Chapter 21

The Census and Plague. ¹ Now Satan took his stand^[a] against Israel, and he tempted David to take a census of Israel.

² David said to Joab and to the leaders of the people, “Go take a census of Israel from Beer-sheba to Dan. Bring the number to me so that I might know it.”

³ Joab answered, “May the Lord multiply his people a hundred times over, but, my lord, the king, are these not my lord’s servants? Why would my lord order this? Why would he bring this guilt upon Israel?”

⁴ Nevertheless, the king was resolute with Joab. Joab departed and traveled all throughout Israel, and he then returned to Jerusalem. ⁵ Joab gave the total number of the people to David. In all of Israel there were one million one hundred thousand men who could draw the sword. In Judah there were four hundred and seventy thousand men who could draw the sword. ⁶ He did not count Levi or Benjamin, however, for Joab found the king’s command to be detestable.

⁷ God was greatly displeased at this, and he struck down Israel.

⁸ David said to God, “I have sinned grievously in doing this. I beg you now, take away the iniquity of your servant, for I have acted very foolishly.”

^9 [b]The Lord then spoke to Gad, David’s seer, saying, ¹⁰ “Go and speak to David saying: Thus says the Lord: ‘I will offer you three options. Choose one of them so that I might do it to you.’ ”

¹¹ Gad came to David and said, “Thus says the Lord: ‘Choose for yourself ¹² three years of famine, or three months of being defeated by your enemies, with the swords of your foes striking you down, or else three days of the sword of the Lord. Plague will be in the land, and the angel of the Lord will cause destruction all throughout the territory of Israel.’ Think about the answer I should take back to him who sent me.”

¹³ David said to Gad, “I am greatly distressed. Let me fall into the hands of the Lord, for his mercies are truly great. Let me not fall into human hands.”

¹⁴ So the Lord sent a plague upon Israel, and seventy thousand people fell because of it. ¹⁵ God also sent an angel to Jerusalem to destroy it. As he was destroying it, the Lord regretted the disaster, and he said to the destroying angel, “Enough! Hold back your hand!”

Ornan’s Threshing Floor. So the angel of the Lord stood by the threshing floor of Ornan, the Jebusite.

¹⁶ David looked up, and he saw the angel of the Lord standing between the earth and the heavens, holding a drawn sword in his hands that was stretched out over Jerusalem. David and the elders fell down upon their faces, clothed in sackcloth.^[c]

¹⁷ David said to God, “Was it not I who commanded the census of the people? I am the one who sinned, for I have truly done what was wrong. As for these sheep, what have they done? O Lord, my God, let your hand be against me and my father’s household, but let your people not suffer from the plague.”

¹⁸ The angel of the Lord then commanded Gad to tell David that David should go and set up an altar to the Lord on the threshing floor of Ornan, the Jebusite. ¹⁹ So David went up as Gad, who spoke in the name of the Lord, had said.

²⁰ Ornan turned around, and he saw the angel, and his four sons who were with him went and hid themselves while Ornan remained on the threshing floor.

²¹ David came to Ornan, and Ornan looked out and saw David. He went out from the threshing floor and bowed down with his face to the ground before David. ²² David said to Ornan, “Give me this place, the threshing floor, so that I can build an altar to the Lord on it. Sell it to me at full price so that the plague can be withdrawn from the people.”

²³ Ornan said to David, “Take it for yourself. Let my lord, the king, do what he sees fit. Behold, I will also give you the oxen for burnt offering and the instruments used for threshing for wood and wheat for the grain offering. I will give it all to you.”

²⁴ But King David said to Ornan, “No, I will surely pay you the full price. I will not take anything from you for the Lord, nor will I offer any burnt offering that did not cost me anything.”

²⁵ David gave Ornan the weight of six hundred shekels of gold for the site. ²⁶ David then built an altar to the Lord there, and he offered burnt offerings and peace offerings. He called upon the Lord, and he answered him from heaven by sending fire upon the altar of the burnt offerings.

²⁷ The Lord gave the command to the angel, and he put his sword back in its sheath. ²⁸ David then realized that the Lord had answered him at the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite, and he performed a sacrifice there.

²⁹ At that time, the tabernacle of the Lord that Moses had made and the altar of burnt offerings were at the high place in Gibeon. ³⁰ But David could not go in to make inquiry of God, for he was afraid of the sword of the angel of the Lord.