Old Testament · 1 Chronicles

1 Chronicles 21

David’s Military Census

(Exodus 30:11–16; 2 Samuel 24:1–9)

1And an adversary stood up against Israel, and incited David to number Israel. 2And David said to Joab and to the princes of the people, "Go, number Israel from Beersheba even to Dan; and bring word to me, that I may know their number."

3And Joab said, "May the LORD add to His people like them a hundred times. Are they not, my lord the king, all of them servants to my lord? Why does my lord seek this? Why should it become a guilt to Israel?"

4But the word of the king prevailed against Joab; and Joab went out, and went up and down in all Israel, and came to Jerusalem. 5And Joab gave the number of the mustering of the people to David. And all Israel was a thousand thousand and a hundred thousand men^a drawing the sword; and Judah was four hundred and seventy thousand men drawing the sword. 6But Levi and Benjamin he did not number among them, for the word of the king was abominable to Joab.

Judgment for David’s Sin

(2 Samuel 24:10–14)

7And it was evil in the eyes of God concerning this thing; and He smote Israel.

8And David said to God, "I have sinned greatly, in that I have done this thing; but now, cause to pass away, I pray, the iniquity of your servant, for I have acted very foolishly."

9And the LORD spoke to Gad, David's seer, saying, 10"Go and speak to David, saying, Thus says the LORD: Three things I am holding out over you; choose for yourself one of them, that I may do it to you."

11And Gad came to David, and said to him, "Thus says the LORD: Take for yourself — 12either three years of famine; or three months of being swept away before your adversaries, while the sword of your enemies overtakes you; or three days of the sword of the LORD, even pestilence in the land, and the messenger of the LORD destroying in all the border of Israel. And now see what word I shall return to Him that sent me."

13And David said to Gad, "I am in great distress. Let me fall now into the hand of the LORD, for very many are His mercies; but into the hand of man^b let me not fall."

A Plague on Israel

(2 Samuel 24:15–17)

14And the LORD gave a pestilence in Israel; and there fell of Israel seventy thousand men.

15And God sent a messenger to Jerusalem to destroy it; and as he was destroying, the LORD saw, and He relented concerning the evil, and said to the messenger that was destroying, "Enough; now relax your hand." And the messenger of the LORD was standing by the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.

16And David lifted up his eyes, and saw the messenger of the LORD standing between the earth and the heavens, and his sword drawn in his hand, stretched out over Jerusalem. And David and the elders, covered with sackcloth, fell upon their faces. 17And David said to God, "Is it not I that said to number the people? And I it is that have sinned and done great evil; but these, the flock, what have they done? O LORD my God, let your hand, I pray, be against me and against the house of my father; but not against your people, for a plague."

David Builds an Altar

(2 Samuel 24:18–25)

18And the messenger of the LORD said to Gad to say to David, that David should go up to raise up an altar to the LORD in the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite. 19And David went up by the word of Gad, which he had spoken in the name of the LORD.

20And Ornan turned back, and saw the messenger; and his four sons with him hid themselves. And Ornan was threshing wheat. 21And David came as far as Ornan; and Ornan looked and saw David, and went out of the threshing floor, and bowed himself to David with his face to the ground.

22And David said to Ornan, "Give me the place of the threshing floor, that I may build on it an altar to the LORD; for full silver give it to me, that the plague may be restrained from upon the people."

23And Ornan said to David, "Take it for yourself, and let my lord the king do that which is good in his eyes; see, I give the oxen for burnt offerings, and the threshing sledges for wood, and the wheat for the meal offering; I give it all."

24And king David said to Ornan, "No, but I will surely buy it for full silver; for I will not take that which is yours for the LORD, nor offer up a burnt offering without cost."

25And David gave to Ornan for the place six hundred shekels of gold by weight. 26And David built there an altar to the LORD, and offered up burnt offerings and peace offerings, and called upon the LORD; and He answered him with fire from the heavens upon the altar of burnt offering.

27And the LORD said to the messenger, and he returned his sword into its sheath.

28At that time, when David saw that the LORD had answered him in the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite, then he sacrificed there. 29And the tabernacle^c of the LORD, which Moses had made in the wilderness, and the altar of burnt offering, were at that time in the high place at Gibeon. 30But David was not able to go before it to inquire of God, for he was terrified because of the sword of the messenger of the LORD.