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 1Now 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. 2David told Joab and the army's commanders, "Go, count Israel from Beersheba to Dan, and report to me, so I may know their number."
3Joab 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?"
4But the king overrode Joab, so Joab went out, traveled through all Israel, then came to Jerusalem. 5Joab gave David the census count: All Israel had one million 100,000 swordsmen, Judah 470,000 swordsmen. 6He did not count Levi and Benjamin, for Joab detested the king's command.
7This was deeply wrong in our Father's sight, so he struck Israel. 8Then 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."
9And our Father spoke to Gad, David's seer:
10Go and say to David, "Your Father says: I hold three things over you—choose one of them, and I will do it to you."
11Gad came to David and said to him, "This is what our Father says: 'Choose for yourself, 12either 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."
13David 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."
14So our Father sent a plague on Israel, and 70,000 men of Israel fell.
15And 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.
16David 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. 17David 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
18The 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. 19So David went up at Gad's direction, which he had spoken in the name of our Father.
20Ornan turned and saw the angel; his four sons with him hid. He had been threshing wheat. 21When David came to Ornan, Ornan looked and saw David, left the threshing floor, and bowed to David, face to the ground.
22David 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."
23Ornan 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."
24But 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."
25So David paid Ornan about fifteen pounds of gold for the site. 26David built an altar there to our Father, offered burnt offerings and peace offerings, and called on our Father, who answered him with fire from heaven on the altar of burnt offering.
27Then our Father commanded the angel, and he put his sword back into its sheath.
28At that time, when David saw our Father had answered him at Ornan the Jebusite's threshing floor, he sacrificed there. 29Moses had made the tabernacle of our Father in the wilderness; it, with the altar of burnt offering, stood then at Gibeon's high place. 30David could not go there to seek our Father, for he feared the sword of the angel of our Father.
