Verses to reference:

• 1 Chronicles 21
• 2 Samuel 24

David was a man after God’s heart, but he had his moments of what we’d call “terrible mistakes with terrible consequences,” and sometimes… that doesn’t bode well for everyone else. During his reign as king of Israel, he once incurred God’s wrath and brought down a plague that killed a lot of his own people.

 

Both 2 Samuel and 1 Chronicles record this story. 1 Chronicles usually gives a few supplemental details to the narratives presented in both Samuel and Kings (books of the Bible).

 

The story begins with the evil villain, Satan. He prompted King David to suddenly want to take a census of all the fighting men of Israel.

 

As a bit of context, we know from Job’s story that God sometimes allows Satan to do things on Earth and, in some cases, in people’s hearts (see 1 Kings 22:22)  to achieve some sort of purpose.

 

We also know from Exodus that God had explicitly told his people that whenever a census was to be taken, that people have to ransom themselves to avoid a plague. This speaks to the ownership of Yahweh over Israel as a nation. The people belonged to God, not to the king.

 

Now, Joab, David’s nephew and army commander, even tries to convince him not to go ahead with his plans. But whatever David’s reason for doing the census (his pride, curiosity, or self-glory), his mind was set. Not even the objections of his army captains could prevent the king from his goal.

 

So, Joab led a group of men to go through the whole land, Dan to Beersheba (North to South) to count heads. 1 Chronicles adds a bit of interesting detail that Joab didn’t even count the Levites or the Benjamites because this whole idea was detestable to him (later in the text – 1 Chronicles 27:24, we see that they didn’t complete the task). Altogether, whatever Joab counted, it took about 9 or 10 months. Meaning, that in 9 or 10 months, David didn’t even think about if what he asked his men to do would have severe consequences for his people!

 

Now, some people will say that the number of people in Samuel verses in Chronicles is different. Why the scriptures have such a discrepancy of nearly 200,000 heads is not known. The important thing was that the number of fighting men during David’s reign numbered over 1 million, that’s like half of the largest army in the world to this date.

 

After the number was reported, David suddenly grew a conscience, and he began to regret his decision. In Chronicles, God punished Israel for it, but we aren’t sure what the punishment was because the bigger punishment was presented to David as one of three choices later. In some commentaries, God striking the king’s conscience was considered the punishment. Think of how many sleepless nights you’ve had after you’ve realized you’ve something you regret.

 

Because of David’s regret, God sends his prophet Gad to David with one of three choices:

1. Three years of famine
2. Three months of losing battles in war
3. Three days of plague

David didn’t want to fall into the hands of his enemies. He knew that God was more merciful and gracious than any human being could be to their enemy. A Famine would have likely subjected the country to relying on their neighbouring countries for food as well.

 

So, David chose the plague. And it killed 70 thousand people! That’s approximately half the population of PEI (as of writing this in 2020), or the population of Prince George.

 

But David was right about God being merciful because when the plague was encroaching on Jerusalem, God relented and said, “enough.” So the Angel of the Lord stood at the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite, and Ornan’s sons see the Angel and all ran away and hid out of fear. But the old man himself was unmoved and continued to thresh wheat. We’re not sure why the Jebusite wasn’t as afraid as the rest of the people.

 

Now, Ornan or Araunah is a title, possibly meaning a king of some sort. He was a Jebusite, one of the peoples originally living in and around Jerusalem before the Israelites took over. The location of his threshing floor is even more profound. It is Mt. Moriah, where Abraham first was tested by God to sacrifice Issac but was stopped when Abraham showed his faith, and God provided a wild Ram instead. We also know later that this was the location at which Solomon built the temple of God. (Genesis 22:2, 2 Chronicles 3:1)

 

So David and the elders arrive at this threshing floor, that is a place to sift the harvest grain, and they are all dressed in sackcloth to show their remorse. In a show of great character, David takes responsibility for the sin and asks God to punish his own family and not the innocent people.

 

The rest of the story follows that Ornan sold his property for 600 shekels of gold (about 15lbs in today’s terms, which is a lot).

 

Again, some of you may notice that in Samuel, the price quoted was 50 shekels of silver. Still, scholars have concluded that the amount quoted in Chronicles included the price for the threshing floor, cattle, and the surrounding land on the mountain which the temple was to be built.

 

Finally, David built the altar, and God accepted the sacrifice by sending fire from heaven to consume the meat and tender, which is pretty amazing if you consider that only happened four times in total in the Bible.

 

In the context of today’s world, no, God no longer punishes us for censuses. If he did, we’d probably notice a plague coming every four years in Canada when we conduce our Stats Can census. Indeed, when Jesus can and talked about the temple tax, which usually followed a census (see Matthew 17:24), he specifically said that the king’s sons don’t get tax. And by adoption into sonship through the believing of Jesus Christ as our Lord and saviour, we also no longer need to be taxed (and thereby suffer plagues).  

 

The question of David’s census was in the leader’s intent and God’s will.

 

We want to close this story off with a disclaimer. David was a really good king – most of the time. We must realize that he was human and had blunders that could prove fatal for the people he cared about, which is why we listed David’s action in this story as a “jerk.” We aren’t saying that about his character. His heart of repentance and his genuine care about the consequences of his mistakes makes him one of the people we should aspire to be like, but his mistakes remind us that he was human like us and needed God to keep him in check. His salvation wasn’t brought by his righteous acts but by the fact that he trusted in God alone.

 

Another lesson that you can take away from this story is that the consequences of sin can be far-reaching. Also, notice how a leader’s sin can have devastating consequences for the followers. How else can you apply what you learned from this story to your own life?

Resources:

• ESV Study Bible
• Matthew Henry Commentary
• Bible Gateway