1 Chronicleschapter 21
30 verses · Ezra, by tradition · 450 to 400 BC · History
Then Satan rose up against Israel and incited David to take a census of Israel.
Introduction
Ezra, by tradition, History, 1 Chronicles Overview.
This chapter was written for people who worshipped on the very ground it describes, and it tells them how that ground was chosen. It begins with a decision of David's that even his hardened commander tried to stop. What follows is judgment, a choice between three punishments, and an angel standing over Jerusalem. The first hearers knew what a census was for and what a threshing floor looked like, and the story turns on both. Listen for the king's prayer in the middle, when he asks to bear the punishment himself. Then watch what answers him at the end.
Context
- Who
- People standing on the exact ground this chapter buys
- What
- A narrative of David's census, the plague that followed, and his purchase of Ornan's threshing floor for an altar.
- Where
- The whole land from Beersheba to Dan, and then the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite on the rock north of the city of David.
- When
- Late in David's reign, about 975 BC, approximate on any reckoning.
- Why
- To show how the site of the temple was chosen, through sin, judgment, mercy and a full price paid.
Historical context
The chapter belongs to David as king and to Joab as the commander ordered to carry out a count he objected to before he began it.
Show the rest of the historical context, 7 more paragraphs
The time is late in the reign, about 975 BC, with the temple preparations of chapter 22 following directly from it.
The place is first the whole land, since the count ran from Beersheba to Dan, and then one threshing floor on the high rock north of the old city.
The occasion is the census itself, and the plague that followed it.
A first hearer knew what a census was for. Counting the men who drew a sword measured what a king could tax and how many he could call up. Joab could see the policy behind the arithmetic, and he left Levi and Benjamin out of the total.
He also knew that the Law attached a condition to any numbering of Israel, a ransom paid by each man counted so that no plague would break out among them. This census is taken with no such payment.
He knew what a threshing floor was. They were flat outcrops of bedrock on high, windy ground where the wind could carry the chaff, and Ornan was up there working when the angel appeared. The oxen, the threshing sledges and the wheat he offers are the working equipment of the floor, which is why a whole sacrifice stood ready before David had paid for anything.
Two honest difficulties belong to this chapter and are carried openly. The totals differ from those in 2 Samuel 24:9, and the price of six hundred shekels of gold differs from the fifty shekels of silver named there. The readings offered for both are set out in the chapter study row rather than settled here.
Significance
This is the title deed to the temple mount. Every reader knew the altar stood on that rock, and this chapter told them how it came to be there, by full payment and by mercy after judgment.
Show the rest of the significance, 1 more paragraph
It also answered a practical question. The tabernacle and the bronze altar were still at Gibeon, and David could not go there because he was afraid of the angel's sword. The place of sacrifice moved because God answered by fire on this rock.
This chapter in Jewish lifeWhat this chapter is in Jewish life and reading.
What is done
1 Chronicles carries no weekly portion and no Haftarah, and no part of it is read in the synagogue service on any Sabbath of the year. In the Hebrew Bible Chronicles stands among the Writings, and the Haftarah is drawn from the Prophets, so the yearly cycle passes this book over entirely. This site's own table of synagogue readings records the same absence. It holds no portion, no Haftarah use and no festival reading for any of the twenty-nine chapters of the book.
How it is read
The corpus carries thirteen kept entries for this chapter, twelve of Rashi in The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg, under CC-BY, and one of Malbim in the Sefaria Community Translation under CC0. It is the only chapter of 16 to 29 where the corpus carries a second voice in English.
Rashi's first note asks why the chapter stands in this book at all, since the book leaves out what does David no credit. His answer is that the chapter ends with an altar and an answer from heaven, and that ending is to David's credit. The whole account is kept for the sake of its last verses (Rashi on I Chronicles 21:1:1). He returns to the same point at the twenty-eighth verse. There he observes that this section is absent from Samuel and was written here "because of David's honor", and that its verses hang together as though they were one verse (Rashi on I Chronicles 21:28:1). The book's habit of omission, which Rashi names at 17:13:1 and 20:4:1, is here turned the other way, and an addition is explained by the same principle.
Joab's partial count draws a reading that makes him the one man in the story who sees what is coming. Rashi has Joab know in advance that the census will be counted a sin against the people and bring a plague. Joab then calculates which tribes he can keep out of it, and what he will answer if the king asks. For Levi he has the answer ready from the Torah, that Levi was never numbered with the children of Israel. For Benjamin he has a different answer, that the tribe was already reduced in the affair of the concubine at Gibeah and could not survive another blow (Rashi on I Chronicles 21:6:1).
Three notes read the prophet's offer and the king's answer as a scene of dread rather than a choice. At the thirteenth verse Rashi hears David protesting the question itself, and he gives a parable for it. A dying man is asked in which grave he wishes to be buried, beside his father or beside his mother. Rashi ends with "Woe to the ears that hear such a thing" (Rashi on I Chronicles 21:13:1). At the eighth he notes that the word for iniquity is written here in the full spelling, one of four such places in Scripture. He reads it as the whole weight of what David had done (Rashi on I Chronicles 21:8:1). At the seventeenth he reads David's plea for the people as an argument that they are like sheep brought to slaughter (Rashi on I Chronicles 21:17:1).
The angel over the city is read against another drawn sword in Scripture. Rashi sets the scene beside Joshua before Jericho, and draws the difference from where the sword points. Joshua had to ask whose side the man with the sword was on, because the figure stood between him and his enemies. David had to ask nothing, because the sword was stretched out over Jerusalem and he knew at once what it meant (Rashi on I Chronicles 21:16:1). Malbim reads the verse before it, where God sees and relents, as a command given to the destroying angel. God "commanded the Destroyer to relax their hand", and Malbim gives the reason in one line, that the destroyer "does not distinguish good from evil" (Malbim on I Chronicles 21:15:2, the Sefaria Community Translation, CC0).
The rest of the chapter is read as the making of a place. At the twentieth verse the sons of Ornan hide. Rashi reads the hiding through the verse in Isaiah about entering the chambers until the wrath passes. He reads it also through the night of the exodus, when no one went out of his house until morning (Rashi on I Chronicles 21:20:1). The threshing tools offered for wood he identifies from the tractate Avodah Zarah as the boards of a threshing sledge (Rashi on I Chronicles 21:23:1). The price is the one number in the chapter that has to be reconciled with Samuel, and Rashi does it by division. Fifty shekels were taken from each tribe, twelve times over. The six hundred shekels of gold therefore mean that every tribe in Israel had a share in the altar (Rashi on I Chronicles 21:25:1). At the twenty-seventh he reads the sword returned to its sheath as a command obeyed, like the word spoken to the fish in Jonah (Rashi on I Chronicles 21:27:1). A short note at the fifth glosses the doubled Hebrew of the census total (Rashi on I Chronicles 21:5:1).
Metzudat David, Malbim and Radak comment on this chapter as well. The corpus carries their refs with the reason that Sefaria holds no English version of them, so they stand here cited and unquoted. Metzudat David comments at I Chronicles 21:3:1, 21:7:1, 21:9:1, 21:10:1, 21:18:1, 21:21:1, 21:22:1, 21:24:1 and 21:26:1. Malbim comments at I Chronicles 21:2:1. Radak comments at I Chronicles 21:12:1.
What the rabbis say
The corpus carries forty rabbinic locators for this chapter and the text of none, so each is cited and linked here rather than quoted. Four stand on the first verse, the one verse of the Hebrew Bible where an adversary is named as moving David to number Israel. They are Berakhot 62b:11, Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Berakhot 9:14, and Pesikta Rabbati 10:1 and 11:1. What those four make of the verse is not stated here, because the corpus carries their refs without their text.
Three verses carry five each. The fifteenth is where the angel is sent to Jerusalem and God relents at the threshing floor. It carries Aggadat Bereshit 30:1 and 38:3, Berakhot 62b:14, Jerusalem Talmud Peah 8:7:3, and Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael, Tractate Pischa 11:20. The sixteenth is David lifting his eyes and seeing the angel with the drawn sword. It carries Avot DeRabbi Natan, Recension B 11:8, Bereshit Rabbah 84:20, Midrash Lekach Tov, Deuteronomy 26:8:1, Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Vayishlach 22:1, and Midrash Tannaim on Deuteronomy 26:8:3. The seventeenth is David asking that the hand fall on him and on his father's house. It carries Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael, Tractate Pischa 1:19, Midrash Tannaim on Deuteronomy 33:3:3, Pesikta Rabbati 22:1, Ruth Rabbah 2:2, and Ruth Rabbah (Lerner) 2:2:1.
The purchase of the floor carries four on the twenty-fifth verse, the six hundred shekels of gold: Bamidbar Rabbah 11:7, Bereshit Rabbah 79:7, Ein Yaakov, Zevakhim 14:5, and Midrash Lekach Tov, Genesis 33:19:1. Three more are carried across the eighteenth to the twenty-sixth verses together, Jerusalem Talmud Pesachim 9:1:4, Midrash Tanchuma, Nasso 28:1 and Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Nasso 31:1. Two stand on the eighteenth alone, Otzar Midrashim, Baraita of Rabbi Pinchas Ben Yair 1:37 and Otzar Midrashim, Midrashim on Missing and Extra Letters 2:6. Two stand on the twenty-sixth, where fire falls on the altar, Aggadat Bereshit 77:2 and Sifrei Zuta 11:1:3. Two stand on the twenty-seventh, Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Bereshit 40:1 and Midrash Yelamdenu, Selections from Yalkut Talmud Torah 27:1. Two stand on the twenty-ninth, where the tabernacle of Moses still stands at Gibeon, Jerusalem Talmud Beitzah 2:4:3-5 and Shemot Rabbah 35:3.
Six stand one to a verse. Shir HaShirim Rabbah 1:16:3 stands on the second, Midrash Shmuel 30:2 on the fifth, and Aggadat Bereshit 11:1 on the eighth. Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer 43:2 stands on the fourteenth, Jerusalem Talmud Avodah Zarah 3:5:10 on the nineteenth, and Midrash Tanchuma, Chayei Sara 2:1 on the last. What each of them teaches is a saying of the rabbis, and is reported as theirs wherever this site quotes one. The quotations wait on a fetch that carries the text.
Sources: Rashi, Rashi on I Chronicles 21:1:1 to 21:28:1, twelve kept notes in The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg, CC-BY; Malbim, Malbim on I Chronicles 21:15:2, kept in the Sefaria Community Translation, CC0, with Malbim on I Chronicles 21:2:1 cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; Metzudat David, Metzudat David on I Chronicles 21:3:1 to 21:26:1, nine refs cited because the corpus carries no English text; Radak, Radak on I Chronicles 21:12:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; The Sefaria corpus, scripts/data/sources/sefaria/1-chronicles/21.json, the 40 Talmud and Midrash locators of this chapter; This site's table of synagogue readings, src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts, which records no portion, no Haftarah use and no festival reading for 1 Chronicles.
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
Satan moves David to number Israel
1 Chronicles 21:1-2
Satan rose up against Israel: Chronicles says Satan “rose up against Israel and incited David”, where 2 Samuel 24:1 says the anger of the LORD burned against Israel. This is the first occurrence of Satan as a proper name in the canon's order. David sends Joab to count the tribes “from Beersheba to Dan”.
1 Chronicles 21:1
“Satan stood - Before the Lord and his tribunal to accuse David and Israel, and to beg God's permission to tempt David. Standing is the accusers posture before men's tribunals; and consequently the holy scripture (which useth to speak of the things of God, after the manner of men, to bring them down to our capacities) elsewhere represent Satan in this posture.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
3 more voices on this verseWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
1 Chronicles 21:1
“As the books of Scripture are arranged in our Version, Satan is here for the first time by name introduced to us. He appears not merely as an “adversary” who seeks to injure man from without, but as a Tempter able to ruin him by suggesting sinful acts and thoughts from within. In this point of view, the revelation made of him here is the most advanced that we find in the Old Testament. The difficulty in reconciling the statement here, “Satan provoked David,” etc. with that of Samuel, “the Lord moved David,” etc. 2Sa 24:1 is not serious.”
1 Chronicles 21:1
“Hence the numbering of that people was in itself regarded as an undertaking by which the anger of God could be easily aroused; but when the arrangements were made by Moses for the taking of the census, God was not angry because the people were numbered for the express purpose of the tax for the sanctuary, and the money which was thus collected ("the atonement money," Ex 30:16) appeased Him.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
1 Chronicles 21:1
“The righteous judgments of God are to be observed and acknowledged even in the sins and unrighteousness of men. We are sure that God is not the author of sin--he tempts no man; and therefore, when it is said that he moved David to do it, it must be explained by what is intimated here, that, for wise and holy ends, he permitted the devil to do it.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
from Beersheba to Dan: David gives the order to Joab and the army commanders. Beersheba in the south and Dan in the north mark the land from end to end, so the order covers every tribe. Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, on verse 6, allow that the count may have been made to raise taxes.
Chronicles gives Joab a sharper objection than 2 Samuel 24:3, where he asks only why the king wants such a thing. Here Joab asks why the king should “bring guilt on Israel”. He still appeals to the king's stewardship, asking whether they are “all servants of my lord”.
1 Chronicles 21:4-6
the king’s word prevailed against Joab: Joab's count reaches every tribe, and Chronicles gives its own totals of 1,100,000 swordsmen in Israel and 470,000 in Judah. The account in 2 Samuel 24:9 gives 800,000 and 500,000. Albert Barnes reads the differing totals as a census left unfinished and recorded at two stages.
the total number of the troops: Joab counts 1,100,000 swordsmen in Israel and 470,000 in Judah. Albert Barnes notes that 2 Samuel 24:9 gives different totals and holds that copyists changed the figures. Jamieson, Fausset & Brown read so large a count as proof that God kept His promise to Abraham in Genesis 15:5.
1 Chronicles 21:5
“In 2Sa 24:9 the numbers are different. The explanation there given is not so generally accepted as the supposition that the numbers have, in one passage or the other (or possibly in both), suffered corruption.”
1 more voice on this verse
1 Chronicles 21:5
“So large a population at this early period, considering the limited extent of the country and comparing it with the earlier census (Nu 26:1-65), is a striking proof of the fulfilment of the promise (Ge 15:5).”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
did not include Levi and Benjamin: Joab leaves Levi and Benjamin out of the count. Jamieson, Fausset & Brown note that the Levites did no fighting, so a count would pass them by, as in Numbers 1:47. Adam Clarke reports a rabbinic reading that Joab meant to spare these two tribes, since Benjamin had suffered enough.
1 Chronicles 21:6
“Levi and Benjamin counted he not - The rabbins give the following reason for this: Joab, seeing that this would bring down destruction upon the people, purposed to save two tribes. Should David ask, Why have you not numbered the Levites? Joab purposed to say, Because the Levites are not reckoned among the children of Israel. Should he ask, Why have you not numbered Benjamin? he would answer, Benjamin has been already sufficiently punished, on account of the treatment of the woman at Gibeah: if, therefore, this tribe were to be again punished, who would remain?”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
1 Chronicles 21:6
“Levi and Benjamin counted he not--If this census was ordered with a view to the imposition of taxes, this alone would account for Levi, who were not warriors (1Ch 21:5), not being numbered (see on Nu 1:47-54).”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Three punishments offered, and an angel over Jerusalem
1 Chronicles 21:7-8
evil in the sight of God: The text calls the command “evil in the sight of God” before any sentence is announced, and adds “so He struck Israel”. David confesses, “I have sinned greatly”, in words close to those of 2 Samuel 24:10. He calls his act foolish, “for I have acted very foolishly”.
1 Chronicles 21:7
“God takes notice of, and is displeased with, the sins of his people; and no sin is more displeasing to him than pride of heart: nor is anything more humbling, and grieving, and mortifying to a gracious soul, than to see itself under God's displeasure.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
take away the iniquity of: David confesses before Gad brings the three options. He calls his act very foolish and asks God to take away his guilt. Matthew Henry names the root of the census as pride of heart and says the sin was David's alone to bear.
1 Chronicles 21:9-13
Gad, David’s seer: Chronicles names Gad's office, “David’s seer”, before the word arrives. The third option is spelled out, “three days of the sword of the LORD”, with “the angel of the LORD ravaging every part of Israel”. Albert Barnes notes that the angel is named here and nowhere in Samuel's version.
offering you three options: The LORD sends Gad with three options and will carry out the one David chooses. The choice is left to David. Adam Clarke, on verse 13, cites the Targum, where David weighs how Israel would judge him for choosing famine or war.
Gad carries the message to David in the LORD's own words. The seer serves as go-between again at verse 18, when the angel sends him. Albert Barnes notes that the choice in verse 12 names the angel of the LORD, preparing for the angel David sees at verse 16.
three years of famine: The three options are three years of famine, three months of flight before enemies, or three days of plague. Albert Barnes notes that the words about the angel ravaging Israel stand only in Chronicles, where Samuel states the third option briefly. They prepare for the angel of verse 16.
1 Chronicles 21:12
“And the angel of the Lord destroying ... - These words are not in Samuel, which puts the third alternative briefly. They prepare the way for the angelic appearance 1Ch 21:16, on which the author is about to lay so much stress.”
into the hand of the LORD: David chooses the hand of the LORD, trusting His great mercies. Adam Clarke cites the Targum, where David reasons that choosing famine would let Israel say his own granaries were full. Choosing war would let them say a warrior king cared little if they fell by the sword.
1 Chronicles 21:13
“David said - I am in a great strait - The Targum reasons thus: “And David said to Gad, If I choose famine, the Israelites may say, The granaries of David are full of corn; neither doth he care should the people of Israel die with hunger. And if I choose war, and fly before an enemy, the Israelites may say, David is a strong and warlike man, and he cares not though the people of Israel should fall by the sword.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
the LORD sent a plague upon Israel: Seventy thousand die, the same count Samuel gives, letting the number stand as judgment matched exactly to what David's pride had multiplied. Matthew Henry reads the stroke as proportioned punishment, the census that swelled David's pride reduced by plague to teach him what his numbers were worth.
1 Chronicles 21:14
“He was proud of the multitude of his people, but divine Justice took a course to make them fewer. Justly is that taken from us, weakened, or embittered to us, which we are proud of.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
1 Chronicles 21:15-16
relented from the calamity: The LORD stopped the destroying angel, who stood “by the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite”, whom 2 Samuel 24:16 calls Araunah. Verse 16 adds what Samuel's report lacks. David sees the angel “standing between heaven and earth, with a drawn sword in his hand stretched out over Jerusalem”.
1 Chronicles 21:15
“And God sent an angel - Thus the Targum: “And the Word of the Lord sent the angel of death against Jerusalem to destroy it; and he beheld the ashes of the binding of Isaac at the foot of the altar, and he remembered his covenant with Abraham, which he made in the Mount of Worship; and the house of the upper sanctuary, where are the souls of the righteous, and the image of Jacob fixed on the throne of glory; and he turned in his Word from the evil which he designed to do unto them; and he said…”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
1 Chronicles 21:15
“So the Lord . . . sent an angel unto Jerusalem to destroy it--The infliction only of the pestilence is here noticed, without any account of its duration or its ravages, while a minute description is given of the visible appearance and menacing attitude of the destroying angel.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Ornan's threshing floor bought at the full price
saw the angel of the LORD: David sees the angel standing between heaven and earth, his sword stretched out over Jerusalem. The king and the elders, in sackcloth, fall on their faces. Albert Barnes calls the scene a picture of awful grandeur where 2 Samuel 24:17 gives only a bare statement.
1 Chronicles 21:16
“Here a picture of awful grandeur takes the place of the bare statement of the earlier historian 2Sa 24:17. And here, as elsewhere, the author probably extracts from the ancient documents such circumstances as harmonize with his general plan.”
I am the one who has sinned: David names himself as the offender: “I am the one who has sinned and acted wickedly”. He asks that God's hand fall upon “me and my father’s house” and spare the people he calls “these sheep”. The same plea stands in 2 Samuel 24:17.
1 Chronicles 21:18-19
ordered Gad to tell David: The instruction reaches David, “to go up and build an altar to the LORD on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite”. A working floor is named for what it is about to become. David obeys “at the word that Gad had spoken in the name of the LORD”.
1 Chronicles 21:18
“When of old the Philistines had been overcome, when their devilish audacity had been destroyed, when their champion had fallen on his face to the earth, it was from this city that there went forth a procession of jubilant souls, a harmonious choir to sing our David's victory over tens of thousands. Here, too, it was that the angel grasped his sword, and while he laid waste the whole of the ungodly city, he marked out the temple of the Lord in the threshing floor of Ornan, king of the Jebusites.”
Jerome · written before 420 · LETTER 46.2patristic
3 more voices on this verse
1 Chronicles 21:18
“Thus the revelation of Jesus Christ was notified by the angel to John, and by him to the churches. The commanding of David to build an altar was a blessed token of reconciliation; for, if God had been pleased to kill him, he would not have appointed, because he would not have accepted, a sacrifice at his hands.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
1 Chronicles 21:18
“Here we are informed of the quarter whence the prophet got his commission. It is only in the later stages of Israel's history that we find angels employed in communicating the divine will to the prophets. Ornan was threshing wheat--If the census was entered upon in autumn, the beginning of the civil year, the nine and a half months it occupied would end at wheat harvest.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
1 Chronicles 21:18
“It has been observed that it is only in books of a late period that Angels are brought forward as intermediaries between God and the prophets. This, no doubt, is true; and it is certainly unlikely that the records, from which the author of Chronicles drew, spoke of Gad as receiving his knowledge of God’s will from an angel.”
at the word that Gad: David goes up to Ornan's threshing floor as Gad told him in the name of the LORD. The order came from the angel through Gad in verse 18. Matthew Henry, on verse 30, reads the chapter's close as David's peace made with God upon his repentance.
1 Chronicles 21:20-21
his four sons who were with him hid themselves: Ornan was threshing wheat when he “turned and saw the angel”, and his four sons hid themselves. When David comes, Ornan leaves the threshing floor and “bowed facedown before David”. Adam Clarke records Greek manuscripts in which Ornan sees the king, as Araunah sees the king in 2 Samuel 24:20.
1 Chronicles 21:20
“Ornan turned back, and saw the angel - The Septuagint say, And Orna turned, και ειδε τον βασιλεα, and saw the King. The Syriac and Arabic say, David saw the angel; and do not mention Ornan in this place. Houbigant translates the same reading המלך hammalech, the king, for המלעך hammalach, the angel, and vindicates his version from the parallel place, 2Sa 24:20, where it is said, he saw David: but there is no word of his seeing the angel.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
he left the threshing floor: Ornan leaves his work and bows facedown before the king. A Jebusite landowner bows to Israel's king on the ground where the altar of verse 26 will stand. In verse 23 he offers his oxen, sledges and wheat, a gift Jamieson, Fausset & Brown describe as made for instant use.
1 Chronicles 21:22-23
David asks, “Grant me the site of this threshing floor”, so the plague may be halted. Ornan offers everything at once: “the oxen for the burnt offerings, the threshing sledges for the wood, and the wheat for the grain offering”. The whole sacrifice stands ready before David has paid anything.
the threshing sledges for the wood: Ornan offers the oxen, the sledges as firewood, and the wheat for a grain offering. Jamieson, Fausset & Brown say the sledges would burn the sacrificed oxen, and they read the gift as made for instant use. Everything needed for the sacrifice already stands on Ornan's floor.
1 Chronicles 21:23
“I give thee . . . the threshing instruments for wood--that is, to burn the sacrifice of the oxen. Very little real import--the haste and the value of the present offered--can be understood in this country. The offering was made for instant use.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
1 Chronicles 21:24-25
Chronicles records the price as “six hundred shekels of gold”, and 2 Samuel 24:24 records fifty shekels of silver. Some commentators hold that Samuel's sum bought the floor and the oxen, and the larger sum the whole site. Albert Barnes records a reading of six shekels for six hundred.
1 Chronicles 21:24
“For the full price - That is, six hundred shekels full weight of pure gold.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
six hundred shekels of gold: David gives Ornan six hundred gold shekels for the site. Samuel's account at 2 Samuel 24:24 gives fifty shekels of silver. Albert Barnes suggests reading six for six hundred, since six gold shekels were nearly worth fifty silver ones in the later Jewish reckoning.
1 Chronicles 21:25
“Compare the marginal reference and note. It may also be conjectured that we should read “six” for “six hundred” here; since, according to the later Jewish system, six gold shekels were nearly equal in value to fifty silver ones.”
1 Chronicles 21:26-27
offered burnt offerings and peace offerings: Chronicles adds that the LORD “answered him with fire from heaven on the altar of burnt offering”. Fire also marked the tabernacle's first sacrifice in Leviticus 9:24 and the temple's dedication in 2 Chronicles 7:1. Then the LORD spoke, and the angel “put his sword back into its sheath”.
1 Chronicles 21:26
“To signify that God's anger was turned away from him, the fire that might justly have fastened upon the sinner fastened upon the sacrifice and consumed that; and, upon this, the destroying sword was returned into its sheath. Thus Christ was made sin and a curse for us, and it pleased the Lord to bruise him, that through him God might be to us, not a consuming fire, but a reconciled Father.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
put his sword back into: At the LORD's word the angel sheathes his sword, and the plague that began in verse 14 ends. The drawn sword of verse 16 is put away. Matthew Henry reads this as the controversy concluded and David's peace made with God upon his repentance.
1 Chronicles 21:28-30
he offered sacrifices there: Chronicles explains why David keeps sacrificing at Ornan's floor. The tabernacle and its altar stood “at the high place in Gibeon”, but David “was afraid of the sword of the angel of the LORD”. The next chapter names that ground the house of the LORD God.
1 Chronicles 21:28
“DAVID was, for many years, searching for a site for the great temple which he purposed to build for Jehovah, his God. It had been ordained that the sacrifices offered to the one God should be offered by all Israel upon one altar, but as yet the Ark of the Lord was within curtains, near David's palace, and the altar of burnt offering was situated at Gibeon. Where should the one altar be erected? Where should the Ark find its permanent dwelling place?”
2 more voices on this verse
1 Chronicles 21:28
“Sacrificed - When he perceived that his sacrifice was acceptable to God, he proceeded to offer more sacrifices in that place.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
1 Chronicles 21:28
On those administrations in which we have experienced the tokens of God's presence, and have found that he is with us of a truth, it is good to continue our attendance. "Here God had graciously met me, and therefore I will still expect to meet with him."
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
at the high place in Gibeon: Moses' wilderness tabernacle and its altar of burnt offering still stand at the high place in Gibeon. Matthew Henry notes that David kept sacrificing at Ornan's floor as long as he lived, while the altar at Gibeon was still kept up. God had accepted the offerings made there.
he was afraid of the sword: David stays away from Gibeon, afraid of the angel's sword. Adam Clarke reads the fear two ways: dread of the angel, or fear that the trip would delay the offerings while the plague went on. The fire from heaven in verse 26 showed that God accepted the altar David built.
1 Chronicles 21:30
“Because of the sword of the angel - This is given as a reason why David built an altar in the threshing-floor of Ornan: he was afraid to go to Gibeon, because of the sword of the destroying angel, or he was afraid of delaying the offerings so long as his going thither would require, lest the destroying angel should in the mean while exterminate the people; therefore he hastily built an altar in that place, and on it made the requisite offerings, and by the fire from heaven God showed that he had accepted his act and his devotion.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
1 Chronicles 21:30
“30 But David could not go before it to enquire of God: for he was afraid because of the sword of the angel of the L ORD . We have here the controversy concluded, and, upon David's repentance, his peace made with God. Though thou wast angry with me, thy anger is turned away.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
How this psalm is built
The form: Narrative of a sin, a judgment and a purchase, the one full crisis chapter of the reign, as guide classes it.
The patterns in this chapter
| Device | What it does | Where to see it |
|---|---|---|
| The drawn sword, and the sword put back | David sees the angel at verse 16 with a drawn sword stretched out over Jerusalem, and at verse 27 the LORD speaks to the angel, who puts his sword back into its sheath. Everything between the two is the altar, the purchase and the sacrifice. Verse 30 then says David could not go to Gibeon because he was afraid of that sword, so the image governs the chapter's last line as well.Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible, 1832, on 1 Chronicles 21:27. | 1 Chronicles 21:16, 1 Chronicles 21:27, 1 Chronicles 21:30 |
| Satan, standing without the article | The guide's keynote table glosses satan at h7854 as adversary or accuser and records that the noun stands at verse 1 with no definite article in the Hebrew. Chronicles specialists read the unarticulated form as usually marking the ordinary sense of an adversary elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible. What the form carries here is the question the next section sets out.This site's published book guide, src/components/book/guides/1-chronicles/Book1ChroniclesGuide.tsx, the KEYNOTES row satan at h7854. | 1 Chronicles 21:1 |
| The three sentences offered, and the one chosen | Verse 12 sets three judgments in one list, three years of famine, three months of defeat before enemies, or three days of the sword of the LORD. The site's published exposition marks that the third is spelled out in full here and that the angel is named in it, which the parallel account does not do. David's answer at verse 13 picks none of the three by name and asks instead to fall into the hand of the LORD.Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments, 1832 to 1869, on 1 Chronicles 21:12. | 1 Chronicles 21:11, 1 Chronicles 21:12, 1 Chronicles 21:13 |
| These sheep, what have they done | David's plea at verse 17 names himself as the one who sinned and asks that the hand fall on him and his father's house. The dossier reads the verse as the guilty man asking to stand where the innocent are standing, and sets the shepherd language he reaches for beside John 10. The prayer is answered by an instruction to build an altar rather than by a reprieve.This site's published dossier for 1 Chronicles, src/components/book/dossier-content/1-chronicles.ts, the christIn entry "The shepherd who asks for the sword". | 1 Chronicles 21:17 |
Satan, and the anger of the LORD
15 more paragraphs on the patterns
The census is told twice in Scripture and the two accounts open differently. The parallel at 2 Samuel 24:1 begins with the anger of the LORD burning against Israel and stirring David up. Verse 1 here begins with Satan rising up against Israel and inciting David. The dossier and the guide both carry the question, and one account of it is given here.
The dossier names three positions. The first reads the Chronicler as naming the immediate tempter that Samuel leaves under the LORD's permission. It is held in the Christian commentary tradition by Matthew Henry in Exposition of the Old and New Testaments, 1706 to 1714, and by John Gill in Exposition of the Old Testament, 1763. Both read the pattern of Job 1 and 2, where permission above and a hostile agent below describe one event at two heights. The second notes that the Hebrew noun stands unarticulated at verse 1, which elsewhere usually marks the ordinary sense of an adversary. It is held by Sara Japhet in I and II Chronicles: A Commentary, Old Testament Library, 1993. The third reads the Chronicler recasting his source to move the impulse away from the LORD, which is the mainstream critical reading.
The guide states the same dispute as a question about the history of angelology. Critical scholarship reads the shift as evidence of a personal tempter figure emerging more explicitly in later texts. The response notes that Job 1 and 2 and Zechariah 3 both use the form with the definite article and are at least as early on a conservative dating. The guide's own flag says that both readings agree on the pattern Job already shows and that the direction of development is presented without being settled. Whatever weight the opening verse carries, the chapter keeps David's guilt at full strength at verse 17.
The numbers, and the two prices
Verse 5 counts 1,100,000 men who drew the sword in Israel and 470,000 in Judah, where 2 Samuel 24:9 gives 800,000 and 500,000. Albert Barnes reads the differing totals as an unfinished census recorded at two stages rather than a contradiction. The dossier carries the size of this book's figures as one of its six difficulties. The first of its three positions is copying damage in the Hebrew numeral notation, held by Keil and Delitzsch in Biblical Commentary on the Books of Chronicles, 1872. The second reads the Hebrew eleph as a unit or a clan, held by John Wenham in Large Numbers in the Old Testament, Tyndale Bulletin 18, 1967. The third is deliberate scale, an ancient way of stating magnitude.
Verse 25 gives the price as six hundred shekels of gold, where 2 Samuel 24:24 gives fifty shekels of silver. The site's published exposition names the readings without forcing agreement. Some hold that Samuel's fifty shekels bought the floor and the oxen for that day, while the six hundred bought the whole hill later given to the temple. Albert Barnes records a minority reading of six shekels rather than six hundred, which is closer in value to Samuel's figure. What stands the same in both books is David's refusal to take the ground for nothing.
Moriah, and the ground the temple stood on
The later account at 2 Chronicles 3:1 names the temple's site as Mount Moriah and as the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite. The guide carries the identification with Genesis 22:2 as one of its three contested points. The traditional claim reads judgment stayed by a substitute as a two part pattern landing at one place. The critical caution notes that the two texts never state the identification in the same verse, and that Moriah appears only twice in the whole Hebrew Bible. Some scholars therefore regard the link as later theological work.
The guide's flag is explicit, that a strong and ancient tradition holds this ground and that the traditional claim's own holders would grant it is not an uncontested textual fact. This page states no verdict. No feature page stands for either the threshing floor or Mount Moriah, tested by file in this lane, so both are listed in docs/lanes/feature-pages-owed/1-chronicles.md.
The fire from heaven
Verse 26 says the LORD answered David with fire from heaven on the altar of burnt offering, which the parallel account does not carry. The site's published exposition sets it in a short series: Leviticus 9:24 at the tabernacle's first sacrifice, and 2 Chronicles 7:1 at the temple's dedication on this same ground. Each fire marks acceptance of an altar just raised. Adam Clarke and Matthew Henry both read this one as visible pardon, the flame falling on the sacrifice rather than on the man.
What the Chronicler added
Four things stand here and not in 2 Samuel 24. Joab's objection is sharpened into the language of covenant guilt at verse 3. Levi and Benjamin are named as left out of the count at verse 6. The angel is seen standing between heaven and earth at verse 16, with the elders in sackcloth beside David. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown read that scene as the Chronicler's own contribution, where the earlier history gave the bare report. The fire of verse 26 is the fourth.
Where the New Testament reads it
The dossier's Christ entries take two lines out of this chapter. The threshing floor is read as a judgment stopped by a bought sacrifice on the mountain Abraham was sent to, with the temple later raised over the spot. David's plea at verse 17 is read beside John 10, where the shepherd stands in the room of the sheep from the other side, innocent rather than guilty.
Keep studying
Studies5
Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The form and classifications
This site's published book guide, src/components/book/guides/1-chronicles/Book1ChroniclesGuide.tsx, the BANDS row "Wars, the Census, the Threshing Floor" at 18:1 to 21:30, whose form line reads compressed battle summaries, then one full chapter of crisis; This site's published book sections table, src/lib/bible/book-sections.ts, the entry "1 Chronicles": "history" and This site's published dossier for 1 Chronicles, src/components/book/dossier-content/1-chronicles.ts, the difficulties entry on the census, which reads the chapter as telling how the temple site was obtained with the census as the road to Ornan's threshing floor.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes; Jamieson Fausset and Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament; Keil, The Books of the Chronicles and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.