1 Chronicles 21:1

EXPOSITION

This very important chapter in David's history is the parallel of 2 Samuel 24:1-25 , which contains some details not found here, e.g. the route taken by those who went to number Israel ( 2 Samuel 24:5-8 ), and omits others. This chapter furnishes one of the clearer proofs (in respect of what it supplies, not found in Samuel) that its indebtedness is not to that book, but to a work open as well to the compiler of Chronicles as to the writer of Samuel. Its contents fall into five sections.

1 . David's command to number the people, with Joab's remonstrances ( 2 Samuel 24:1-6 ).

2 . The means taken to rouse David to a sense of his sin, and his confession thereof ( 2 Samuel 24:7 , 2 Samuel 24:8 ).

3 . The choice between punishments presented to him and his prayer under the drawn sword of the angel for the sparing of the people ( 2 Samuel 24:9-17 ).

4 . The accepted propitiatory sacrifices and offerings of David, and the consequent stay of the plague ( 2 Samuel 24:18 -27).

5 . David's grateful establishment of that same spot as the place of sacrifice (verses 28-30).

Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel. This remarkable sentence takes the place of the statements in the parallel, "And again the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he moved David against them to say, Go, number Israel and Judah." Our own passage seems to confine the temptation and sin to David. David also seems to be spoken of as the object of malignant attack on the part of Satan, though Israel is spoken of as the object of malignant envy and animosity. It is also to be noticed that in 1 Chronicles 21:17 David takes all the blame to himself, and speaks of the people as "innocent sheep." A people and whole nation have, indeed, often suffered the smart of one ruler's sin. Yet here the light thrown upon the whole event by the account in the Book of Samuel must be accepted as revealing the fact that there had been previously something amiss on the part of the people—perhaps something of illest significance lurking in their constitution. This alone could "kindle the auger of the Lord against Israel." It is the opposite of this which kindles the anger of Satan—when he witnesses excellence, surpassing excellence, as when he witnesses "the weakest saint," yet in that strongest position, " on his knees ." The apparent inconsistency in Satan being spoken of as resisting Israel, and the anger of the Lord being spoken of as kindled against Israel, is but apparent and superficial. In the first place, these histories do only purport to state the facts overt. And in this sense either alternative statement gives the prima facie facts. Either is true, and both may be true in different chronological order. And further, that the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel is no disproof that Satan will see and seize his opportunity. It looks the contrary way. There was a time and an occasion in Eden when Satan thought he saw an opportunity, tried it, and found it, when the anger of the Lord was not kindled against Adam and Eve for certain. But much more prompt will be the executive of Satan at another and less doubtful time. The paths in written history are often awhile rugged and broken up; the written history of Scripture is no exception. And in thus being the more in analogy with history itself , those unevennesses and breaks are the better attestation of both the reality of the Scripture history and the veracity of its writers. The word ( שָׂטַן ) occurs twenty-four times in the Old Testament. On all occasions of its occurrence in the Book of Job and in the prophecies of Zechariah, it shows the prefixed definite article; in all other places it is, with the present passage, unaccompanied by the article. Its translation here might appear strictly as that of a proper name. But this cannot be said of the other instances of its use, when without the article ( Numbers 22:22 , Numbers 22:32 ; 1 Samuel 29:4 ). This constitutes with some the ground of the very opposite opinion and opposite translation. If we regard the name as utterly expressing the personality of Satan, the passage is very noteworthy, and will be most safely regarded as the language of the compiler, and not as copied from the original source. The signification of the word "Satan," as is well known, is "adversary," or "accuser." The sin of David in giving the order of this verse was of a technical and ceremonial character, in the first place, whatever his motives were, and however intensified by other causes of a moral and more individual complexion. We learn ( Exodus 30:12-16 ) the special enactments respecting what was to be observed when "the sum of the children of Israel after their number" was to be taken. However, the same passage does not say, it fails to say, when such a numbering would be legitimate or when not. It is left us, therefore, to deduce this from observation. And we notice, in the first place, that, on the occasion of its undoubted rightness, it is the work of the distinct commandment of God ( Numbers 1:1-3 ; Numbers 26:1-4 ). Next, we notice the religious contribution, "the ransom," that was required with it ( Exodus 30:12-16 ; Exodus 38:25 , Exodus 38:26 ; Numbers 31:48 -55). Again, we notice that the numberings narrated both in the beginning of the Book of Numbers (1.) and toward the close (26.) had specific moral objects as assigned by God—among them the forcible teaching of the loss entailed by the successive rebellions of the people ( Numbers 26:64 , Numbers 26:65 ; Deuteronomy 2:14 , Deuteronomy 2:15 ). And though last, not least, all these indications are lighted up by the express and emphatic announcements in God's original promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, that their seed should become past numbering, multitudinous as the stars, and as the sands of the seashore. From all which we may conclude that only that numbering was held legitimate which was for God's service in some form, and as against human pride and boastfulness—by God's command as against a human king's fancy—and which was attended by the payment of that solemn "ransom" money, the bekah , or half-shekel ( Exodus 30:12 ). Other numbering had snares about it, and it was no doubt because it had such intrinsically that it was divinely discountenanced, and in this case severely punished. It seems gratuitous with some to tax David with having other motives than those of some sort of vanity now at work, sinister designs of preparing, unaided and unpermitted, some fresh military exploits, or stealing a march on the nation itself in the matter of some new system of taxation. The context offers no corroboration of either of these notions, while several lesser indications point to the simplest explanation ( 1 Chronicles 27:23 ).