Historical
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.
Chapter 22
1 Then David said, “This is the house of the Lord God, and this is the altar for the burnt offerings of Israel.”
Preparations for Building the Temple. 2 David ordered that all of the foreigners who were in the land of Israel be gathered together. He assigned them the task of serving as masons to prepare hewn stone to build the house of God. 3 David prepared quite a bit of iron for the nails to be used in the doors, the gates, and the joints. He also prepared so much bronze that it could not be measured. 4 He also had much cedar wood, for the Sidonians of Tyre had brought much cedar wood to David.
5 David said, “Solomon, my son, is young and inexperienced, and the house that will be built for the Lord must be tremendously magnificent, famous, and glorious throughout every land. I will therefore make preparations for it now.” So David made many preparations before he died.
6 He then summoned Solomon, his son, and he charged him to build a house for the Lord, the God of Israel. 7 David said to Solomon, “My son, I wanted to build a house for the name of the Lord, the God of Israel, 8 but the word of the Lord came to me saying, ‘Because you have shed so much blood and you have waged many wars, you will not build a house for my name because you have shed too much blood upon the earth before me. 9 Behold, a son will be born to you who will be a man of peace[d] and rest. I will give him a respite from all of his surrounding enemies, for his name will be Solomon. I will give peace and quiet to Israel during his reign. 10 He is the one who will build a house for my name. He will be my son, and I will be his father. I will establish the throne of his kingdom over Israel forever.’
11 “Now, my son, the Lord will be with you. You will prosper, and you will build a house for the Lord, your God, as he has proclaimed. 12 May the Lord give you insight and understanding when he sets you over Israel so that you might observe the law of the Lord, your God. 13 You will prosper if you carefully observe the statutes and the ordinances that the Lord gave Moses for Israel. Be strong and be brave. Do not be afraid nor dismayed. 14 I have put myself to the trouble of preparing the following for the temple of the Lord: one hundred thousand talents of gold, one million talents of silver, so much bronze and iron that it could not even be weighed, and an abundance of wood and stone. You can now add to it.[e] 15 You have many workmen: stonecutters, masons, carpenters, and men who are skilled in every type of craft. 16 You cannot even count those who can work with gold, silver, bronze, and iron. So now be about it, and the Lord will be with you.”
17 Charge to the Leaders. David commanded all of the leaders of Israel to assist Solomon, his son, saying, 18 “Is not the Lord, your God, with you? Has he not given you rest on every side? He has placed the inhabitants of the land in your hand, and the land has been subjected to the Lord and his people. 19 Now dedicate yourselves heart and soul to seeking the Lord, your God. Rise up and build a sanctuary for the Lord, your God. Bring the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord and the sacred vessels of God into the temple that will be built for the name of the Lord.”
Chapter 23
The Levitical Classes.[f] 1 When David was old and his years were complete, he made Solomon, his son, king over Israel. 2 He gathered together all of the leaders of Israel along with the priests and the Levites.
3 The Levites who were thirty years and older were counted, and the total number of them was thirty-eight thousand. 4 David appointed twenty-four thousand of them to supervise the work on the temple of the Lord, and another six thousand of them were to be officials and judges. 5 Four thousand of them were to be gatekeepers, and four thousand were to praise the Lord upon musical instruments about which David said, “I made them to praise the Lord.”
6 David divided the Levites of Gershon, Kohath, and Merari into groups.
7 From the Gershonites there were Ladan and Shimei. 8 The sons of Ladan were Jehiel, the firstborn, Zetham, and Joel. There were three in all. 9 [g]The sons of Shimei were Shelomoth, Haziel, and Haran. There were three of them in all. These were the leaders of the ancestral clans of Ladan. 10 The sons of Shimei were Jahath, Zizah, Jeush, and Beriah. Shimei had four sons in all. 11 Jahath was the leader, and Zizah was the second in charge. Jeush and Beriah did not have many sons, so they were reckoned as a single ancestral clan.
12 The sons of Kohath were Amram, Izhar, Hebron, and Uzziel. There were four of them in all.
13 The sons of Amram were Aaron and Moses. Aaron was set apart to consecrate the most holy things. He and his sons were to burn incense before the Lord forever, and to minister, and to proclaim blessings in his name forever.
14 The sons of Moses, the man of God, were included with the tribe of Levi. 15 The sons of Moses were Gershom and Eliezer.
16 Shubael was the son of Gershom, his first. 17 Rehabiah was the son of Eliezer, his first. Eliezer had no other sons, but Rehabiah had a large number of sons.
18 Shelomith was the son of Izhar, his firstborn.
19 The sons of Hebron were Jeriah, his firstborn, Amariah, his second, Jahaziel, his third, and Jekameam, his fourth.
20 The sons of Uzziel were Micah, his firstborn, and Isshiah, his second.
21 The sons of Merari were Mahli and Mushi. The sons of Mahli were Eleazar and Kish.
22 Eleazar died without having any sons, he had only had daughters. The sons of Kish, their relatives, married them.
23 The sons of Mushi were Mahli, Eder, and Jeremoth. There were three of them in all.
24 These were the descendants of Levi by their ancestral clans, with the leaders of the ancestral clans as they were registered by name and counted. These are the ones who could perform the work in the temple of the Lord, twenty years old and older.[h]
25 David did this because he said, “The Lord, the God of Israel, had given his people rest so that they might dwell in Jerusalem forever. 26 The Levites therefore no longer have to carry the tabernacle or any of the articles used in its service.”
27 Thus, according to the last instructions of David, the Levites who were twenty years or older were counted. 28 Their responsibility was to assist the sons of Aaron in the service of the temple of the Lord, to be in charge of the courtyard and the inner chambers, to purify all of the holy things, and to fulfill other tasks in the temple of the Lord. 29 They were responsible for the shewbread, for the flour for the cereal offerings, for the unleavened loaves, for the baking and the mixing, and for all the standards of measurement and size. 30 They were to stand every morning to thank and praise the Lord. They were to do the same every evening. 31 They were also to do this whenever burnt offerings were made to the Lord on the Sabbath, on the new moons, and on the appointed feasts, as they had been commanded to do regularly before the Lord, 32 that they were to serve the tent of meeting and be responsible for the sanctuary under the direction of the descendants of Aaron, their brethren, for the service of the temple of the Lord.
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