The Histories · Old Testament

1 Chronicles 21

1 Chronicles 21: the census, the plague and the altar at Ornan's threshingfloor

General context

Satan stands up against Israel and provokes David to number the people. David orders Joab to count from Beer–sheba to Dan. Joab protests, asking why the king should "be a cause of trespass to Israel", but the king's word prevails. Joab reports 1,100,000 sword-bearing men in Israel and 470,000 in Judah, leaving out Levi and Benjamin because the command was "abominable" to him. God is displeased and smites Israel; David confesses he has sinned greatly. Through Gad, David's seer, the Lord offers three choices: three years of famine, three months of defeat, or three days of pestilence with the angel of the Lord destroying through the land. David chooses to fall into the Lord's hand, "for very great are his mercies". Pestilence kills seventy thousand. As the angel is destroying Jerusalem, the Lord repents and says, "It is enough, stay now thine hand"; the angel stands by the threshingfloor of Ornan the Jebusite. David sees the angel with a drawn sword over the city, falls on his face with the elders in sackcloth, and asks that the hand fall on him and his father's house, not on "these sheep". The angel commands Gad to tell David to build an altar at Ornan's threshingfloor. Ornan offers the place, oxen, threshing instruments and wheat freely; David insists on paying, "nor offer burnt offerings without cost", and gives six hundred shekels of gold. He builds the altar, offers, and the Lord answers by fire from heaven; the angel sheathes his sword. David sacrifices there because he is afraid to go to the tabernacle at Gibeon.

Cited passages: 1 Chronicles 21:1, 1 Chronicles 21:2, 1 Chronicles 21:3, 1 Chronicles 21:4, 1 Chronicles 21:5, 1 Chronicles 21:6, 1 Chronicles 21:7, 1 Chronicles 21:8, 1 Chronicles 21:9, 1 Chronicles 21:12, 1 Chronicles 21:13, 1 Chronicles 21:14, 1 Chronicles 21:15, 1 Chronicles 21:16, 1 Chronicles 21:17, 1 Chronicles 21:18, 1 Chronicles 21:20, 1 Chronicles 21:23, 1 Chronicles 21:24, 1 Chronicles 21:25, 1 Chronicles 21:26, 1 Chronicles 21:27, 1 Chronicles 21:29, 1 Chronicles 21:30

1 Chronicles 21 (KJV)

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

²And David said to Joab and to the rulers of the people, Go, number Israel from Beer-sheba even to Dan; and bring the number of them to me, that I may know it.

³And Joab answered, 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?

⁴Nevertheless the king’s word prevailed against Joab. Wherefore Joab departed, and went throughout all Israel, and came to Jerusalem.

⁵And 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.

⁶But Levi and Benjamin counted he not among them: for the king’s word was abominable to Joab.

⁷And God was displeased with this thing; therefore he smote Israel.

⁸And David said unto God, I have sinned greatly, because I have done this thing: but now, I beseech thee, do 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, I offer thee three things: choose thee one of them, that I may do it unto thee.

¹¹So Gad came to David, and said unto him, Thus saith the Lord, Choose thee

¹²Either three years’ famine; or three months to be destroyed before thy foes, while that the sword of thine enemies overtaketh thee; 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. Now therefore advise thyself what word I shall bring again to him that sent me.

¹³And David said unto Gad, I am in a great strait: 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.

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

¹⁵And God sent an angel unto Jerusalem to destroy it: and as he was destroying, the Lord beheld, and he repented him of the evil, and said to the angel that destroyed, It is enough, stay now thine hand. And the angel of the Lord stood by the threshingfloor of Ornan the Jebusite.

¹⁶And David lifted up his eyes, and saw the angel of the Lord stand between the earth and the heaven, having a drawn sword in his hand stretched out over Jerusalem. Then David and the elders of Israel, who were clothed in sackcloth, fell upon their faces.

¹⁷And 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; but as for these sheep, what have they done? 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.

¹⁸Then the angel of the Lord commanded Gad to say to David, that David should go up, and set up an altar unto the Lord in the threshingfloor of Ornan the Jebusite.

¹⁹And David went up at the saying of Gad, which he spake in the name of the Lord.

²⁰And Ornan turned back, and saw the angel; and his four sons with him hid themselves. Now Ornan was threshing wheat.

²¹And as David came to Ornan, Ornan looked and saw David, and went out of the threshingfloor, and bowed himself to David with his face to the ground.

²²Then David said to Ornan, Grant me the place of this threshingfloor, that I may build an altar therein unto the Lord: thou shalt grant it me for the full price: that the plague may be stayed from the people.

²³And Ornan said unto David, Take it to thee, and let my lord the king do that which is good in his eyes: lo, I give thee the oxen also for burnt offerings, and the threshing instruments for wood, and the wheat for the meat offering; I give it all.

²⁴And king David said to Ornan, Nay; but I will verily buy it for the full price: for I will not take that which is thine for the Lord, nor offer burnt offerings without cost.

²⁵So 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 called upon the Lord; and he answered him from heaven by fire upon the altar of burnt offering.

²⁷And the Lord commanded the angel; and he put up his sword again into the sheath thereof.

²⁸At that time when David saw that the Lord had answered him in the threshingfloor of Ornan the Jebusite, then he sacrificed there.

²⁹For the tabernacle of the Lord, which Moses made in the wilderness, and the altar of the burnt offering, were at that season in the high place at Gibeon.

³⁰But David could not go before it to enquire of God: for he was afraid because of the sword of the angel of the Lord.

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Historical context

The chapter names Satan as the one who provoked the census, and David as the one who ordered it and later confesses "I have sinned greatly"; both statements stand, and the text does not say why counting the people was a trespass. Joab's protest is the only argument against it, and his omission of Levi and Benjamin is explained by his revulsion, not by any rule. Gad is called "David’s seer"; the book later calls Heman "the king’s seer" as well. The three options are all measured in threes: years, months, days. The number who died is stated as seventy thousand. The Lord's relenting is told as his own act, "he repented him of the evil", before David's plea. Ornan is a Jebusite, one of the people whose city David took in chapter 11; his four sons and his wheat are noted. The price is six hundred shekels of gold. The chapter ends by explaining that Moses' tabernacle and altar were at Gibeon and that David did not go there out of fear of the angel's sword; the next chapter's first verse identifies this threshingfloor as the site of the house of the Lord.

Cited passages: 1 Chronicles 21:1, 1 Chronicles 21:8, 1 Chronicles 21:3, 1 Chronicles 21:6, 1 Chronicles 21:9, 1 Chronicles 21:14, 1 Chronicles 21:15, 1 Chronicles 21:20, 1 Chronicles 21:25, 1 Chronicles 21:29, 1 Chronicles 21:30, 1 Chronicles 22:1

Literary context

A census becomes the discovery of an altar site. The chapter moves in stages: provocation, protest, count, judgment, choice, plague, vision, purchase, fire. Speech drives each turn. Joab's objection is overruled; David's confession comes before the punishment is chosen; his answer to Gad prefers God's mercy to man's; his plea for "these sheep" takes the blame onto his own house. The angel with a drawn sword frames the middle of the chapter and is answered at the end by the sword returned to its sheath. The exchange with Ornan is a contest of generosity in which David's refusal, "nor offer burnt offerings without cost", states the principle behind the purchase. Fire from heaven confirms the site, and the final verses explain why David sacrifices here rather than at Gibeon. The next chapter opens with David naming the place the house of the Lord, so the plague story ends where the temple begins.

Cited passages: 1 Chronicles 21:3, 1 Chronicles 21:8, 1 Chronicles 21:13, 1 Chronicles 21:17, 1 Chronicles 21:16, 1 Chronicles 21:27, 1 Chronicles 21:23, 1 Chronicles 21:24, 1 Chronicles 21:26, 1 Chronicles 21:28

Key moments

Provoked to number Israel (1 Chronicles 21:1). Satan stands against Israel and moves David to count the people.
Joab's protest overruled (1 Chronicles 21:4). Joab questions the census, but the king's word prevails.
Three choices from Gad (1 Chronicles 21:12). The seer offers famine, defeat or pestilence, each measured in threes.
Into the hand of the Lord (1 Chronicles 21:13). David chooses to fall into God's hand rather than man's.
It is enough (1 Chronicles 21:15). The Lord relents and halts the angel at Ornan's threshingfloor.
What have these sheep done (1 Chronicles 21:17). David asks that the punishment fall on him and his house, not the people.
Not without cost (1 Chronicles 21:24). David refuses Ornan's free gift and buys the site for its full price.

For reflection

Ornan offers everything for nothing, and David refuses to offer God what costs him nothing. What is the difference between a gift freely given and an offering that has a price, and why might David insist on the second?

People in this chapter

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