The Census of Israel and Judah
1Once again the anger of Yahweh burned against Israel, and he incited David against them, saying, “Go, count Israel and Judah.” 2So the king said to Joab, the commander of the army who was with him, “Go now throughout all the tribes of Israel, from Dan to Beersheba, and register the troops, so that I may know their number.” 3But Joab said to the king, “May Yahweh your God multiply the troops a hundred times over, whatever they may be, and may the eyes of my lord the king see it. But why does my lord the king want to do this?” 4Yet the king’s word prevailed over Joab and the commanders of the army, and Joab and the commanders of the army left the king’s presence to register the troops of Israel. 5They crossed the Jordan and camped at Aroer, south of the town in the middle of the valley, toward Gad and on to Jazer. 6Then they came to Gilead and to the land of Tahtim-hodshi, and on to Dan-jaan and around to Sidon, 7and they came to the fortress of Tyre and all the cities of the Hivites and Canaanites, and finally to the Negev of Judah, at Beersheba. 8So they went through the whole land, and after nine months and twenty days they came back to Jerusalem. 9Joab reported the count of the registered troops to the king: Israel had eight hundred thousand able-bodied men who could draw the sword, and Judah had five hundred thousand men.
David’s Confession
10But David’s heart troubled him after he had counted the troops, and David said to Yahweh, “I have sinned greatly in what I have done. Now, Yahweh, please take away the guilt of your servant, for I have acted very foolishly.” 11When David got up in the morning, the word of Yahweh had come to the prophet Gad, David’s seer, saying, 12“Go and say to David, ‘This is what Yahweh says: I am offering you three options. Choose one of them, and I will carry it out for you.’”
Gad’s Three Options
13So Gad went to David, told him this, and said to him, “Shall seven years of famine come upon your land? Or three months of fleeing before your enemies while they pursue you? Or three days of plague in your land? Now decide, and consider what answer I should take back to the one who sent me.”* 14David said to Gad, “I am in great distress. Please, let us fall into the hand of Yahweh, for his mercies are great, but let me not fall into human hands.” 15So Yahweh sent a plague on Israel from that morning until the appointed time, and seventy thousand of the people died, from Dan to Beersheba. 16When the angel stretched out his hand toward Jerusalem to destroy it, Yahweh relented concerning the disaster and said to the angel who was destroying the people, “Enough! Withdraw your hand now.” The angel of Yahweh was then by the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite. 17When David saw the angel striking down the people, he said to Yahweh, “Look, it is I who have sinned; I am the one who has done wrong. But these sheep, what have they done? Let your hand fall against me and against my father’s house.”
The Threshing Floor of Araunah
18That day Gad came to David and said to him, “Go up and set up an altar to Yahweh on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.” 19So David went up, as Gad had said, just as Yahweh had commanded. 20Araunah looked down and saw the king and his servants coming toward him, and Araunah went out and bowed before the king with his face to the ground. 21Araunah asked, “Why has my lord the king come to his servant?” David said, “To buy the threshing floor from you, so that I may build an altar to Yahweh, and the plague on the people may be stopped.” 22Araunah said to David, “Let my lord the king take whatever seems good to him and offer it up. Here are the oxen for the burnt offering, and the threshing sledges and the oxen’s yokes for the wood.” 23Araunah gave it all to the king. And Araunah said to the king, “May Yahweh your God accept you.” 24But the king said to Araunah, “No, I insist on paying you a price for it. I will not offer to Yahweh my God burnt offerings that cost me nothing.” So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver. 25David built an altar to Yahweh there and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings. Then Yahweh was moved by prayer for the land, and the plague on Israel was stopped.
Notes
- 24:13 — The Masoretic Text (our base text) reads “seven years” of famine. However, the Septuagint of this same verse, and the parallel account in 1 Chronicles 21:12 (in the Masoretic Text of Chronicles itself, and in its Septuagint and Vulgate), all read “three years.” ZARZA translates the number literally as the Masoretic Text of 2 Samuel gives it — “seven” — and records this discrepancy rather than silently correcting it to “three.”
