Historical

21 Then Satan brought disaster upon Israel, for he made David decide to take a census.

² “Take a complete census throughout the land^[a] and bring me the totals,” he told Joab and the other leaders.

³ But Joab objected. “If the Lord were to multiply his people a hundred times, would they not all be yours? So why are you asking us to do this? Why must you cause Israel to sin?”

⁴ But the king won the argument, and Joab did as he was told; he traveled all through Israel and returned to Jerusalem. ⁵ The total population figure which he gave came to 1,100,000 men of military age in Israel and 470,000 in Judah. ⁶ But he didn’t include the tribes of Levi and Benjamin in his figures because he was so distressed at what the king had made him do.

⁷ And God, too, was displeased with the census and punished Israel for it.

⁸ But David said to God, “I am the one who has sinned. Please forgive me, for I realize now how wrong I was to do this.”

⁹ Then the Lord said to Gad, David’s personal prophet, ^10-11 “Go and tell David, ‘The Lord has offered you three choices. Which will you choose? ¹² You may have three years of famine, or three months of destruction by the enemies of Israel, or three days of deadly plague as the Angel of the Lord brings destruction to the land. Think it over and let me know what answer to return to the one who sent me.’”

¹³ “This is a terrible decision to make,” David replied, “but let me fall into the hands of the Lord rather than into the power of men, for God’s mercies are very great.”

¹⁴ So the Lord sent a plague upon Israel and 70,000 men died as a result. ¹⁵ During the plague God sent an Angel to destroy Jerusalem; but then he felt such compassion that he changed his mind and commanded the destroying Angel, “Stop! It is enough!” (The Angel of the Lord was standing at the time by the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.) ¹⁶ When David saw the Angel of the Lord standing between heaven and earth with his sword drawn, pointing toward Jerusalem, he and the elders of Israel clothed themselves in sackcloth and fell to the ground before the Lord.

¹⁷ And David said to God, “I am the one who sinned by ordering the census. But what have these sheep done? O Lord my God, destroy me and my family, but do not destroy your people.”

¹⁸ Then the Angel of the Lord told Gad to instruct David to build an altar to the Lord at the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite. ^19-20 So David went to see Ornan, who was threshing wheat at the time. Ornan saw the Angel as he turned, and his four sons ran and hid. ²¹ Then Ornan saw the king approaching. So he left the threshing floor and bowed to the ground before King David.

²² David said to Ornan, “Let me buy this threshing floor from you at its full price; then I will build an altar to the Lord and the plague will stop.”

²³ “Take it, my lord, and use it as you wish,” Ornan said to David. “Take the oxen, too, for burnt offerings; use the threshing instruments for wood for the fire and use the wheat for the grain offering. I give it all to you.”

²⁴ “No,” the king replied, “I will buy it for the full price; I cannot take what is yours and give it to the Lord. I will not offer a burnt offering that has cost me nothing!”

²⁵ So David paid Ornan $4,300 in gold$4,300 in gold, literally, “600 shekels of gold by weight.” ²⁶ and built an altar to the Lord there, and sacrificed burnt offerings and peace offerings upon it; and he called out to the Lord, who answered by sending down fire from heaven to burn up the offering on the altar. ²⁷ Then the Lord commanded the Angel to put back his sword into its sheath; ²⁸ and when David saw that the Lord had answered his plea, he sacrificed to him again. ²⁹ The Tabernacle and altar made by Moses in the wilderness were on the hill of Gibeon, ³⁰ but David didn’t have time to go there to plead before the Lord, for he was terrified by the drawn sword of the Angel of Jehovah.

22 Then David said, “Right here at Ornan’s threshing floor is the place where I’ll build the Temple of the Lord and construct the altar for Israel’s burnt offering!”

² David now drafted all the resident aliens in Israel to prepare blocks of squared stone for the Temple. ³ They also manufactured iron into the great quantity of nails needed for the doors in the gates and for the clamps; and they smelted so much bronze that it was too much to weigh. ⁴ The men of Tyre and Sidon brought great rafts of cedar logs to David.

⁵ “Solomon my son is young and tender,” David said, “and the Temple of the Lord must be a marvelous structure, famous and glorious throughout the world; so I will begin the preparations for it now.”

So David collected the construction materials before his death. ⁶ He now commanded his son Solomon to build a Temple for the Lord God of Israel.

⁷ “I wanted to build it myself,” David told him, ⁸ “but the Lord said not to do it. ‘You have killed too many men in great wars,’ he told me. ‘You have reddened the ground before me with blood: so you are not to build my Temple. ⁹ But I will give you a son,’ he told me, ‘who will be a man of peace, for I will give him peace with his enemies in the surrounding lands. His name shall be Solomon (meaning “Peaceful”), and I will give peace and quietness to Israel during his reign. ¹⁰ He shall build my Temple, and he shall be as my own son and I will be his father; and I will cause his sons and his descendants to reign over every generation of Israel.’

¹¹ “So now, my son, may the Lord be with you and prosper you as you do what he told you to do and build the Temple of the Lord. ¹² And may the Lord give you the good judgment to follow all his laws when he makes you king of Israel. ¹³ For if you carefully obey the rules and regulations that he gave to Israel through Moses, you will prosper. Be strong and courageous, fearless and enthusiastic!

¹⁴ “By hard work I have collected several billion dollars worth of gold bullion, millions in silver,^[c] and so much iron and bronze that I haven’t even weighed it; I have also gathered timber and stone for the walls. This is at least a beginning, something with which to start. ¹⁵ And you have many skilled stonemasons and carpenters and craftsmen of every kind. ¹⁶ They are expert gold and silver smiths and bronze and iron workers. So get to work, and may the Lord be with you!”

¹⁷ Then David ordered all the leaders of Israel to assist his son in this project.

¹⁸ “The Lord your God is with you,” he declared. “He has given you peace with the surrounding nations, for I have conquered them in the name of the Lord and for his people. ¹⁹ Now try with every fiber of your being to obey the Lord your God, and you will soon be bringing the Ark and the other holy articles of worship into the Temple of the Lord!”

23 By this time David was an old, old man, so he stepped down from the throne and appointed his son Solomon as the new king of Israel. ² He summoned all the political and religious leaders of Israel for the coronation ceremony. ³ At this time a census was taken of the men of the tribe of Levi who were thirty years or older. The total came to 38,000.

^4-5 “Twenty-four thousand of them will supervise the work at the Temple,” David instructed, “6,000 are to be bailiffs and judges, 4,000 will be Temple guards, and 4,000 will praise the Lord with the musical instruments I have made.”

⁶ Then David divided them into three main divisions named after the sons of Levi—the Gershom division, the Kohath division, and the Merari division.

⁷ Subdivisions of the Gershom corps were named after his sons Ladan and Shimei. ^8-9 These subdivisions were still further divided into six groups named after the sons of Ladan: Jehiel the leader, Zetham, Joel; and the sons of Shimei^[d]—Shelomoth, Haziel, and Haran.

^10-11 The subclans of Shimei were named after his four sons: Jahath was greatest, Zizah^[e] was next, and Jeush and Beriah were combined into a single subclan because neither had many sons.

¹² The division of Kohath was subdivided into four groups named after his sons Amram, Izhar, Hebron, and Uzziel.

¹³ Amram was the ancestor of Aaron and Moses.^[f] Aaron and his sons were set apart for the holy service of sacrificing the people’s offerings to the Lord. He served the Lord constantly and pronounced blessings in his name at all times.

^14-15 As for Moses, the man of God, his sons, Gershom and Eliezer, were included with the tribe of Levi. ¹⁶ Gershom’s sons were led by Shebuel, ¹⁷ and Eliezer’s only son, Rehabiah, was the leader of his clan, for he had many children.

¹⁸ The sons of Izhar were led by Shelomith.

¹⁹ The sons of Hebron were led by Jeriah. Amariah was second in command, Jahaziel was third, and Jekameam was fourth.

²⁰ The sons of Uzziel were led by Micah, and Isshiah was the second in command.

²¹ The sons of Merari were Mahli and Mushi. The sons of Mahli were Eleazar and Kish. ²² Eleazar died without any sons, and his daughters were married to their cousins, the sons of Kish. ²³ Mushi’s sons were Mahli, Eder, and Jeremoth.

²⁴ In the census, all the men of Levi who were twenty years old or older were classified under the names of these clans and subclans; and they were all assigned to the ministry at the Temple. ²⁵ For David said, “The Lord God of Israel has given us peace, and he will always live in Jerusalem. ²⁶ Now the Levites will no longer need to carry the Tabernacle and its instruments from place to place.”

²⁷ (This census of the tribe of Levi was one of the last things David did before his death.) ²⁸ The work of the Levites was to assist the priests—the descendants of Aaron—in the sacrifices at the Temple; they also did the custodial work and helped perform the ceremonies of purification. ²⁹ They provided the Bread of the Presence, the flour for the grain offerings, and the wafers made without yeast (either fried or mixed with olive oil); they also checked all the weights and measures. ³⁰ Each morning and evening they stood before the Lord to sing thanks and praise to him. ³¹ They assisted in the special sacrifices of burnt offerings, the Sabbath sacrifices, the new moon celebrations, and at all the festivals. There were always as many Levites present as were required for the occasion. ³² And they took care of the Tabernacle and the Temple and assisted the priests in whatever way they were needed.