2 Samuel24
World English Bible · Public Domain
1Again Yahweh’s anger burned against Israel, and he moved David against them, saying, “Go, count Israel and Judah.”
2The king said to Joab the captain of the army, who was with him, “Now go back and forth through all the tribes of Israel, from Dan even to Beersheba, and count the people, that I may know the sum of the people.”
3Joab said to the king, “Now may Yahweh your God add to the people, however many they may be, one hundred times; and may the eyes of my lord the king see it. But why does my lord the king delight in this thing?”
4Notwithstanding, the king’s word prevailed against Joab and against the captains of the army. Joab and the captains of the army went out from the presence of the king to count the people of Israel.
5They passed over the Jordan and encamped in Aroer, on the right side of the city that is in the middle of the valley of Gad, and to Jazer;
6then they came to Gilead and to the land of Tahtim Hodshi; and they came to Dan Jaan and around to Sidon,
7and came to the stronghold of Tyre, and to all the cities of the Hivites and of the Canaanites; and they went out to the south of Judah, at Beersheba.
8So when they had gone back and forth through all the land, they came to Jerusalem at the end of nine months and twenty days.
9Joab gave up the sum of the counting of the people to the king; and there were in Israel eight hundred thousand valiant men who drew the sword, and the men of Judah were five hundred thousand men.
10David’s heart struck him after he had counted the people. David said to Yahweh, “I have sinned greatly in that which I have done. But now, Yahweh, put away, I beg you, the iniquity of your servant; for I have done very foolishly.”
11When David rose up in the morning, Yahweh’s word came to the prophet Gad, David’s seer, saying,
12“Go and speak to David, ‘Yahweh says, “I offer you three things. Choose one of them, that I may do it to you.”’”
13So Gad came to David, and told him, saying, “Shall seven years of famine come to you in your land? Or will you flee three months before your foes while they pursue you? Or shall there be three days’ pestilence in your land? Now answer, and consider what answer I shall return to him who sent me.”
14David said to Gad, “I am in distress. Let us fall now into Yahweh’s hand, for his mercies are great. Let me not fall into man’s hand.”
15So Yahweh sent a pestilence on Israel from the morning even to the appointed time; and seventy thousand men died of the people from Dan even to Beersheba.
16When the angel stretched out his hand toward Jerusalem to destroy it, Yahweh relented of the disaster, and said to the angel who destroyed the people, “It is enough. Now withdraw your hand.” Yahweh’s angel was by the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.
17David spoke to Yahweh when he saw the angel who struck the people, and said, “Behold, I have sinned, and I have done perversely; but these sheep, what have they done? Please let your hand be against me, and against my father’s house.”
18Gad came that day to David and said to him, “Go up, build an altar to Yahweh on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.”
19David went up according to the saying of Gad, as Yahweh commanded.
20Araunah looked out, and saw the king and his servants coming on toward him. Then Araunah went out and bowed himself before the king with his face to the ground.
21Araunah said, “Why has my lord the king come to his servant?” David said, “To buy your threshing floor, to build an altar to Yahweh, that the plague may be stopped from afflicting the people.”
22Araunah said to David, “Let my lord the king take and offer up what seems good to him. Behold, the cattle for the burnt offering, and the threshing sledges and the yokes of the oxen for the wood.
23All this, O king, does Araunah give to the king.” Araunah said to the king, “May Yahweh your God accept you.”
24The king said to Araunah, “No, but I will most certainly buy it from you for a price. I will not offer burnt offerings to Yahweh my God which cost me nothing.” So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver.
25David built an altar to Yahweh there, and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings. So Yahweh was entreated for the land, and the plague was removed from Israel.
Study Guide
Public-domain commentary and original-language notes for 2 Samuel 24.
Chapter Summary
In this chapter: David numbers the people. (1–9). He chooses the pestilence. (10–15). The staying the pestilence. (16, 17). David's sacrifice, The plague removed. (18–25).
vv1-9
For the people's sin David was left to act wrong, and in his chastisement they received punishment. This example throws light upon God's government of the world, and furnishes a useful lesson. The pride of David's heart, was his sin in numbering of the people. He thought thereby to appear the more formidable, trusting in an arm of flesh more than he should have done, and though he had written so much of trusting in God only. God judges not of sin as we do. What appears to us harmless, or, at least, but a small offence, may be a great sin in the eye of God, who discerns the thoughts and intents of the heart. Even ungodly men can discern evil tempers and wrong conduct in believers, of which they themselves often remain unconscious. But God seldom allows those whom he loves the pleasures they sinfully covet.
vv10-15
It is well, when a man has sinned, if he has a heart within to smite him for it. If we confess our sins, we may pray in faith that God would forgive them, and take away, by pardoning mercy, that sin which we cast away by sincere repentance. What we make the matter of our pride, it is just in God to take from us, or make bitter to us, and make it our punishment. This must be such a punishment as the people have a large share in, for though it was David's sin that opened the sluice, the sins of the people all contributed to the flood. In this difficulty, David chose a judgment which came immediately from God, whose mercies he knew to be very great, rather than from men, who would have triumphed in the miseries of Israel, and have been thereby hardened in their idolatry. He chose the pestilence; he and his family would be as much exposed to it as the poorest Israelite; and he would continue for a shorter time under the Divine rebuke, however severe it was. The rapid destruction by the pestilence shows how easily God can bring down the proudest sinners, and how much we owe daily to the Divine patience.
vv16-17
Perhaps there was more wickedness, especially more pride, and that was the sin now chastised, in Jerusalem than elsewhere, therefore the hand of the destroyer is stretched out upon that city; but the Lord repented him of the evil, changed not his mind, but his way. In the very place where Abraham was stayed from slaying his son, this angel, by a like countermand, was stayed from destroying Jerusalem. It is for the sake of the great Sacrifice, that our forfeited lives are preserved from the destroying angel. And in David is the spirit of a true shepherd of the people, offering himself as a sacrifice to God, for the salvation of his subjects.
Key Words
יָסַף: to add or augment (often adverbial, to continue to do a thing)
אַף: properly, the nose or nostril; hence, the face, and occasionally a person; also (from the rapid breathing in passion) ire
חָרָה: to glow or grow warm; figuratively (usually) to blaze up, of anger, zeal, jealousy
יִשְׂרָאֵל: Jisrael, a symbolical name of Jacob; also (typically) of his posterity
סוּת: properly, to prick, i.e. (figuratively) stimulate; by implication, to seduce
דָּוִד: David, the youngest son of Jesse
אָמַר: to say (used with great latitude)
יָלַךְ: to walk (literally or figuratively); causatively, to carry (in various senses)
מָנָה: properly, to weigh out; by implication, to allot or constitute officially; also to enumerate or enroll
יְהוּדָה: Jehudah (or Judah), the name of five Israelites; also of the tribe descended from the first, and of its territory
Cross References
2 Samuel 24Parallel account explicitly identifies Satan as the active agent/provoker of the numbering.
Supported by Matthew Poole, JFB
Parallel text clarifies the choice between three years of famine, three months of flight, or pestilence.
Supported by JFB
Identifies Araunah's threshingfloor (Moriah) as the site where Solomon built the temple.
Supported by Matthew Henry
Parallel passage emphasizing David's refusal to offer to God that which cost him nothing.
Supported by Matthew Henry
Parallels the idiom of God stirring up a king to act, illustrating permission vs temptation.
Supported by Matthew Poole, JFB
Theological parallel regarding God's providential/secret agency (Shimei's cursing) over evil acts.
Supported by Matthew Poole, JFB
Parallel recording Joab's strong protest and warning that the census would cause guilt.
Supported by JFB
Provides the differing numbers from Chronicles; reconciled by military vs non-military inclusion.
Supported by JFB
David declares Araunah's threshingfloor as the house of God and altar of burnt offering.
Supported by Matthew Henry
The reference of 'again' links back to the prior divine wrath seen in the famine.
Supported by JFB
Prescribes a ransom-money requirement when numbering Israel to prevent a plague.
Supported by JFB
Confirms the census was never fully completed because wrath fell upon Israel.
Supported by JFB
Mount Moriah connects the place of Isaac's binding to the site of David's altar.
Supported by Matthew Henry
Geographical match for Aroer and the river of Gad (Arnon) where the census began.
Supported by Matthew Poole, JFB
Explains 'Tahtim-hodshi' as the territory of the Hagarenes conquered during Saul's reign.
Supported by Matthew Poole, JFB
Parallel describing the angel sent to destroy Jerusalem and God staying his hand.
Supported by JFB