The Shared Word Translation · Study & Discuss
1 Chronicles 21
Satan stood against Israel and incited David to count Israel.
David said to Joab and to the leaders of the people, “Go, count Israel, from Beer-sheba to Dan, and bring me word, that I may know their number.”
But Joab said, “May the LORD increase his people a hundredfold as many as they are! Are they not all, my lord the king, servants of my lord? Why does my lord seek this? Why should it become guilt for Israel?”
But the king’s word prevailed over Joab. So Joab went out and traveled through all Israel, and he came to Jerusalem.
Joab gave David the total of the census of the people: all Israel had one million one hundred thousand men who drew the sword, and Judah had four hundred seventy thousand men who drew the sword.
But he did not count Levi and Benjamin among them, for the king’s command was detestable to Joab.
This matter was evil in the sight of God, and he struck Israel.
David said to God, “I have sinned greatly in doing this thing. Now, please take away the guilt of your servant, for I have acted very foolishly.”
The LORD spoke to Gad, David’s seer, saying,
“Go and speak to David, saying, ‘Thus says the LORD: I am setting three things before you. Choose one of them for yourself, and I will do it to you.’”
So Gad came to David and said to him, “Thus says the LORD: Choose for yourself:
three years of famine; or three months of being swept away before your adversaries, with the sword of your enemies overtaking you; or three days of the sword of the LORD—pestilence in the land, with the angel of the LORD destroying throughout all the territory of Israel. Now consider what answer I should return to the one who sent me.”
David said to Gad, “I am in great distress. Please, let me fall into the hand of the LORD, for his mercies are very great; but do not let me fall into the hand of a human being.”
So the LORD sent a pestilence on Israel, and seventy thousand men of Israel fell.
God sent an angel to Jerusalem to destroy it. But as he was destroying, the LORD saw and relented concerning the disaster. He said to the destroying angel, “Enough! Now, withdraw your hand.” The angel of the LORD was standing by the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.
David lifted his eyes and saw the angel of the LORD standing between earth and heaven, with his sword drawn in his hand, stretched out over Jerusalem. Then David and the elders, clothed in sackcloth, fell facedown.
David said to God, “Was it not I who commanded that the people be counted? I am the one who sinned; I have done great evil. But these sheep—what have they done? LORD my God, please let your hand be against me and against my father’s house, but not against your people for a plague.”
Then the angel of the LORD said to Gad that David should go up and set up an altar to the LORD at the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.
So David went up at Gad’s word, which he had spoken in the name of the LORD.
Ornan turned and saw the angel, while his four sons who were with him hid themselves. Ornan was threshing wheat.
When David came to Ornan, Ornan looked and saw David. He came out from the threshing floor and bowed facedown to the ground before David.
David said to Ornan, “Give me the place of the threshing floor, so that I may build an altar to the LORD on it. Give it to me for its full price, so that the plague may be restrained from the people.”
Ornan said to David, “Take it for yourself, and let my lord the king do what is good in his eyes. Look, I give the cattle for burnt offerings, the threshing sledges for wood, and the wheat for the grain offering. I give it all.”
But King David said to Ornan, “No, for I will surely buy it for its full price. I will not take what is yours for the LORD, or offer a burnt offering that costs me nothing.”
So David gave Ornan six hundred shekels of gold by weight for the place.
David built an altar to the LORD there and offered burnt offerings and offerings of well-being. He called on the LORD, and the LORD answered him with fire from heaven upon the altar of burnt offering.
Then the LORD spoke to the angel, and he returned his sword to its sheath.
At that time, when David saw that the LORD had answered him at the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite, he sacrificed there.
For the tabernacle of the LORD, which Moses had made in the wilderness, and the altar of burnt offering were at that time at the high place in Gibeon.
But David could not go before it to inquire of God, for he was terrified by the sword of the angel of the LORD.