1 Chronicles 21 Study Notes

21:1 Satan is not mentioned often in the OT. When he does appear, he is the adversary of someone beloved by God (Jb 1:6; 2:7; Zch 3:1-2). The parallel passage in 2 Samuel makes it clear that Satan would not have been able to cause trouble for David if God had not let him (2Sm 24:1). The census itself was not an infraction of God’s law (Nm 1:2; 26:2). David succumbed to the sin of pride. This could have included thinking that the men of Israel were his to enumerate, not God’s, and that he could take refuge in military strength rather than God’s sovereignty. He also violated rules that God had given for carrying out a legitimate census. The law stipulated that each man who was counted had to donate a half-shekel to the temple treasury (Ex 30:11-16). God had decreed that a census taken without these provisions would be punished by a plague.

21:2 David placed Joab in charge of this project, reinforcing the idea that the purpose of the census was to evaluate military capability. The expression from Beer-sheba to Dan signifies the entire country from south to north.

21:3 Joab knew that what David was proposing would bring harm to everyone, so he objected strongly.

21:4-5 The number that Joab came up with was astounding—over one million armed men from all Israel (probably including both the northern and southern tribes) and (or including) close to half a million from Judah. This is one of the cases in which the numbers in Chronicles are different than those in Samuel, where eight hundred thousand are from Israel and five hundred thousand are from Judah (2Sm 24:9). The difference may be a matter of textual transmission, or the two authors may be counting different units from Israel. Samuel’s count of Judah may be a round number. Some scholars argue against the likelihood that such a large army could have been assembled in Palestine and that the word rendered “thousand” would be better understood as “military unit.”

21:6 Joab refused to include the tribes of Levi and Benjamin. Perhaps he did not want God’s judgment to fall on the tribe of priests or the tribe in whose territory the tabernacle stood.

21:7 Exactly as God had foretold in Ex 30:12, he punished this illegitimate census with a plague.

21:8 Even before the effects of the punishment were apparent, David realized he had done wrong; he pleaded with God to forgive him.

21:9-13 Gad and Nathan were the two prophets associated with David. Both of them had the unpleasant duty of announcing divine punishment on the king they served (2Sm 12:7). Gad presented David with three options for punishment: (1) three years of famine, (2) three months of devastation by his enemies, or (3) three days of . . . plague on the land. David chose the plague, reasoning that it most directly involved the hand of God and therefore had the most potential for mercy.

21:14 David had wanted to know how many men he had at his disposal. By divine retribution he wound up with seventy-thousand fewer than he had before the census was taken.

21:15-17 The spread of the plague is attributed to an angel from God (2Ch 32:21). The angel was about to inflict the plague on Jerusalem. He was fully visible, hovering above the threshing floor of Ornan. David and the elders of Israel saw the angel floating in a menacing posture with his sword . . . stretched out. David pleaded with God to spare the innocent people and let him suffer God’s punishment. Ornan is a variant for “Araunah” (2Sm 24:18).

21:18-24 Ornan and his four sons received two shocks: they saw the hovering angel, and the king himself showed up on their property. David asked Ornan to sell him this location at its full price—without receiving a king’s discount—because he was afraid the Lord might not stop the plague if he did not pay the full amount.

21:25 The price for the plot of land mentioned here is fifteen pounds of gold, while in 2Sm 24:24 it is said to have been twenty ounces of silver. This difference can be explained if David purchased the properties in simultaneous but distinct transactions. Perhaps the silver was the price for the threshing floor while the gold purchased the surrounding property. Ornan may very naturally have priced these items apart from one another.

21:26-27 While the setting for the sacrifice was being prepared, the angel apparently continued to hover over the scene. God signaled his acceptance of the sacrifice by sending fire from heaven. The angel stopped threatening Jerusalem.

21:28-30 At the end of this episode, the basic arrangement of sacred locations changed. The ark was still in Jerusalem, and the tabernacle continued in Gibeon, but from here on, David no longer used the tabernacle. He performed his sacrifices on this threshing floor. Perhaps he was afraid the angel might come back if he left this site.