David’s Census of Israel and Judah

24 Again the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he incited David against them, saying, “Go, count the people of Israel and Judah.”^(A)

²³ David did not count those below twenty years of age, for the Lord had promised to make Israel as numerous as the stars of heaven.^{(A) 24} Joab son of Zeruiah began to count them but did not finish, yet wrath came upon Israel for this, and the number was not entered into the account of the Annals of King David.^(B)

The Census and Plague

21 Satan stood up against Israel and incited David to count the people of Israel.^(A)

¹³ No one, when tempted, should say, “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted by evil and he himself tempts no one. ¹⁴ But one is tempted by one’s own desire, being lured and enticed by it;

¹¹ For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion, leading them to believe what is false,^(A)

²⁸ to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place.

²⁵ Moreover, I gave them statutes that were not good and ordinances by which they could not live.^(A)

⁹ If a prophet is deceived and speaks a word, I, the Lord, have deceived that prophet, and I will stretch out my hand against him and will destroy him from the midst of my people Israel.^(A)

²⁰ And the Lord said, ‘Who will entice Ahab, so that he may go up and fall at Ramoth-gilead?’ Then one said one thing, and another said another, ²¹ until a certain spirit came forward and stood before the Lord, saying, ‘I will entice him.’ ²² ‘How?’ the Lord asked him. He replied, ‘I will go out and be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets.’ Then the Lord^[a] said, ‘You are to entice him, and you shall succeed; go out and do it.’^{(A) 23} So you see, the Lord has put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these your prophets; the Lord has decreed disaster for you.”^(B)

David Avenges the Gibeonites

21 Now there was a famine in the days of David for three years, year after year, and David inquired of the Lord. The Lord said, “There is bloodguilt on Saul and on his house because he put the Gibeonites to death.” ² So the king called the Gibeonites and spoke to them. (Now the Gibeonites were not of the people of Israel but of the remnant of the Amorites; although the people of Israel had sworn to spare them, Saul had tried to wipe them out in his zeal for the people of Israel and Judah.)^{(A) 3} David said to the Gibeonites, “What shall I do for you? How shall I make expiation, that you may bless the heritage of the Lord?”^{(B) 4} The Gibeonites said to him, “It is not a matter of silver or gold between us and Saul or his house; neither is it for us to put anyone to death in Israel.” He said, “What do you say that I should do for you?”^{(C) 5} They said to the king, “The man who consumed us and planned to destroy us so that we should have no place in all the territory of Israel,^{(D) 6} let seven of his sons be handed over to us, and we will impale them before the Lord at Gibeon on the mountain of the Lord.”^[a] The king said, “I will hand them over.”

⁷ But the king spared Mephibosheth, the son of Saul’s son Jonathan, because of the oath of the Lord that was between them, between David and Jonathan son of Saul.^{(E) 8} The king took the two sons of Rizpah daughter of Aiah, whom she bore to Saul, Armoni and Mephibosheth; and the five sons of Merab^[b] daughter of Saul, whom she bore to Adriel son of Barzillai the Meholathite;^{(F) 9} he gave them into the hands of the Gibeonites, and they impaled them on the mountain before the Lord. The seven of them perished together. They were put to death in the first days of harvest, at the beginning of barley harvest.

¹⁰ Then Rizpah the daughter of Aiah took sackcloth and spread it on a rock for herself, from the beginning of harvest until rain fell on them from the heavens; she did not allow the birds of the air to come on the bodies^[c] by day or the wild animals by night.^{(G) 11} When David was told what Rizpah daughter of Aiah, the concubine of Saul, had done, ¹² David went and took the bones of Saul and the bones of his son Jonathan from the people of Jabesh-gilead, who had stolen them from the public square of Beth-shan, where the Philistines had hung them up, on the day the Philistines killed Saul on Gilboa.^{(H) 13} He brought up from there the bones of Saul and the bones of his son Jonathan, and they gathered the bones of those who had been impaled. ¹⁴ They buried the bones of Saul and of his son Jonathan in the land of Benjamin in Zela, in the tomb of his father Kish; they did all that the king commanded. After that, God heeded supplications for the land.^(I)