The Accuser Stirs David to Count Israel
The Accuser incites David to count his fighting men; Joab objects and is overruled. Seventy thousand die of plague before David sees our Father's angel and pleads that the sheep did nothing. He buys the threshing floor at full price, refusing to offer what cost him nothing.
21 1 Now the Accuser rose up against Israel and incited David to count Israel. a a v1 The Accuser is FHB's name for Satan, the spiritual adversary who opposes God's people. 2 David told Joab and the army's commanders, "Go, count Israel from Beersheba to Dan, and report to me, so I may know their number."
3 Joab said, "May our Father add to his people a hundredfold! My lord king, are all these not my lord's servants? Why does my lord ask for this? Why bring guilt on Israel?"
4 But the king overrode Joab, so Joab went out, traveled through all Israel, then came to Jerusalem. 5 Joab gave David the census count: Israel had one million one hundred thousand swordsmen, Judah four hundred seventy thousand swordsmen. 6 He did not count Levi and Benjamin, for Joab detested the king's command.
7 This was deeply wrong in our Father's sight, so he struck Israel. 8 Then David said to our Father, "I have sinned greatly in doing this. Now, please take away your servant's guilt, for I have acted very foolishly."
9 And our Father spoke to Gad, David's seer:
10 Go and say to David, 'Your Father says: I hold three things over you—choose one of them, and I will do it to you.'
11 Gad came to David and said to him, "This is what our Father says: 'Choose for yourself 12 —either three years of famine, or three months swept before your foes as their sword overtakes you, or three days of the sword of our Father: plague in the land, the angel of our Father destroying throughout all Israel's territory.' Now decide what answer I bring back to the one who sent me.
13 David told Gad, "I'm in great distress. Let me fall into our Father's hand, for his compassion is very great — but not into the hand of man."
14 So our Father sent a plague on Israel, and seventy thousand men of Israel fell.
15 And our Father sent an angel to destroy Jerusalem; but as the angel destroyed it, our Father saw and relented from the calamity, and said to the angel, "Enough! Stay your hand." The angel of our Father stood by the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.
16 David looked up and saw the angel of our Father standing between earth and heaven, sword drawn in hand, reaching out over Jerusalem. Then David and the elders, covered in sackcloth, fell facedown. 17 David said to our Father, "Was it not I who ordered the people counted? I am the one who sinned and did great evil. But these sheep—what have they done? O my Father, let your hand be against me and my father's house, not against your people with plague." b b v17 David, the shepherd-king, begs that the punishment fall on himself instead of his people—pointing ahead to Jesus, the Good Shepherd who would willingly take his people's judgment upon himself.
An Altar Raised; Our Father Answers With Fire
18 The angel of our Father told Gad to have David go up and build an altar to our Father at Ornan the Jebusite's threshing floor. 19 So David went up at Gad's direction, which he had spoken in the name of our Father.
20 Ornan turned and saw the angel; his four sons with him hid. He had been threshing wheat. 21 When David came to Ornan, Ornan looked and saw David, left the threshing floor, and bowed to David, face to the ground.
22 David said to Ornan, "Give me this threshing-floor site so I can build an altar to our Father on it; give it to me at full price, so the plague is held back from the people."
23 Ornan said to David, "Take it. Let my lord the king do what he sees fit. Look, I give the oxen for burnt offerings, the threshing sledges for wood, and the wheat for the grain offering — I give it all."
24 But King David said to Ornan, "No, I will surely buy it at full price. I won't take what is yours for our Father, or offer burnt offerings that cost me nothing."
25 So David paid Ornan about fifteen pounds of gold for the site. 26 David built an altar there to our Father, offered burnt offerings and peace offerings, and called on our Father, who answered with fire from heaven on the altar of burnt offering.
27 Then our Father commanded the angel, and he put his sword back into its sheath.
28 At that time, when David saw our Father had answered him at Ornan the Jebusite's threshing floor, he sacrificed there. 29 Moses had made the tabernacle of our Father in the wilderness; it, with the altar of burnt offering, stood then at Gibeon's high place. 30 David could not go there to seek our Father, for he feared the sword of the angel of our Father.
