David Counts the Israelites
v1 Again the Lord was angry with Israel. He made David cause trouble for the Israelites. He said to David, "Go and count the people of Israel and Judah."
v2 So King David spoke to Joab who was the leader of his army. David said, "Go through all the tribes of Israel. Travel from Dan to Beersheba and count all the people. Then I will know how many people there are."
v3 But Joab replied to the king, "The Lord your God can give you 100 times more people. And I hope that you, my master the king, will see it happen. You should not want to do such a thing."
v4 However, the king made Joab and the leaders of the army obey the king’s command. So they left the king and they went to count the Israelites.
v5 Joab and the other leaders crossed the river Jordan and they went to Aroer. They camped in the valley on the south side of the city. They went through the area called Gad and they continued to Jazer. v6 They went to the area called Gilead and to the region called Tahtim Hodshi. Then they went to Dan Jaan and round to the city called Sidon. v7 They went to the city called Tyre, which had strong walls. Then they went to all the towns of the people called Hivites and Canaanites. Finally, they went to the town called Beersheba in the south of *Judah. v8 It took them 9 months and 20 days to go through all the country. Then they returned to Jerusalem.
v9 Joab gave the list of people to the king. In Israel, there were 800,000 men who could fight. In Judah, there were 500,000 men who could fight.
Commentary
We do not know when the events of this chapter happened. But it was probably some time after Absalom’s death.
Verse 1 does not say why the Lord was angry with Israel. Usually, he was angry when the people did not obey him. The Lord wanted to punish them. In Chronicles, it says that Satan (God’s chief enemy) made David count the people. James 1:13 says that God does not tempt people to do something wrong. But Job chapter 1 shows that God sometimes lets Satan tempt (test) people. So, God may allow something but Satan actually does it. This could explain the two different accounts of this story.
It does not seem wrong for a king to count his people. It may seem sensible for him to know the number of his soldiers. But Israel was not an ordinary country. The army did not win because it was big. God was the real king of the country. God helped the Israelite army to defeat its enemies. David should have trusted the Lord to give him success in his battles. It is a sin to be proud. And it is a sin to trust yourself more than you trust the Lord. Perhaps David was becoming proud about his success. Perhaps the devil tempted him to trust his army more and to trust the Lord less.
Joab tried to advise the king. Joab was a cruel man (1 Kings 2:5-6) and his advice was not always good. But Joab was right this time. David should have trusted God. God would give David the soldiers that he needed. But David refused to follow Joab’s advice. Joab did not always obey David. But David won the argument that time.
‘From Dan to Beersheba’ is a common phrase. Dan was at the north end of the country called *Israel. Beersheba was at the south end. So, that phrase just refers to the whole country. Joab and his men went to all the tribes of Israel except Levi and Benjamin (1 Chronicles 21:6). Sidon, Tyre, and the people called Hivites and Canaanites were not part of Israel. But David had defeated them. So they had to provide soldiers for the Israelite army.
It took a long time to record all the people. It was a major task. Verse 9 shows that Israel was a divided country. Judah refers to the south of the country and Israel refers to the north of the country. A ‘thousand’ is the Hebrew name for a large group of soldiers. It does not mean exactly 1,000 people. So we do not know the accurate number of men in the Israelite army. The numbers are different in 1 Chronicles chapter 21. Perhaps the writers counted the groups in different ways.
The Aftermath of Counting the People
v10 David felt very guilty after he had counted the people. So David said to the Lord, "I have done something terrible. It is a great sin. Lord, I am your servant. Please forgive me. I have been very foolish."
v11 Before David got up the next morning, the Lord had spoken to Gad. Gad was a prophet and he was David’s seer (prophet). v12 The Lord said to Gad, "Go and say to David, 'This is what the Lord says: I give you three choices. Choose one of them and I will do it to you.'"
v13 So Gad went to David and said, "Should your crops fail for three years so that you are hungry? Or should your enemies come and chase you for three months? Or should there be three days when the people in your country suffer from a serious disease? Think about this and decide. Then I will tell the Lord, who sent me."
v14 David said to Gad, "I am in a desperate situation. I want the Lord to punish us because he is very kind. I do not want other people to punish me."
v15 So the Lord sent a serious disease to the people in Israel. It began that morning. It lasted until the end of the time that God chose. And 70,000 people from Dan to Beersheba died. v16 The angel stretched out his arm towards Jerusalem. He was going to destroy it. But the Lord was very sorry about the terrible troubles. He said to the angel, "That is enough. Put your arm down." The angel was by a place that belonged to Araunah. (Araunah belonged to the people called Jebusites). At that place, Araunah used to beat his corn to get out the grains.
v17 David saw the angel who had killed the people. David said to the Lord, "I am the person who has sinned. I did the wrong thing. These people are like innocent sheep. They have not done anything wrong. Please punish me and my family."
Commentary
David knew that he had sinned. He did not need a prophet to tell him that time. (Compare this with 12:1-13.) A prophet hears what God says. A prophet sometimes has dreams or visions (dreams when he is awake). So the Bible sometimes calls a prophet ‘a seer.’ He sees special things that God shows only to him. Gad the prophet had helped David before he became king (1 Samuel 22:5). David asked the Lord to forgive him. But the Lord still punished Israel (verse 1).
David had to choose the punishment. Whatever David chose, many people in Israel would die. Many of the people that Joab had counted would die. The people would die slowly if they did not have enough food. They would die quickly with a bad disease. David did not want his enemies to punish him. They hated him and they would not be kind. They might ruin the whole country. But David knew that the Lord was kind. He trusted the Lord but he did not trust other people.
God sent an angel to kill the people. The angel brought the serious disease to people in all parts of the country. Jerusalem was the capital city of Israel. King David lived there with his family and his servants. The Lord was very sad that he had to punish the Israelites. He decided to be kind to the people in Jerusalem. So, even during the punishment, the Lord was kind, as David said in verse 14. Araunah’s land was outside the walls of the city. The old name for Jerusalem was Jebus. Araunah owned land there before David made it his capital city. David could see Araunah’s land.
David could also see the angel with a sword in his hand (1 Chronicles 21:16). David was probably very afraid. He knew that he had sinned. So, he was very humble. David used to look after sheep when he was young. The Lord had told David to be like a shepherd to the Israelites (5:2; 7:7). David thought that the people were innocent. He did not know that the Lord had been angry with them. David wanted the Lord to punish him and his family. David did not want the Lord to punish the people.
At last, in verse 17, David was really humble. Before this, in verses 10 and 14, his conscience felt bad. But it seems that he was still not humble enough to ask God to save his people. (Compare this with Abraham in Genesis 18:20-32 and Moses in Exodus 32:30-32.) Instead, David agreed to the punishment. But then David saw the punishment. And he saw the angel. David knew that he could not save his people. Only the Lord could stop the punishment. And David then realized that a big army could not protect Israel. Only the Lord could protect Israel.
David Builds an Altar to the Lord
v18 That day, Gad came to David and said, "Go up to the place where Araunah beats his corn. (Araunah belonged to the people called Jebusites.) Build an altar to the Lord on that place." v19 So David went to do what the Lord had told him by Gad. v20 Araunah looked. He saw the king and his servants who were coming towards him. Araunah went out. He bent down in front of the king in order to show honor to the king. Araunah bent down until his face touched the ground. v21 He said, "Why has my master the king come to me, his servant?"
David said, ‘I have come to buy the land where you beat your corn. I will build an altar to the Lord. Then this bad disease will stop.’
v22 Araunah said to David, "My master and king. You may take anything that you want for a sacrifice. Here are the oxen for the burnt offering. Here are the boards and wooden collars that you can burn as wood. v23 My king, I give everything to you." Araunah also said, "I pray that the Lord your God will accept you."
v24 But King David replied to Araunah, "No, I must pay you for all this. I will not give the Lord my God burnt offerings that cost me nothing."
So, David bought the place where Araunah beat his corn. And David bought the oxen. He paid 50 pieces of silver (which weighed about half a kilo or one and a quarter pounds). v25 David built an altar to the Lord there. David sacrificed burnt offerings and friendship offerings. Then the Lord answered what David had prayed for the country. And the bad disease in Israel stopped.
Commentary
People used to beat their corn on a high piece of land because of the strong winds. A farmer harvested his corn. He put the corn stems on the ground in the special place. He put a wooden collar on his oxen. Then he made the oxen pull a very heavy board across the corn. This separated the grains of corn from the stems. The farmer then threw the stems up into the air. The wind blew away the stems and the dust. The heavy grains fell onto the ground. Then the farmer collected them together.
David had to build an altar and to give sacrifices to the Lord. Araunah gave honor to David. He wanted to give everything to David. Araunah referred to ‘the Lord your God’. He did not worship the God of Israel. But Araunah was afraid of the bad disease too. He wanted David’s sacrifice to be successful.
David would not accept Araunah’s land and animals as a free gift. David paid for all of it. We can see again that David’s attitudes had changed. He was not still the proud king who wanted to count his army. Instead, he was humble enough to want to give a large gift to the Lord. In the Chronicles account, David paid a lot more money. He probably paid the price for all of Araunah’s land. In verse 24, David bought just the small piece of land and the animals. He wanted to make his sacrifices quickly so that the disease would stop. The sacrifices were like those in 6:17-18 (see the notes on those verses). The place was called Mount Moriah (2 Chronicles 3:1). Many centuries earlier, Abraham had gone to sacrifice Isaac on Mount Moriah (Genesis 22:1-18).
Later, Solomon built the temple on this piece of land. In chapter 7, the Lord told David that he would not allow David to build the temple. But the Lord did allow David to prepare for the construction of the temple. And the Lord even allowed David to buy the land. David chose Araunah’s land. This was the same place where David saw the angel. It was the place where the Lord stopped the punishment. Here, the Lord saved Jerusalem. So here was the right place for the Israelites to make their sacrifices to the Lord. They would pray here, and the Lord would forgive them. So the Lord would show his kindness to them in this place.
In 1 Chronicles 21:26-27, the Lord spoke to the angel after David had given sacrifices to the Lord. The Lord forgave David’s sin and Israel’s sin. The Lord did not continue to punish them. The last verse in this book shows that the Lord cares about his people. And the Lord answers prayer.
The story of David ends in 1 Kings 2:11 after he made his son Solomon the king. But the Lord continued to bless David’s family. Luke chapter 3 shows that Jesus Christ came from the family of David.
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SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT
There is a lot of information in First and Second Samuel about Saul and David, and their families. There were quizzes along the way at the end of each chapter. Therefore, there is no Summary Quiz especially since the story of David continues in 1 Kings. However, feel free to ask any questions about anything in the two books that were just studied.
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