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2 Samuel 24:1-25 — David Counts the Fighting Men

2Sam.24.1-25

¹Again the anger of the LORD 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 people, so that I may know the number of the people.” ³But Joab said to the king, “May the LORD your God multiply the people a hundred times over, and may the eyes of my lord the king see it. But why does my lord the king delight in this thing?” ⁴Nevertheless, the king's word prevailed against Joab and against the commanders of the army. So Joab and the commanders of the army went out from the presence of the king to register the people of Israel. ⁵They crossed the Jordan and camped in Aroer, on the right side of the city that is in the middle of the valley of Gad, and toward Jazer. ⁶Then they came to Gilead and to the land of Tahtim-hodshi, and they came to Dan-jaan and around to Sidon. ⁷They came to the fortress of Tyre and to all the cities of the Hivites and the Canaanites, and they went out to the Negev of Judah at Beersheba. ⁸So when they had gone throughout all the land, they came to Jerusalem at the end of nine months and twenty days. ⁹Joab gave the sum of the registration of the people to the king: in Israel there were eight hundred thousand valiant men who drew the sword, and the men of Judah were five hundred thousand men. ¹⁰But David's conscience struck him after he had counted the people. And David said to the LORD, “I have sinned greatly in what I have done. But now, O LORD, please take away the iniquity of your servant, for I have acted very foolishly.” ¹¹When David got up in the morning, the word of the LORD came to the prophet Gad, David's seer, saying, ¹²“Go and speak to David, 'Thus says the LORD: I am offering you three things. Choose one of them for yourself, that I may do it to you.'” ¹³So Gad came to David and told him, and he said to him, “Shall seven years of famine come to you in your land? Or will you flee three months before your enemies while they pursue you? Or shall there be three days of plague in your land? Now consider and see what answer I should return to him who sent me.” ¹⁴David said to Gad, “I am in great distress. Let us fall now into the hand of the LORD, for his mercies are great, but do not let me fall into the hand of man.” ¹⁵So the LORD sent a plague upon Israel from the morning until the appointed time, and seventy thousand men of the people died, from Dan to Beersheba. ¹⁶When the angel stretched out his hand toward Jerusalem to destroy it, the LORD relented from the calamity and said to the angel who was destroying the people, “It is enough; now withdraw your hand.” And the angel of the LORD was by the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite. ¹⁷Then David spoke to the LORD when he saw the angel who was striking down the people, and he said, “Behold, I have sinned, and I have acted perversely. But these sheep, what have they done? Please let your hand be against me and against my father's house.” ¹⁸Gad came to David on that day and said to him, “Go up, set up an altar to the LORD on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.” ¹⁹So David went up according to the word of Gad, just as the LORD had commanded. ²⁰Araunah looked down and saw the king and his servants crossing over toward him. And Araunah went out and bowed down before the king with his face to the ground. ²¹Araunah said, “Why has my lord the king come to his servant?” David said, “To buy the threshing floor from you, to build an altar to the LORD, so that the plague may be stopped from upon the people.” ²²Araunah said to David, "Let my lord the king take and offer up what is good in his eyes. Look, here are the oxen for the burnt offering, and the threshing sledges and the yokes of the oxen for the wood. ²³Araunah gives all this to the king.“ And Araunah said to the king, ”May the LORD your God accept you." ²⁴But the king said to Araunah, “No, but I will surely buy it from you for a price. I will not offer burnt offerings to the LORD my God that cost me nothing.” So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver. ²⁵And David built an altar to the LORD there, and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings . So the LORD answered the entreaty for the land, and the plague was stopped from upon Israel.

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4/11/2026

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