidic census, because it was merely oral, as, according to 1Ch_27:24, the result was not entered in the annals of the kingdom. The general correctness of the account, that Israel then numbered about a million, and Judah about half a million warriors, is warranted by the communications of the author, which attest even for much later times the extraordinary density of the population in the formerly so fruitful land of promise. And that the actual army of David, 1Ch_27:1 ff., amounted only to 288,000 men, by no means contradicts the present statement relative to the total number of men fit to bear arms; comp. our remark on 1Ch_4:18.

1Ch_21:6. But Levi and Benjamin he counted not among them; for the king’s word was abominable to Joab; on account of the reluctance with which he obeyed the command of the king, the numbering was not quite completed: it was stopped, perhaps at the king’s command, before Benjamin, the last of the tribes to be numbered, was taken in hand; comp. the more exact statements in 2Sa_24:5 ff. concerning the order pursued by the commission under Joab, that, starting from the southern tribes east of Jordan, went round over the north of the land to the south of Judah, and thence arrived at Jerusalem. As no time remained for the numbering of Benjamin (comp. 1Ch_27:23 f.—the express statement that the numbering was not completed; also Josephus, Antiq.vii 13. 1 Chronicles 1 : χωρὶς τῆς βενιαμίτιδος φυλῆς. ἐξαριθμῆσαι γὰρ αὐτὴν οὐκ ἔφθασεν) so the tribe of Levi was omitted on account of its legal exemption from numerations for political or military objects (comp. Num_1:47-54). In the present statement, therefore, there is nothing incredible; and neither its absence in 2 Samuel, nor the circumstance that the Chronist, instead of the unfinished state of the census, puts forward in his subjective pragmatism the reluctance of Joab as the cause of the omission of those tribes, justifies the suspicions entertained by de Wette and Gramberg against it. Comp. Keil, Apologet. Versuch, p. 349 ff.

2. The Divine Displeasure with the Numbering of the People by the Voice of the Seer Gad: 1Ch_21:7-13.—And God was displeased with this thing, literally, “and it was evil (וַיֵּרַע) in God’s eyes for this thing:” the same construction appears in Gen_21:22; usually without עַל before the displeasing object, Gen_38:10; 2Sa_11:27, etc.—And He smote Israel. This is not so much an anticipation of that which is narrated 1Ch_21:14 ff., as a generalizing description of the mode in which God’s anger took effect on Israel. It does not appear that the words are to be amended (Berth.), according to 2Sa_24:10 : וַיַּךְ לֶב־דָּוִד אֹתוֹ, “and the heart of David smote him.” We have here simply two modes of narrative, one of which regards more the human thought and deed, the other more the divine.

1Ch_21:10. Three things I lay before thee, concerning thee, with thee, laying the choice before thee. Wellh. justly declares, not the strange נטל of Samuel, but our נטה to be original (against Berth.).

1Ch_21:12. Either three years of famine. This time is certainly the original, not the seven years of the text in Samuel, which has arisen by the easy change of the letters (שׁבע for שׁלשׁ), and finds its emendation in the Sept.—Or three months to be driven before thy foes. What is here original, whether נִסְפֶּה of our text (nom. particip. Niph.: “to perish, be swept away”) or נֻסְךָ in 2 Samuel, must remain doubtful. On the contrary, the following וחרב אויביךָ למשׂגת “and the sword of thy foes to overtake” (=so that the sword of thy foes overtake thee), is certainly to be preferred to the reading וְהוּא רֹדְפֶךָ in 2 Samuel.—That the angel of the Lord destroy in all the border of Israel. This enforcing addition to the third question is wanting in 2 Samuel, but must be no less original than that parallel addition to the second question. And the hendiadyoin: “the sword of the Lord and pestilence,” for the simple pestilence (דֶּבֶר) in 2 Samuel, can scarcely be regarded as an arbitrary addition of the Chronist. Comp., moreover, with respect to the triad of divine judgments—famine, sword, and pestilence—the parallels, Lev_26:25 f.; 1Ki_8:37; 2Ch_20:9; Jer_14:12 ff; Jer_21:7-9; Jer_24:10; Jer_27:8; Jer_27:13; Jer_29:17 f., Jer_32:24-36, Jer_34:17, Jer_38:2, Jer_42:17; Jer_42:22, Jer_44:13; Eze_5:12; Eze_6:11 f., 1Ch_7:15, 1Ch_12:16; also Eze_21:19, where this woful triad is indicated by the figure of three swords; likewise Eze_5:17; Eze_14:13-19, Rev_6:8, where the triad is extended to a quatrain by the addition of beasts of prey (comp. still other appropriate parallels in my Theol. naturalis, i. p. 637).

3. The Judgment, and David’s Repentant Entreaty for its Removal: 1Ch_21:14-17.—And the Lord sent pestilence upon Israel. That this pestilence continued “from the morning even to the time appointed” is stated in the precise account in 2 Samuel; likewise that it affected all the people “from Dan even to Beersheba.” Wellh. (p. 220) defends, perhaps not unjustly, the extended form of our first verse-member, which the Sept. presents, as original: “And David chose the pestilence; and when the days of wheat harvest came (comp. 1Ch_21:20), the plague began among the people.”

1Ch_21:15. And God sent an angel to Jerusalem. The מַלְאָךְ without the article, “an angel,” is strange, as the angel in question, 1Ch_21:12, was named before. Berth. gives the preference to the text 2Sa_24:16 : “And the angel stretched out his hand to Jerusalem,” whereas Movers (p. 91) defends our text as original. Perhaps neither text now contains exactly and fully the original, whether we amend, with Keil: “And the angel of God stretched out his hand toward Jerusalem,” or declare the restoration of the original now impossible (with Wellh.).—And as he was destroying, the Lord beheld, and repented of the evil; that is, as soon as the angel had begun to destroy, Jehovah considered, and repented that He had decreed the heavy stroke. On this repentance of God, comp. Gen_6:16; Exo_32:14; Jer_42:10; Jon_3:10; Psa_106:23.—It is enough now, stay thy hand. Notwithstanding the acc. distinct. over רַב, this word is to be connected with the following עַתָּה, and taken in the sense of “enough” (sufficit); comp. Deu_1:6; 1Ki_19:4. Against Berth., who in 2Sa_24:16 connects רב with בָּעָם, and regards this “a great mass of people” as the original reading, see not only Keil, but also Wellh.—And the angel of the Lord stood by the floor of ornan the Jebusite. That this ornan (or Araunah, as the Keri writes his name in 2 Samuel; comp. Crit. Note here) had been king of the Jebusites cannot be inferred from 2Sa_24:23, as the word המלךְ there is either to be erased, with Then., or (with Böttcher and Wellh.) to be referred by emendation to David (there addressed by Araunah). That the floor of ornan was on Mount Moriah, the subsequent site of the temple, north-east of Zion, is stated in the sequel; see 1Ch_21:28 ff.

1Ch_21:16. And David . . . saw the angel of the Lord standing between the earth and the heavens. This whole verse, as also 1Ch_21:20, with the statement of the hiding of ornan and his four sons before the angel, and 1Ch_21:26, with the mention of the fire coming down from God on David’s offering, are wanting in the shorter and simpler account in 2 Samuel. These may be called embellishments of tradition, but they are not to be regarded as inventions of our historian (against Berth., etc.).—And David and the elders . . .fell on their faces. The mention of the elders is wanting in 2 Samuel, but is not the least strange, as it was a solemn act of expiation and penitence on behalf of the whole nation. Comp. also the mention, 2Sa_24:20, of the retinue of servants accompanying the king when he went to ornan.

1Ch_21:17. Have not I commanded to number the people? In 2 Samuel the prayer of David is much briefer. But for this very reason the attempt of Bertheau to show that our text here and in the sequel arises from the effort to explain and improve the other text is altogether unjustified. Neither are the present words הלא אני אמרתי למנות בעם corrupted from those in Samuel: בראתו את־המלאך המכה בעם, nor is וְהָרֵעַ הֲרֵעוֹתִי to be changed into a supposed originalוְאָנֹכִי הָרֹעֶה הֲרֵעוֹתִי, “and I, the shepherd, have done wrong;” for the question: “but these sheep, what have they done?” is easily understood without the previous mention of the shepherd; comp. Psa_95:7, c. 3, etc.

4. The Purchase of Ornan’s Floor, and the Offering of the Burnt-Sacrifice there: 1Ch_21:18-27.

1Ch_21:20. And ornan turned. So וַיָּשָׁב is certainly to be translated (comp. 2Ki_20:5; Isa_38:5; and such New Testament passages as Luk_22:61, etc.), not “returned,” as Bertheau does against the context, at the same time defending the conjecture that וישב is corrupted from וַיַּשְׁקֵף.—And ornan was threshing wheat, a clause wanting in 2 Samuel, but certainly original, which is confirmed by the notice of the Sept. already mentioned on 1Ch_21:15 concerning the wheat harvest as the time when the pestilence began.

1Ch_21:22. Give me the place of this floor. So it is to be translated, not as in Luther: “Give me space in this floor.” The whole floor was necessary for the king’s object; it is also all bought by him. The history of this purchase recalls in general the similar incident in the life of Abraham, Genesis 23, but does not necessitate the assumption that the recollection of Gen_23:9 affected the forms of the text, nor in particular that the twofold בכסף מלא was taken thence.

1Ch_21:23. Lo, I give the oxen for burnt-offerings. Along with וְהַמּוֹרִיגִים stands also 2 Samuel: וכלי הבקר, “and the harness of the oxen,” their wooden yokes, a certainly original phrase, that has only fallen out of our text by a mistake. The other text also requires the mention of “the wheat for the meat offering,” which can be no late addition.

1Ch_21:24. Nor offer burnt-offerings without cost, that is, without having paid the full price for them. The infin. וְהַֽעֲלוֹת after the finite verb as a continuation is not surprising; comp. Ew. § 351, c. Here also Bertheau’s emendations are superfluous.

1Ch_21:25. And David gave to ornan for the place six hundred shekels of gold by weight. Otherwise 2Sa_24:24, where David purchases the floor with the oxen for fifty shekels of silver. The one of these two contradictory statements is certainly corrupt, and more probably that in 2 Samuel, as fifty shekels of silver is too low a price; comp. Abraham’s 400 shekels of silver for the cave of Machpelah, Gen_23:15. The sum of 600 shekels of gold appears, indeed, too high; but an over-payment corresponds better with the crisis than a much smaller price, which might have been interpreted as an act of mean covetousness. That the Chronist has “intentionally exaggerated” (Then.) is a conjecture as little to be justified as the different harmonizing attempts of the ancients; for example, that each of the twelve tribes must have given fifty shekels, whereby the 600 shekels mentioned by the Chronist were raised (Raschi), or that the 600 shekels are to be reckoned as silver, but to be paid in gold, and with fifty pieces of gold, of which each was = twelve silver shekels (Noldius, ad concord. Part. not. 719), etc.

1Ch_21:26. And David . . . offered burnt-offerings and peace-offerings. After the sentence corresponding to these words in 2Sa_24:25 is found in the Sept. an addition that anticipates in brief the contents of 1Ch_22:1-6.—And he called upon the Lord, and He answered him by fire (or heard him with fire) from heaven on the altar of burnt-offering. For these words, to be understood according to Lev_9:24, 1Ki_18:24; 1Ki_18:38, 2Ki_1:12, and 2Ch_7:1, 2 Samuel has simply: “and the Lord was entreated for the land” (comp. on 1Ch_21:16); likewise for our 1Ch_21:27, with its mention of the angel’s sword returned into its sheath, the plainer and less poetical: “and the plague was stayed from Israel.”

5. David’s repeated Offering on the Floor of ornan, with the Reason: 1Ch_21:28-30.—At that time . . . he sacrificed there; that is, repeatedly, frequently; Luther rightly: “was wont to offer there.” Only this sense of ויזבס שׁם agrees with the sequel, especially with 1Ch_22:1.

1Ch_21:29-30 explain this selection of ornan’s floor for the regular place of sacrifice for the king more precisely, by referring to the older sanctuary at Gibeon, and to the apparent neglect of it; comp. on 1Ch_15:1; 1Ch_16:39 f.—And David could not go before it, the tabernacle at Gibeon, and the altar there; comp. for לִפְנֵי in this connection, 1Ch_16:4; 1Ch_16:37; 1Ch_16:39.—For he was afraid before the sword of the angel of the Lord; the appearance of the angel, with its desolating effects, had left in his mind an awfully strong impression of the holiness of the place, so that he did not venture to sacrifice in any other place. This interpretation only (comp. Berth.) suits the fact and the context, not that of various recent expositors, who wish to extract strange motives out of the words; for example, J. H. Mich. “quia ex terrore visionis angelicœ: infirmitatem corporis contraxerat,” or O. v. Gerlach: “because Gibeon was too far away,” or Keil: “because Gibeon, notwithstanding the sanctuary existing there with the Mosaic altar, was not spared by the plague,” etc.

Comp., moreover, for the various details of the present account, the evangelical and ethical reflections at the close of the exposition of this book.

Footnotes:

[1]According to the parallel text 2Sa_24:13 (נֻסְךָ for נִסְפֶּה), rather “flight.” So the Sept., Vulg., and Luther.

[2] אָרְנָן the Sept. renders here and in the whole chapter by ’Ορνά, as it conforms to אוֹרְנָה, the Kethib in 2Sa_24:16 (for which elsewhere there the Keri אֲרַוְנה always stands). Our text has throughout invariably אָרְנָן, which the Vulg. gives rightly Ornan, Luther wrongly “Arnan.”

[3]Comp. Volck, De summa carminis Jobi sententia, p. 33 sqq.: Hoc si tenes, Deum non sine causa populo suo atque ejus reui, suoerhienti illi quidem, succensuisse, Satanumque eumesse, qui, ut homines peopter delicta apud Deum accuest eorum pœnas repetiturus, ita hoc efficiat, ut peccati pullulantis vis erumpat: difficultatem ita expedies, ut Davidem, quia Deus iratus pravitatis pœnam irrogare voluerit ad infelix illud consilium adductum fuisse dicas diaboli divinæ voluntati inservientis impulsu, etc.—Comp. also Hofmann, Schriftbew, ii. p. 437 ff., and Schlottmann, Das Buch Hiob, p. 38 ff.

Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

10. The Numbering of the People and the Punishment

CHAPTER 21

1. David’s failure in numbering the people (1Ch 21:1-7)

2. David’s confession and the message of God (1Ch 21:8-12)

3. David’s answer and the punishment (1Ch 21:13-17)

4. The altar in the threshing floor of Ornan (1Ch 21:18-30)

On the alleged discrepancy between the statement in 2Sa 24:1 “And again the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel, and He moved (literal: He suffered him to be moved) David against them to say, Go, number Israel and Judah,” and 1Ch 21:1 “And Satan stood up against Israel and provoked David to number Israel”; see annotations on 2 Sam. 24. Israel had committed some sin and deserved punishment. This is clear from the statement in 2Sa 24:1. The direct cause of the visitation, however, was David’s pride, and may have been connected with the desire of constituting his kingdom as a great military power. He wanted to know the strength of the nation and glory in it, and the king forgot that the Lord had increased Israel and all he was and had was of God. What a difference between David here and David sitting in the presence of the Lord after hearing Nathan’s message! (17:16). Nothing humbles so as being in the presence of the Lord. The lust of the flesh in self-indulgence had led to his awful sin with Bathsheba, and now the lust of the eyes and the pride of life had entangled him. Satan stood behind it all and the sin committed, pride and self-exaltation, was according to Satan’s character. Then David confessed (verse 8) and the Lord sent the prophet Gad to him announcing the modes of punishment from which he was to make his choice. The recovery of David, his real knowledge of God and the working of His grace in his heart are manifested by the fact that he committed himself to God, choosing rather to fall into the hands of God than into the hands of his enemies. The Lord sent the pestilence. David saw the angel of the Lord. Then David and the elders clothed in sack cloth were on their faces. At the sight of the angel with his drawn sword stretched over Jerusalem, David confessed again, but his prayer becomes an intercession; he takes the sin upon himself and prays “let Thine hand, be on me, and on my father’s house; but not on Thy people that they should be plagued.” This prayer was speedily followed by mercy. The site of the future house of the Lord was then acquired. (See comment on 2 Sam. 24.) Ornan and his four sons had also seen the angel and they were afraid (verse 20). And the Jebusite was willing to give the threshing-floor and all within it. And when the site had been acquired by purchase and the altar was built, burnt-offerings and peace-offerings were brought. Heaven answered by fire. “And the LORD commanded the angel; and he put up his sword again into the sheath thereof.” All is blessedly typical of Him who is the true burnt-offering, as well as the peace-offering.

It is interesting to see the order unfolded here in the establishment of the sovereign grace: first of all, the heart of God and His sovereign grace in election, suspending the execution of the deserved and pronounced judgment (verse 15); next, the revelation of this judgment, a revelation which produces humiliation before God and a full confession of sin before His face. David, and the elders of Israel, clothed in sackcloth, fall upon their faces, and David presents himself as the guilty one. Then, instruction comes from God, as to that which must be done to cause the pestilence judicially and definitively to cease, namely, the sacrifice in Ornan’s threshing-floor. God accepts the sacrifice, sending fire to consume it, and then He commands the angel to sheathe his sword. And sovereign grace, thus carried out in righteousness through sacrifice, becomes the means of Israel’s approach to their God, and establishes the place of their access to Him.

Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

21:1–22:1 This account of the census closely parallels 2 Sam 24:1-25 but has an entirely different focus. The Chronicler’s account provides the context for the dedication of the altar and the preparations for building the Temple (1 Chr 22).

21:1 Satan (or the adversary) motivated David to take a census of his military forces (cp. 2 Sam 24:1). The Chronicler seems to interpret the narrative of Samuel in light of his theology of Satan as the adversary of God and humanity. As God allows Satan to work in the world, Satan unwittingly fulfills God’s purposes (cp. 2 Chr 18:3-34; Job 1:6–2:7; Zech 3:1-2; Matt 4:1-11; John 13:27; 1 Cor 5:5; 2 Cor 12:7; 1 Tim 1:20; Rev 20:3, 7-9).

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

He tempted David, in setting before his eyes his excellency and glory, his power and victories, read 2 Sam. 24:1.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

CHAPTER XXI

David is tempted by Satan to take the numbers of the people of

Israel and Judah, 1, 2.

Joab remonstrates, but the king is determined, and Joab pleads

in vain, 3, 4.

He returns, and delivers in the number to the king, but reckons

not Levi and Benjamin, 5.

The Lord is displeased, and sends Gad to offer David his choice

of three great national calamities; famine, war, or pestilence,

6-12.

David submits himself to God, and a pestilence is sent, which

destroys seventy thousand, 13, 14.

At David's intercession the destroying angel is restrained at

the threshing-floor of Ornan, 15-17.

He buys the piece of ground, builds an altar to the Lord and

offers sacrifices, and the plague is stayed, 18-30.

NOTES ON CHAP. XXI

Verse 1. And Satan stood up against Israel] 2Sa 24:1, &c.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

(1) And Satan stood up against Israel.—Perhaps, And an adversary (hostile influence) arose against Israel. So in 2Sa_19:23 the sons of Zeruiah are called “adversaries” (Heb., a Satan) to David. (Comp. 1Ki_11:14; 1Ki_11:25.) When the adversary, the enemy of mankind, is meant, the word takes the article, which it has not here. (Comp. Job 1, 2 and Zec_3:1-2.)

And provoked David.—Pricked him on, incited him. 2 Samuel 24 begins: “And again the anger of Jehovah burned against Israel, and He (or it) incited David against them, saying, Go, number Israel and Judah.” It thus appears that the adversary of our text, the influence hostile to Israel, was the wrath of God. The wrath of God is the Scriptural name for that aspect of the Divine nature under which it pursues to destruction whatever is really opposed to its own perfection (Delitzsch); and it is only sin, i.e., breach of the Divine law, which can necessarily direct that aspect towards man. If Divine wrath urged David to number Israel, it can only have been in consequence of evil thoughts of pride and self-sufficiency, which had intruded into a heart hitherto humbly reliant upon its Maker. One evil thought led to another, quite naturally; i.e., by the laws which God has imposed upon human nature. God did not interpose, but allowed David’s corrupt motive to work out its own penal results. (Comp. Rom_1:18; Rom_1:24; Rom_1:26; Rom_1:28.) The true reading in Samuel may well be, “And an adversary incited David,” &c., the word Satan having fallen out of the text. Yet the expression “Jehovah provoked or incited against . . .” occurs (1Sa_26:19).

To number Israel—Samuel adds, “and Judah.”

(1-6) The Census.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

See Chapter Introduction

See Chapter Introduction

1 Chronicles 21:28

ch1 21:28

ch1 21:28

ch1 21:28At that time when David saw that the Lord had answered him in the threshing floor Of Ornan the Jebusite,.... The same with Araunah, Sa2 24:16, with some small variation of the letters, and are of the same signification; both signifying the "ornus", as Hillerus (m) observes, the pine tree or ash; see Isa 44:14, in whose threshingfloor David now was, and where he had been praying and sacrificing; and God had accepted his prayer, as the Targum, and had answered him, by causing fire to come down on the sacrifice and consume it, and by ordering the angel to put up his sword in its sheath:

then he sacrificed there; again by the priests, and continued to do so, for he had sacrificed there before, Ch1 21:26 and finding his sacrifices in that place were acceptable, he repeated them, and did not go to Gibeon, as follows.

(m) Onomastic. Sacr. p. 529, 530.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

As the books of Scripture are arranged in our Version, Satan is here for the first time by name introduced to us. He appears not merely as an “adversary” who seeks to injure man from without, but as a Tempter able to ruin him by suggesting sinful acts and thoughts from within. In this point of view, the revelation made of him here is the most advanced that we find in the Old Testament.

The difficulty in reconciling the statement here, “Satan provoked David,” etc. with that of Samuel, “the Lord moved David,” etc. 2Sa 24:1 is not serious. All temptation is permitted by God. When evil spirits tempt us, they do so by permission (Job 1:12; Job 2:6; Luk 22:31, etc.). If Satan therefore provoked David to number the peopIe, God allowed him. And what God allows, He may be said to do. (Another view is maintained in the 2Sa 24:1 note).

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Satan. This shews that the Lord only (Haydock) permitted David’s sin, (2 Kings xxiv.; Worthington) and in this sense only he is said to have instigated him; (Du Hamel) though we read this was done by the fury of the Lord, or by an evil spirit. (Haydock)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

Satan stood up, Heb. stood, to wit, before the Lord and his tribunal to accuse David and Israel, and to beg God’s permission to tempt David to number the people. Standing is the accuser’s posture before men’s tribunals; and consequently the Holy Scripture (which useth to speak of God, and of the things of God, after the manner of men, to bring them down to our capacities) elsewhere represents Satan in this posture, as 1Ki 22:21; Zec 3:1. And so this agrees with 2Sa 24:1, where the Lord is said to move David, i.e. to give Satan commission or permission to move him; for otherwise God tempteth no man, Jam 1:13. But of this, and of this whole chapter, and of the variations and seeming contradictions between this narrative and that in Samuel, see my notes on 2Sa 24.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

David's numbering of the People and his Punishment

This chapter is parallel to 2 Samuel 24, but includes a few additions: see 1Ch_21:6, 1Ch_21:26.

1. Satan] In 2Sa_24:1 the Lord is said to have been angry with Israel, and to have moved David to number the people; for the Hebrews in early times did not hesitate to describe God as prompting to evil as well as to good, men being punished for one sin by being led to commit another. But in later ages the idea that God tempted men to wrong was felt to conflict with His absolute holiness; and this created the belief that temptation was the work of a spirit of malevolent character, who, though subordinate to, and attendant upon, God, was yet an adversary (lit. the 'Satan') of men, and sought to bring about their ruin (see on 1Ki_22:21-22; Job_1:6.; Zec_3:1). In Job and Zechariah the name is still only a title; but in Chronicles it has become a proper name (being used without the article).

5. A thousand thousand, etc.] 2Sa_24:9 represents Israel as 800,000 and Judah 500,000. According to 1Ch_27:24 the numbers were not entered in the official records, and they have probably undergone corruption in the course of transmission.

6. But Levi, etc.] This is not mentioned in 2 S. If the numbering of the people was due to a presumptuous reliance upon material resources, or some specific command connected with the taking of a census (e.g. Exo_30:11-16) had been neglected, the non-inclusion of two tribes by Joab was perhaps a device to prevent the full completion of the king's purpose, in the hope of averting the evil consequences that were feared.

12. Three years' famine] This harmonises better than the 'seven years' of 2Sa_24:13 with the three months and three days.

15. Ornan] in 2Sa_24:16; 'Araunah' or 'Ornah.'

18. The angel.. Gad] For divine communications made to prophets through angels cp. 1Ki_13:18; 1Ki_19:5, 1Ki_19:7; Zec_1:11, etc.

23. Meat offering] RV 'Meal offering': and so elsewhere.

25. Six hundred shekels of gold] in 2Sa_24:24; 'fifty shekels of silver.'

26. Answered.. by fire] Other instances of sacrifices consumed by fire from heaven occur in Lev_9:24; 1Ki_18:38; 2Ch_7:1. This fact is not recorded by the writer of Samuel, but is specially mentioned by the Chronicler because the acceptance of the sacrifice was taken by David to indicate where he was to build his intended Temple, the preparations for which are described in the next chapter.

30. He was afraid] In his alarm David was loath to leave the spot where God's favour had just been renewed to him.

J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

This very important chapter in David"s history is the parallel of 2Sa_24:1-25, which contains some details not found here, e.g. the route taken by those who went to number Israel, (2Sa_24:5-8) and omits others. This chapter furnishes one of the clearer proofs (in respect of what it supplies, not found in Samuel) that its indebtedness is not to that book, but to a work open as well to the compiler of Chronicles as to the writer of Samuel. Its contents fall into five sections.

1. David"s command to number the people, with Joab"s remonstrances (vers. 1-6).

2. The means taken to rouse David to a sense of his sin, and his confessionthereof (vers. 7, 8).

3. The choice between punishments presented to him and his prayer underthe drawn sword of the angel for the sparing of the people (vers. 9-17).

4. The accepted propitiatory sacrifices and offerings of David, and theconsequent stay of the plague (vers. 18-27).

5. David"s grateful establishment of that same spot as the place of sacrifice( vers. 28-30).

Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel. This remarkable sentence takes the place of the statements in the parallel, "And again the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he moved David against them to say, Go, number Israel and Judah." Our own passage seems to confine the temptation and sin to David. David also seems to be spoken of as the object of malignant attack on the part of Satan, though Israel is spoken of as the object of malignant envy and animosity. It is also to be noticed that in ver. 17 David takes all the blame to himself, and speaks of the people as "innocent sheep." A people and whole nation have, indeed, often suffered the smart of one ruler"s sin. Yet here the light thrown upon the whole event by the account in the Book of Samuel must be accepted as revealing the fact that there had been previously something amiss on the part of the people perhaps something of illest significance lurking in their constitution. This alone could "kindle the auger of the Lord against Israel." It is the opposite of this which kindles the anger of Satan when he witnesses excellence, surpassing excellence, as when he witnesses "the weakest saint," yet in that strongest position," on his knees. " The apparent inconsistency in Satan being spoken of as resisting Israel, and the anger of the Lord being spoken of as kindled against Israel, is but apparent and superficial. In the first place, these histories do only purport to state the facts overt. And in this sense either alternative statement gives the prima facie facts. Either is true, and both may be true in different chronological order. And further, that the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel is no disproof that Satan will see and seize his opportunity. It looks the contrary way. There was a time and an occasion in Eden when Satan thought he saw an opportunity, tried it, and found it, when the anger of the Lord was not kindled against Adam and Eve for certain. But much more prompt will be the executive of Satan at another and less doubtful time. The paths in written history are often awhile rugged and broken up; the written history of Scripture is no exception. And in thus being the more in analogy with history itself, those unevennesses and breaks are the better attestation of both the reality of the Scripture history and the veracity of its writers. The word (fc) occurs twenty-four times in the Old Testament. On all occasions of its occurrence in the Book of Job and in the prophecies of Zechariah, it shows the prefixed definite article; in all other places it is, with the present passage, unaccompanied by the article. Its translation here might appear strictly as that of a proper name. But this cannot be said of the other instances of its use, when without the article (Num_22:22, Num_22:32; 1Sa_29:4) This constitutes with some the ground of the very opposite opinion and opposite translation. If we regard the name as utterly expressing the personality of Satan, the passage is very noteworthy, and will be most safely regarded as the language of the compiler, and not as copied from the original source. The signification of the word "Satan," as is well known, is "adversary," or "accuser." The sin of David in giving the order of this verse was of a technical and ceremonial character, in the first place, whatever his motives were, and however intensified by other causes of a moral and more individual complexion. We learn (Exo_30:12-16) the special enactments respecting what was to be observed when "the sum of the children of Israel after their number" was to be taken. However, the same passage does not say, it fails to say, when such a numbering would be legitimate or when not. It is left us, therefore, to deduce this from observation. And we notice, in the first place, that, on the occasion of its undoubted rightness, it is the work of the distinct commandment of God. (Num_1:1-3 Num_26:1-4) Next, we notice the religious contribution, "the ransom," that was required with it (Exo_30:12-16 Exo_38:25, Exo_38:26; Num_31:47-54) Again, we notice that the numberings narrated both in the beginning of the Book of Numbers (1.) and toward the close (26.) had specific moral objects as assigned by God among them the forcible teaching of the loss entailed by the successive rebellions of the people (Num_26:64, Num_26:65; Deu_2:14, Deu_2:15) And though last, not least, all these indications are lighted up by the express and emphatic announcements in God"s original promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, that their seed should become past numbering, multitudinous as the stars, and as the sands of the seashore. From all which we may conclude that only that numbering was held legitimate which was for God"s service in some form, and as against human pride and boastfulness by God"s command as against a human king"s fancy and which wasattended by the payment of that solemn "ransom" money, the bekah , or half-shekel. (Exo_30:12) Other numbering had snares about it, and it was no doubt because it had such intrinsically that it was divinely discountenanced, and in this case severely punished. It seems gratuitous with some to tax David with having other motives than those of some sort of vanity now at work, sinister designs of preparing, unaided and unpermitted, some fresh military exploits, or stealing a march on the nation itself in the matter of some new system of taxation. The context offers no corroboration of either of these notions, while several lesser indications point to the simplest explanation. (1Ch_27:23)

HOMILETICS.

Vers. 1-30.

Typical, sin, suffering, sorrow, sacrifice.

The study of the narrative before us, together with its parallel, leads, with little room for hesitation, to the conclusion that there must have been symptoms in the national character of Israel at this time calling for some severe check or peremptory visitation. Failing this supposition, we cannot satisfactorily get over the language of the opening verse in the parallel record of 2Sa 24. It is, however, undeniable that in both places the history lays the whole head and front of the offending upon David, and that the offending was his is corroborated by his own forcible confession in the seventeenth verse of the present chapter. The brunt of the suffering, on the other hand, falls upon the people, who were cut down by the pestilence, and upon those who, from the ties of nature, to say none other, mourned their loss. This is so entirely the tenor of the history, that our exposition has no choice but to follow its lead. And we shall therefore unfold the moral and spiritual significance of the section from the standpoint of David, counting him the sinner, holding him responsible for the suffering, watching him in his struggle to emerge from the consequences of his conduct, and to lift his people out after him, and observing the sanctified result to which all was turned by the over- and ever-ruling providence of God. Let us notice

I THE SIN OF DAVID IN NUMBERING THE PEOPLE. (Vers. 1-6.)

1. Whatever was the exact nature of this offence, we are not at liberty todiscount it in allowing anything for the consideration already supposed, that Israel was ripe for some punishment, and stood in need of some severe visitation. This may have been true enough. Yet their leader, their shepherd, their king, should have been the first to watch each symptom of the kind, to study them anxiously, to counteract them in place of neglecting them or of co-operating with them, above all of becoming the actual exponent of them. It is for the shepherd to warn, to watch, to keep the flock. For every station in life there are its own proper duties, and for every increased and more exalted privilege of life there are its own proportioned opportunities and responsibilities. This is a moral canon of human life and society, always, everywhere, and that cannot be escaped in its solemn obligation. But how far David practically forgot it appears from this history. It is Scripture that represents it thus to us, that Satan knew the

2. readiness of Israel to fall, designed disastrous damage to the flock, but that he saw and used his opportunity with no miscalculation, "scattering the flock" actually through and by aid of the shepherd. Once this way ascertained to be practicable in this instance, and Satan knew too well for Israel that it was the readiest way, the method most trenchant easiest for himself, and most humiliating to those for whom he designed harm. A man"s own sphere, special privilege, particular duty, will always have it in it to reveal the possibilities of sin, to find the occasion for sin, to enhance the triumph of sin, and to make it burn with fiercer blaze and more lurid glare. Many difficulties have been made out of such detail as the language of Scripture contains here, and in places of similar kind. But Scripture traverses all these, simply ignoring the sceptic"s misuse of them. Scripture keeps in the tracks of the undoubted analogies of fact. Israel was ready to go wrong. Granted; but so also was he whose highest work and highest honour it was to watch and to know and to guard Israel from going wrong.

3. David"s sin was the further removed from excuse, in that those whowere second to him in place and authority put him in mind, and remonstrated with him, and evidently with that earnest, nervous feeling which should have been at once as good as conviction to him. The offence was deliberate, determined, and would not brook expostulation. For so it is written, "The word of the king prevailed against that of Joab and the captains of the host." It is the same thing as to say that the word of intolerant and arbitrary authority was encouraged to override the "Law and the testimony," the suggestions of memory, the remonstrances of conscience, and the kindly spoken, courteous advice of friendly and constitutional counsellors. The man who has it in him to set at nought certain kinds of expression of disapproval, that tell tales so true to nature"s touch, has it in him also, so far at least as that humour is concerned, to set anything at nought. And the impression cannot be resisted that it was just so with David at this crisis.

1. The offence of David in numbering the people, unrelieved as it was byany external considerations, offers also a peculiar kind of evidence of the large infusion of the moral element. It is not, indeed, that the record of Scripture fails to furnish the grounds on which his action stood condemned; yet it may be admitted that we feel them to be wanting in some measure in precision. Considering all that resulted from the offence, this very thing proves the larger presence of no technical, no mere ceremonial fault, but of deeper moral fault. Is David condemned by the letter? He is condemned tenfold by the spirit. On the evidence, we are bound to find him guilty on the counts of principle rather than of the violation of positive commandment. Why, for instance, does not Joab in his ill-disguised disgust (which even grew with his task, ver. 6) quote the commandment, give chapter and verse for his intense disapproval and indignation? Oh yes, there are sins of the heart, of the subtle undergrowth of pride and ambition, and trust of self, which far surpass all others in significance and heinousness. Surely it were enough for the quondam shepherd-boy, now King of Israel, to be vicegerent of the King of kings? But David has slipped the charm of modest love and reverent fear and devoted religious service, and aims to be ruler in his own right. He does this just as really as Judas Iscariot, the disciple, thought it was open to him to compass and supersede the Master if he could. This constitutes the essence of what seems to he held up to view as the unparalleled offence of David, that he forgets his subordinate place, and presumes to try to steal an advantage on his own supreme Master. Does David wish to know the number of his fighting men? It is perhaps in part matter of pure vanity, probably in greater part in order to estimate the strength of his own supposed resources; in other words, to calculate how far he may afford to dispense with simple, trustful, humble, daily dependence dependence on the Lord his God. Nor was the calculating less or less pernicious, that it was unacknowledged, unconscious.

II THE SUFFERING ENTAILED BY THE ONE SINFUL DETERMINATION OF ONE MAN. (Vers. 14, 15.)

1. We have to credit David with causing now one of the most dreadfulforms of human suffering. The state of mind which is filled with apprehension of suffering is itself suffering of the worst kind for any individual. It is not diminished by company, nor distributed by being shared among many. It is terribly intensified when a community, a nation, an army, is the prey of it. First, excited imagination very likely goes beyond the ensuing realities if they were but left to themselves. Then the facts result otherwise, and the realities on which the sun in the heavens has looked down in not a few such cases surpass imagination, even to beggaring it. History"s very devotee declines to believe. What cries, what wails, what maddened curses must have rent the air wherever the ear of David was to hear, whether he travelled or rested, whether he listened or strove to shut out every sound! When once pestilence walks abroad, it not only kills so many thousands of its own professional right, but from hour to hour, from morning to night, it tortures an uncounted number, who "hang in doubt of their life," and have no rest, because they "have no assurance of their life

2. nor, indeed, of lives dearer to them than their own. And it is this which David does for the very flock it was his life-work to fold, to feed, and to shield free even from the breath of fear.

3. We have to credit David with having cut short some seventy thousandhuman careers. Even though the nation may have deserved the punishment, and their crimes have cried for judgment, David has laden himself withal with the responsibility of inflicting it. So many streams of human life he has dried up. So many deaths lie at his door. At so many burials the loud mourners and the low mourners, say it is he who has rifled the home of life and love, and opened the sepulchre"s dark door to receive an untimely prey. Youth he has cut down, beauty he has blighted, in their opening freshest hope. The strong men, the pride and defence of his kingdom, and the support of its homes, he has laid weak as the weakest. And for the peaceful or splendid sunsetting of old age he has substituted a horizon overspread with the gloomiest clouds. This is what one sinful determination of one man carried through could do, and really did. And it is a type of many, many an antitype. It is a type not least in this one element of it, that it did what it never meant nor thought to do, and yet is to the full answerable for it, because it was not in the path of duty, and was distinctly out of it. Sin sometimes takes very heavy toll out of those who do wrong, not because they mean to do so, but because they do not mean not to do it, and do not live with watching and prayer.

1. We have to credit David"s sin with an incalculable amount of humangrief. Not always, by any means, is he who is gone the one who deserves most pity, even as he certainly is past the reach of any sympathy, but rather those who remain, who remember, who grieve, who weep, and not merely "would not be comforted," but cannot be comforted, for comfort is not. To wound human affections, to make hearts bleed, to crush human courage, hope, life, is surely among the deadly sins, and to be revealed "in that day." If Abel"s blood cried to God from the very earth, what cries must have reached him from the innumerable bleeding hearts of bereft homes now, wrecked of hope and joy and peace by David!

III THE STRUGGLE OF DAVID TO EMERGE FROM THE CONSEQUENCES OF HIS SIN, AND TO EXTRICATE HIS PEOPLE AFTER HIM. (Vers. 12, 13, 16, 17.) And it must be allowed at once that David begins to resume again his better self.

1. The struggle was the struggle of conviction, confession, prayer, even to wrestling; not the struggle against these. Although it may be held that there

2. is some ambiguity about it, yet a comparison and combination of the two accounts need leave little hesitation as to the real order of things. David"s heart "smote him" after that he had numbered the people. Never mind that, it was not quite a spontaneous stirring of the conscience and heart that were within him; yet there was the fact branded and seared they were not. God"s sudden morning call and message (2Sa_24:11) roused David from his torpor in the twinkling of an eye. It was upon this event that conviction, most unreserved confession, entreaty for pardon and mercy, and in due time intercession, followed. And they followed with no other calculation than the calculation most instinctive of an awakened and alarmed soul. The real ring, solemn though the ring was, of other well-known self-condemnation of David, is now unmistakably heard. Not a syllable of excuse, not an accent of extenuation, is to be detected in the tone.

3. The struggle shows David in the midst of the very paroxysm of grief,and fresh from the rebuke of his great Master, to be possessed in a peculiar manner of the wisest and rightest attitude of disposition towards God.

(1) God offers an option. David declines it. He has already used his own free will and power to choose once too often. He will renounce it now.

(2) In declining to avail himself of that proffered option, he gives a reason, which shows how accurately he had struck the balance between the "mercies" of God and the "hand" of man. It apparently now amounts to an instinct with him, that there was no room for a moment"s hesitation between throwing himself and people upon the "mercies" of God, or being thrown into the hands of men. This his strongest impression was also his correctest, which cannot always be said of our strongest and most absolute impressions. "Tis a great lesson for all to learn, and a great fact in the world"s history all up to this present moment, that the paternal love is to be better trusted than the fraternal. The fatherhood of God is, after all, a better-ascertained reality than the brotherhood of humanity.

(3) At the very time that David is expecting his punishment, and acknowledging that he is "in a great strait," he honours God by recording a testimony which had come of his own long experience of him: "For very great are his mercies." The rod often brings us to our senses, and when only uplifted will suffice to bring a man to himself. But rarely did David or any one else who bad known, loved, done the truth, but fallen away from it too recover himself so rapidly and apparently so completely in all essential respects.

3. The struggle offers an undesigned but fine example of an intelligent acknowledgment of the essence of the principle of sacrifice. When the scene is gone a little further, and the angel with drawn sword is beheld, David in an agony of pleading is heard beseeching that "the innocent" may be spared. He proclaims who are the innocent (so far, at all events, as his act is concerned); he begs that the guilty one may suffer, and proposes himself and his father"s house as the justly designated resource for sacrifice. The "altar and the wood," ay, and the knife too, are there, and they shall not want the sacrifice. It seems possible, probable, that not merely

(1) David"s offer of himself for the object of punishment, but

(2) the very fact of his idea and suggestion of submitting to a punishment, all equivalent to sacrifice, was acceptable to God. David"s importunate expostulation, intercession, prayer three in one contain implicitly the principle of sacrifice. And it is observable that it is from that moment that David is authorized, and indeed ordered, to seek a place of sacrifice, and to erect an altar of sacrifice. Thus in the struggle to purge himself as far as possible of his offence, and at least to extricate his people from the fierceness of plague and suffering, he rises to this point of view, to entreat that on himself and his father"s house may be concentrated the punishment now falling far and wide on a nation.

IV THE RESULTS TO WHICH ONE MAN"S SIN AND AN IMMENSITY OF CONSEQUENT SUFFERING WERE NOW OVERRULED. (Vers. 26-30.) Some of these results were of special significance in the then time of day, and for the people of Israel. Others am of significance for all ages.

1. For the thousandth time were shown forth these things the lovingfatherly heart of God, the hand that forbore, the yearning pity that "repented" because of its own tenderness of even the most deserved chastisement. Touching indeed is the language of ver. 15. So in older time the Lord himself to the angel, and the angel to Abraham, had cried," Forbear; it is enough." But not so when that dreader scene gathered in its fulness over Jerusalem. Though twelve legions of angels looked on, and might have come to the rescue, no voice said "Forbear;" and the only voice that did then speak as with authority authority notwithstanding what it must say and how it must say it said this, "Not my will be done;" and again, "It is finished a signal for the awful sacrifice to go on to its solemn end.

2. The stricter typical principle of sacrifice was led up to, and an instanceof it exhibited. Blood flows for sin, and the blood of those who were so far forth innocent was now flowing for sin. And this doubtless, though it fell on the innocent, was the punishment of sin. But we see David acknowledge the principle that sacrifice may avail to stay the punishment. He, however, viewed, and justly viewed, himself as the guilty, and therefore as the one who ought to suffer. He does not come before us as an instance of the innocent proposing to suffer in the place of the guilty. The issue is that the sacrifices of the Law were offered in great abundance.

3. By auguries memorable and solemn an altar of sacrifice and a place ofworship were designated. They became consecrate for the service of a thousand years at one stretch, and for what more to come we know not. Though we must fail to realize what seemed to David and to Israel greatest in this, yet analogies of the most intrinsic kind guide us in the same direction. Meantime not the grandest building we may raise and dedicate to the worship and glory of God, to the love and service of Jesus, need mean either more or less to us than that site and that altar meant to David and Israel. And, on the other hand, it may with equal truth be said that the humblest building, the least pretentious schoolroom for the service of Christ, means more for knowledge, for heavenly light, for real beauty, than David and the temple, and Solomon and "all his glory.

HOMILIES BY J.R. THOMSON Ver. 1.

A king"s pride.

The Scripture historians do not conceal David"s faults. Though they represent him as the man after God"s heart, they faithfully record his grievous defections. He was evidently a man in whom the ordinary principles of human nature were unusually vigorous. There was, accordingly, warmth in his piety, and his sins were those peculiar to an ardent and passionate nature. His warlike impulses led him into cruelty, his amatory passions into adultery, his violence into murder, his self-confidence into the act of regal pride which is condemned in this passage. Accustomed as we are to a periodical census, and indeed to statistics of all kinds, it is difficult for us to understand how blamable was David"s conduct in numbering the people.

I Observe AT WHOSE INSTIGATION the king acted. Although in Samuel we are told that the Lord"s anger with Israel was the deepest reason for the act and the explanation of all that followed it, our text refers the conduct of David to "an adversary." Whether this enemy was human, or, as is generally supposed, superhuman, diabolical, is not material. A tempter, an adversary, suggested the sinful motive and the disobedient action.

II Observe THE MOTIVE which led to this act. It was a motive often influential with the prosperous and the powerful. It was vanity, confidence in his own greatness, in the number of his soldiers, in the resources of his subjects. David had been a warrior whose arms had been attended with remarkable success, and, like many such, he doubtless deemed himself invincible.

III Observe DAVID"S PERSEVERANCE IN SPITE OF WARNING. Many sins are committed heedlessly. Not so this; for Joab, who was by no means a counsellor always to be trusted, warned his master against this act of folly, which he saw was "a cause of trespass to Israel." David was not to be deterred, and perhaps resented, as such characters are wont to do, any resistance to his will. Temptation from without, evil passions from within, are often enough to overcome the calmest and the wisest counsels and admonitions. A lesson this of human frailty. A summons also to penitence and to humility. T.

HOMILIES BY W. CLARKSON Vers. 1-8.

Human action.

Probably there will always remain a measure of mystery about this act of numbering the nation. We shall always be more or less uncertain as to the precise elements of wrong which God saw in it, and which brought down so terrible a condemnation and penalty. There are, however, some features of the whole transaction which are certain and which are instructive. We see

I THAT THE SOURCES WHICH CONTRIBUTE TO ONE HUMAN ACTION ARE MANIFOLD.

1. We see by the narrative in 2Sa 24. I that God at least permitted it to occur. "He moved David to say, Go, number," etc.

2. We see (ver. 1) that Satan incited David to the act.

3. The king"s own feeling and judgment had most of all to do with it; thiswas the source of the evil. David persisted in it against better counsel (vers. 3, 4).

4. It may be fairly contended that the condition of the people helped toaccount for it. We may infer from 2Sa_24:1 that God was displeased with Israel, and that his displeasure accounted for the absence of the Divine intervention which would otherwise have held back the king from his folly. Our acts are seldom, if ever, so simple as they seem; usually, if not always, more sources contribute to them than are seen upon the surface. They spring from hidden habits which have long been rooting and growing in the heart; they are the consequence of our own volition at the moment; they are the result of the agency of others who surround and influence us; they are affected by unseen forces which play upon us from below and also from above. We are sure of this, yet we are equally sure

II THAT WE ARE ALL RESPONSIBLE FOR THE ACTIONS WE COMMIT. "God was displeased with this thing" (ver. 7). He saw in it that which was sinful and wrong, worthy of Divine condemnation, calling for Divine retribution. Moreover, David owned to himself and confessed to God his personal guiltiness: "I have sinned greatly, because I have done this thing," etc. (ver. 8). No analysis of the forces which are at work upon and within us can affect the question of responsibility.

1. God "will not hold us guiltless" if we break his laws, if we wrong ourneighbours, if we injure ourselves.

2. Nor shall be able to acquit ourselves. It will be long before sin will soharden us that we shall not suffer keenly from the reproaches of our own conscience, and then it will not be long before that fire within is rekindled by the hand of God, and its terrible flame will burn up all sophistries of the soul.

3. Nor will our fellow-men exonerate us; they will condemn us freely, andwe must suffer the sting of their censure.

III THAT THE RECTITUDE OR WRONGNESS OF AN ACTION DEPENDS MAINLY ON THE MOTIVE by which it is inspired. The act of numbering the people was not intrinsically wrong. (see Exo_30:12, Exo_30:13) When the census was taken in order to ascertain what was due to the service of Jehovah or of the state, it was positively good and commendable. But on this occasion, when it was done, as we must presume, in a vain-glorious spirit, in order that the king might boast of the increasing number of his subjects, or else in a faithless spirit, that the king might know on what he could rely forgetting that his confidence was not in the arm of flesh, but in the living God then it became sinful, condemnable, disastrous. Almost everything is in the motive of our deeds. The fairest actions in the sight of man may be hollow or utterly corrupt in the sight of him who looketh on the heart. (1Sa_16:7) The simplest and smallest actions may be great and noble in the estimate of him who measures with heavenly scales each human thought and deed.

IV THAT THE GOOD OR EVIL OF A HUMAN ACTION IS NOT DETERMINED BY THE CHARACTER OF THE AGENT OR HIS JUDGES. Usually the good man does the good thing, but not invariably. Usually the man of lower excellence takes the wrong view when he differs from the man of greater worth; but not necessarily. Evidently a Joab may be right when a David is wrong. It was antecedently likely, in a high degree, that if these two men differed in any point, David would take the true and Joab the false view. But here it was otherwise (vers. 3, 4). On this occasion the better man might have learned from his spiritual inferior. We do well to expect good deeds from good men, and, when they seem to be wrong, to suspend our judgment until we have searched everything through. But we must not trust blindly to the reputed worthies of our day, or we may he following a good man when he is in error; or we may he simply putting ourselves into the hands and walking in the steps of scribes and Pharisees. With the help of God"s Word and his Spirit we are to "judge of ourselves what is right". C. (Luk_12:57)

HOMILIES BY F. WHITFIELD

Vers. 1-6.

David numbering the people.

In considering this act of David, our attention must be first directed to the statement in the very first verse of this chapter, in connection with the corresponding passage in 2Sa_24:1. In one chapter it is stated that "Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel;" in the latter passage it is said, "Again the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he moved David against them." Manifestly there needs some way of reconciling these two statements so apparently conflicting. The latter passage implies that there was some guilt in Israel for God to take this step, and. this may be found in the rebellions of Absalom and Sheba against David"s kingdom. The word "again" points back to the judgment of God on Israel recorded in 2Sa 21. But although there was guilt on the nation on account of these rebellions, David himself was the instrument by which Israel was to be punished. On the other hand, there was, as Joab"s words imply, considerable pride and vanity in David"s heart in wishing for this census of the people. As he was about to glory in the number of his people, God reduced that number by seventy thousand, so that he should not have the glory. God"s law is to compel wickedness hid in the heart to manifest itself outwardly by furnishing the opportunities for its manifestation. Hence it is perfectly true to say, on the one hand, that God used David"s sin to punish Israel for their guilt, and, on the other, that Satan moved David to number them. The latter was but God giving David the opportunity for the evil of his heart to manifest itself, while of course Satan was the source of that evil. God used David"s sin to punish Israel; God gave the opportunity to David to number Israel in order to manifest the evil of David"s heart outwardly. Thus God punished Israel and humbled David. This may suggest to us the difference in the Bible between trial and temptation. In the Book of Genesis it is said, "God did tempt or, "try Abraham." In the Epistle of James it is said of God, "Neither tempteth he any man." God tries; Satan tempts. Let us illustrate. Some thousands of pounds are lying on the parlour table when a servant enters the room. This is a trial of the servant"s honesty, and thus is from God. Satan says, "Steal some;" this is the temptation. So that every trial from God may at the same time be a temptation from Satan. To return now to the act of David in numbering the people. We have seen the sin of this act in that he was about to glory in the number of his people. "No flesh shall glory in his presence;" and so God reduced the number by seventy thousand. The mention of Satan as the author of this act is intended to show us that David"s purpose in it was, from the very first, an ungodly thing. Joab was aware of this, and regarded the act as "abominable." His language in reply to the king indicates its enormity: "Why will he be a cause of trespass to Israel?" The word "trespass" here is significant. It means not only a trespass committed, but one which must be atoned for. This shows in what a heinous light he regarded David"s act. The king"s word prevailed, however, and Joab reluctantly obeyed. Levi and Benjamin were not counted with the number. The tribe of Levi was always exempt in such censuses, and the tribe of Benjamin was not numbered because David, in the mean time, having become conscious of his sin, stopped the census before it was completed. Joab gave the sum of the people to the king. It amounted to one million one hundred thousand men in Israel. This great population in so limited an extent of country is a proof of the fulfilment of the promise. (Gen_15:5) Such great prosperity, however, is too frequently a snare, as it was in this ease. It proved too strong a temptation to David"s pride and vanity; and though the Lord used it to discipline David"s soul into deeper humility, it led to lamentable consequences. We see how little God can trust his children long with prosperous circumstances. It is for this reason the pressure of God"s hand is laid on many of them, and continued, in one form or another, through life; for, were it withdrawn, the heart would soon wander from God, and run the risk of forfeiting its heavenly inheritance, or its future glorious reward. W.

HOMILIES BY R. TUCK Ver. 1.

Satanic temptations.

The passage similar to this in 2Sa_24:1 should be compared with it. The word Satan would have been more correctly translated an adversary; and the sentence in Samuel would be correctly rendered, "One moved David against them." The historical fact appears to be that one of the courtiers pressed this evil advice on the king, and the Bible writers properly see in such a man a tempter, an adversary, a Satan; and they recognize in all the consequences that follow the outworking of Divine judgments. The question of the Bible presentation of a chief evil spirit need not be discussed in connection with this passage. It is to one aspect only of the influence of such a being that our attention is directed. The Miltonic figure of Satan should be carefully distinguished from the Biblical; and in the instance before us the" adversary" is treated as a Divine agency used for the testing of God"s people by temptation to sin. If we fully accept the idea of the Divine education and training of men, it will be no difficulty to us that times of moral trial should be found, and subjection to evil enticements should form part of the Divine plan. We know that God tries and tests us by things, and it should not be difficult for us to realize that he may try and test us by persons. This is, indeed, our most subtle and most severe form of testing. A man may stand firm under all the various trials of affliction, and fall at last under the temptings and delusions of subtle sin. This is the point in David"s case. We should notice the time in his life when this severe temptation came. It was when we might reasonably have assumed that David was confirmed in goodness. "Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall." Interesting comparisons may be made with Abraham, tested late in life by the command to offer his son; and with Job, tried, when fully established in family and property, by the sudden loss of all, and his own extreme bodily suffering. David"s trial came when all his enemies were subdued, and his kingdom extended to its widest limits. We cannot suppose that the mere act of taking a census of the people was regarded as wrong. All acts gain their qualities by the spirit in which they are done, and David"s wrong was wrong of purpose and of will.

I SATANIC TEMPTATIONS REGARDED AS HUMAN PERIL. Illustrate from our Lord"s words to St. Peter, "Simon, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat." Danger-times occur again and again in a man"s life. He must conceive of his spiritual foe as ever on the watch for the weak, unguarded moment. Illustrate the Satanic opportunities found in times of frail health, of success in undertakings, of circumstances having an exciting character, of carnal security, of flattery, or of pride. Especially show that the moments of rebound from success, and exhaustion after victory, put us in extreme peril. Skilfully adjusting temptations to a man"s stronger side, Satan has oftentimes succeeded. Every hour is an hour of peril, and we need the hourly prayer, "Hold thou me up, and I shall be safe.

II SATANIC TEMPTATIONS REGARDED AS DIVINE DISCIPLINE. We may not separate any of the things happening to us in life from the Divine purpose and overruling. What we call evil is properly seen as part of the Divine agency for our moral culture. Divine overrulings do not change the character or quality of things, but they directly affect the result of things. All life is probation. We are being moulded in righteousness. So we find that even these strange Satanic temptations serve gracious Divine purposes in the individual man; and when we cannot see this, we may see that they serve gracious Divine purposes in the warning and teaching of others, and that some of us may even, as David, stumble unto falling vicariously. R.T.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

David causes Joab to number the people, ver. 1-6. He repents, ver. 7, 8. God gives him his choice of three judgments, and he chuses the pestilence, ver. 9-13. The havock made thereby: Jerusalem spared, ver. 14, 15. David's prayer, ver. 16, 17. His sacrifice and staying of the plague, ver. 18-30.

Satan stood - Before the Lord and his tribunal to accuse David and Israel, and to beg God's permission to tempt David. Standing is the accusers posture before men's tribunals; and consequently the holy scripture (which useth to speak of the things of God, after the manner of men, to bring them down to our capacities) elsewhere represent Satan in this posture.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

See Chapter Introduction

See Chapter Introduction

1 Chronicles 21:28

ch1 21:28

ch1 21:28

ch1 21:28At that time when David saw that the Lord had answered him in the threshing floor Of Ornan the Jebusite,.... The same with Araunah, Sa2 24:16, with some small variation of the letters, and are of the same signification; both signifying the "ornus", as Hillerus (m) observes, the pine tree or ash; see Isa 44:14, in whose threshingfloor David now was, and where he had been praying and sacrificing; and God had accepted his prayer, as the Targum, and had answered him, by causing fire to come down on the sacrifice and consume it, and by ordering the angel to put up his sword in its sheath:

then he sacrificed there; again by the priests, and continued to do so, for he had sacrificed there before, Ch1 21:26 and finding his sacrifices in that place were acceptable, he repeated them, and did not go to Gibeon, as follows.

(m) Onomastic. Sacr. p. 529, 530.

Keil & Delitzsch — Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament (1861–1891) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API. (Old Testament only.)

David’s Sin and its Consequences

v. 1. And Satan stood up against Israel and provoked David to number Israel. From the parallel passage, 2Sa 24:1, we learn that this was due to the fact that the Lord at this time withdrew His grace from David, and permitted the Tempter to prevail over him.

v. 2. And David said to Joab and to the rulers of the people, Go, number Israel from Beersheba, on the extreme southern boundary, even to Dan, in the extreme north, and bring the number of them to me that I may know it. While the taking of a census in itself was not sinful, the one contemplated by David was the work of proud boastfulness and wicked haughtiness, an overemphasizing of his political power.

v. 3. And Joab answered, realizing that the king’s motive was not pure, The Lord make His people an hundred times so many more as they be; but, my lord, the king, are they not all my lord’s servants? Why, then, doth my lord require this thing? Why will he be a cause of trespass to Israel? Joab wisely tried to keep David from transgression, whether it was merely due to an attack of pride, or whether he contemplated some tyrannical innovation.

v. 4. Nevertheless, the king’s word prevailed against Joab, he insisted upon having his will carried out. Wherefore Joab departed and went throughout all Israel, and came to Jerusalem. Cf 2Sa 24:5-8. It is expressly stated that Joab did not finish his work, nor was the total number put in the account of the chronicles of King David, 1Ch 27:24.

v. 5. And Joab gave the sum of the number of the people unto David. And all they of Israel were a thousand thousand and an hundred thousand men that drew sword; and Judah was four hundred threescore and ten thousand men that drew sword. The apparent discrepancy between this passage and 2Sa 24:9 is due to the fact that this later account includes all those who would be available in war, while the other evidently speaks only of such as had had training in war.

v. 6. But Levi and Benjamin counted he not among them, for the king’s word was abominable to Joab. It seems that the tribe of Benjamin would have been the last to be numbered, and that Joab, before visiting this territory, after his circuit trip through the country, returned to Jerusalem, where his disgust finally had some influence in causing David to change his mind.

v. 7. And God was displeased with this thing, the entire proceeding was evil in His eyes; therefore He smote Israel, the manner in which His anger took effect on Israel being described below.

v. 8. And David said unto God, I have sinned greatly because I have done this thing; but now, I beseech Thee, do away, that is, forgive, the iniquity of Thy servant; for I have done very foolishly. It was a full and free confession of sin, which, as usual, however, did not eliminate the punishment that was bound to follow.

v. 9. And the Lord, in answering David’s confession of sin, spake unto Gad, David’s seer, Nathan apparently having died before this, saying,

v. 10. Go and tell David, saying, Thus saith the Lord, I offer thee three things, laying them out for the king’s choice; choose thee one of them that I may do it unto thee.

v. 11. So Gad came to David and said unto him, Thus saith the Lord, Choose thee, making his choice of one of the three,

v. 12. either three years’ famine, or three months to be destroyed before thy foes, while that the sword of thine enemies overtaketh thee, persecuted by his enemies and his men slain all around him, or else three days the sword of the Lord, even the pestilence, in the land, and the angel of the Lord destroying throughout all the coasts of Israel. Any one of these three forms of punishment was bound to show David his utter helplessness, his entire dependence upon God for everything pertaining to his rule, and the foolishness of pride. Now, therefore, advise thyself what word I shall bring again to Him that sent me.

v. 13. And David said unto Gad, I am in a great strait, the entire matter now oppressed him severely. Let me fall now into the hand of the Lord, for very great are His mercies; but let me not fall into the hand of man. Experience had taught David that human passion and desire for vengeance has no bounds, while the wise and gracious Father in heaven knows the kind, and regulates the amount, of punishment as everyone of His children needs it and can bear it.

v. 14. So the Lord sent pestilence upon Israel; and there fell of Israel seventy thousand men.

v. 15. And God sent an angel unto Jerusalem to destroy it, to let the ravages of the disease take their toll here; and as he was destroying, the Lord beheld, and He repented Him of the evil, spoken according to the way men look at matters, and said to the angel that destroyed, It is enough; stay now thine hand. To this day we have no explanation for the virulence of certain epidemics but that of a special visitation of the Lord. And the angel of the Lord stood by the threshing-floor of Ornan (or Araunah) the Jebusite, one of the surviving members of that nation, who had accepted the God of Israel.

v. 16. And David lifted up his eyes, and saw the angel of the Lord stand between the earth and the heaven, made visible to him by the Lord, having a drawn sword in his hand stretched out over Jerusalem. Then David and the elders of Israel, who were clothed in sackcloth, as a sign of deep mourning and repentance, fell upon their faces, in terror and supplication.

v. 17. And David said unto God, Is it not I that commanded the people to be numbered? Even I it is that have sinned and done evil indeed, in causing the census to be taken with such a sinful motive; but as for these sheep, the great mass of the people, what have they done? His interest in his subjects was that of a true and faithful ruler, who is filled with sympathy for all their misfortunes. Let Thine hand, I pray Thee, O Lord, my God, be on me and on my father’s house, but not on Thy people, that they should be plagued. This is a fine example of an unselfish intercession. Note also how severely God hates sin in every form, and how seriously He punishes it at times.

Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1Ch 21:13

I. The sin of David in numbering the people was self-confidence; pride in his own strength, and forgetfulness of the source of all his strength, even of God. It was the greater sin in him because he had had such marvellous, such visible, witnesses of God’s love, and care, and guidance. Past experience might and should have taught him that his strength was not in himself, but in his God.

II. The sins of pride, and self-confidence, and forgetfulness of God are only too common amongst ourselves. When men dwell securely, in full peace and health, they grow careless in religion. God is not much present with them; they seem sufficient of themselves to keep themselves and to make themselves happy. Let us judge ourselves, that we be not judged by the Lord. Let us fear more the Lord our God, and serve Him in truth with all our heart, for consider how great things He hath done for us.

R. D. B. Rawnsley, Village Sermons, 3rd series, p. 150.

It is better to fall into the hand of God than into the hands of men, because in His whole treatment of human sin God is constantly seeking, not the destruction, but the salvation, of the sinner. God has never answered our sin merely by punishment. Instead of confining Himself to penalty, He sets up the Cross and shows men the sinfulness of sin through the depth and tenderness of His own mercy.

God’s government is not a mere magistracy. It is a moral dominion—a government of the heart.

What is wanted for a full acceptation of the principle of this text? (1) A deep sense of sin. David had it: "I have sinned greatly in that I have done; and now, I beseech Thee, O Lord, take away the iniquity of Thy servant, for I have done very foolishly." (2) An unreserved committal of our case to God. David gave himself up entirely to God’s will. We must fall into the hand of God, an expression which signifies resignation, perfect trust in the Divine righteousness and benevolence, and an entire committal of our whole case to the disposal of God.

Parker, City Temple, 1870, p. 325.

References: 1Ch 21:13.—Preacher’s Monthly, vol. iv., p. 47. 1Ch 21:28.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxx., No. 1808. 1Ch 22:1.—Ibid.

The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

An adversary arose against Israel

Possible meanings of "adversary" are 1) this refers to Satan who decided to cause trouble for Israel or 2) this refers to an enemy army that began to threaten Israel.

incited David to count Israel

"caused David to do wrong, to count Israel." If your language has a word for getting someone to become angry and do something he knows is wrong, you should use it here.

count the people of Israel ... that I may know their number

It is apparent from 1 Chronicles 21:5 that David wanted to count only the men who were able to fight.

from Beersheba to Dan

The Israelites considered these two cities their most southern and most northern cities. David uses these cities to refer to all of Israel. (See: Merism)

a hundred times greater than it is

Joab expresses the desire for an army the size of 100 armies to say he would like the army to have more soldiers and be more powerful. (See: Hyperbole and Generalization)

But my master the king, do they not all serve my master? Why does my master want this? Why bring guilt on Israel?

Job uses these three rhetorical questions to tell David that the census was a bad idea. It appears that David was trusting the size of his army instead of trusting Yahweh, and thus making Israel guilty of sin. These rhetorical questions can be translated as statements. AT: But my master the king, they all serve you already. My master should not request this. You will only bring guilt on the people of Israel by trusting your military power." (See: Rhetorical Question)

Why does my master want this?

The word "this" refers to David's plan to count all the men of Israel.

translationWords

adversary

Israel

David

Joab

commander

Beersheba

Dan

Yahweh

lord

king

servant

guilt

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

Now Satan arose upon Israel Although this chapter is not complimentary to David, it was written here because it says at the end of the chapter that he built an altar and the Lord answered him from heaven. This is complimentary to David.

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.