Words in italic type have been added for clarity. They are not found in the original Hebrew or Aramaic.

I Chronicles 21

• About the title: It could have been a “Sins-less Sins us”

The Census of Israel and Judah

I Chronicles 21:¹ Now Satan stood up against Israel, and moved David to number (take a census of) Israel.

• How does Satan move us to do things in our lives? What did David want to do with this information?
  David knew better because of Exodus 30:12.

I Chronicles 21:² So David said to Joab and to the leaders of the people, “Go, number Israel from Beersheba to Dan, and bring the number of them to me that I may know it.”

I Chronicles 21:³ And Joab answered, “May the Lord (Yᵊhōvâ) make His people a hundred times more than they are. But, my lord the king, are they not all my lord’s servants? Why then does my lord require this thing? Why should he be a cause of guilt in Israel?”

• “This was dangerous because of a principle stated in Exodus 30:12: When you take the census of the children of Israel for their number, then every man shall give a ransom for himself to the LORD, when you number them, that there may be no plague among them when you number them.“The principle of Exodus 30:12 speaks to God’s ownership of His people. In the thinking of these ancient cultures, a man only had the right to count or number what belonged to him. Israel didn’t belong to David; Israel belonged to God. It was up to the LORD to command a counting, and if David counted he should only do it at God’s command and should receive ransom money to “atone” for the counting.”
  https://enduringword.com/bible-commentary/1-chronicles-21/

I Chronicles 21:⁴ Nevertheless the king’s word prevailed against Joab. Therefore Joab departed and went throughout all Israel and came to Jerusalem.

I Chronicles 21:⁵ Then Joab gave the sum of the number of the people to David. All Israel had one million one hundred thousand men who drew the sword, and Judah had four hundred and seventy thousand men who drew the sword.

• 1,100,000 plus 470,000=1,570,000 men who drew the sword.

I Chronicles 21:⁶ But he did not count Levi and Benjamin among them, for the king’s word (command) was abominable to Joab.

I Chronicles 21:⁷ And God (‘ĕlōhîm) was displeased (Lit. it was evil in the eyes of God) with this thing; therefore He struck Israel.

I Chronicles 21:⁸ So David said to God (‘ĕlōhîm), “I have sinned greatly, because I have done this thing; but now, I pray, take away the iniquity of Your servant, for I have done very foolishly.”

I Chronicles 21:⁹ Then the Lord (Yᵊhōvâ) spoke to Gad, David’s seer, saying,

• God wasn’t speaking to David.

I Chronicles 21:¹⁰ “Go and tell David, saying, ‘Thus says the Lord (Yᵊhōvâ): “I offer you three things; choose one of them for yourself, that I may do it to you.” ’ ”

I Chronicles 21:¹¹ So Gad came to David and said to him, “Thus says the Lord (Yᵊhōvâ): ‘Choose for yourself,

I Chronicles 21:¹² 
either
-(1) three šālôš H7969 years of famine, (seven in 2 Sam. 24:13 šeḇaʿ H7651)
-(2) or three months to be defeated by your foes with the sword of your enemies overtaking you,
-(3) or else for three days the sword of the Lord (Yᵊhōvâ) —the plague in the land, with the angel (Or Angel, and so throughout the chapter) of the Lord (Yᵊhōvâ) destroying throughout all the territory of Israel.’
Now consider what answer I should take back to Him who sent me.”

I Chronicles 21:¹³ And David said to Gad, “I am in great distress. Please let me fall into the hand of the Lord (Yᵊhōvâ), for His mercies are very great; but do not let me fall into the hand of man.”

I Chronicles 21:¹⁴ So the Lord (Yᵊhōvâ) sent a plague upon Israel, and seventy thousand men of Israel fell.

• David just lost 70,000 of 1,100,000 = 1,030,000 left assuming these were the same men of war.

I Chronicles 21:¹⁵ And God (‘ĕlōhîm) sent an angel (Or the Angel) to Jerusalem to destroy it. As he (Or He) was destroying, the Lord (Yᵊhōvâ) looked and relented of the disaster, and said to the angel who was destroying, “It is enough; now restrain your (Or: Your) hand.” And the angel of the Lord (Yᵊhōvâ) stood by the threshing floor of Ornan (Araunah, 2 Sam. 24:16, 18–24) the Jebusite.

I Chronicles 21:¹⁶ Then David lifted his eyes and saw the angel of the Lord (Yᵊhōvâ) standing between earth and heaven, having in his hand a drawn sword stretched out over Jerusalem. So David and the elders, clothed in sackcloth, fell on their faces.

I Chronicles 21:¹⁷ And David said to God (‘ĕlōhîm), “Was it not I who commanded the people to be numbered? I am the one who has sinned and done evil indeed; but these sheep, what have they done? Let Your hand, I pray, O Lord my God (Yᵊhōvâ ‘ĕlōhîm), be against me and my father’s house, but not against Your people that they should be plagued.”

I Chronicles 21:¹⁸ Therefore, the angel of the Lord (Yᵊhōvâ) commanded Gad to say to David that David should go and erect an altar to the Lord (Yᵊhōvâ) on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.

The threshing floor of Ornan was on Mount Moriah (II Chronicles 3:1)
where Solomon built the temple.

The same place Abraham offered Isaac on Passover
(Genesis 22:2) (Exodus 12:40-41) (Galatians 3:17)

The same set of hills where Jesus died on the cross on Passover (Genesis 22:14)

Each of the above Passovers, in their own year, miraculously occurred on a Wednesday, the middle of the week: Abraham and Isaac, the Exodus, and the Crucifixion of Jesus as the Lamb of God.

• See Topic: The Three Passovers to verify.

I Chronicles 21:¹⁹ So David went up at the word of Gad, which he had spoken in the name of the Lord (Yᵊhōvâ).

I Chronicles 21:²⁰ Now Ornan turned and saw the angel; and his four sons who were with him hid themselves, but Ornan continued threshing wheat.

I Chronicles 21:²¹ So David came to Ornan, and Ornan looked and saw David. And he went out from the threshing floor, and bowed before David with his face to the ground.

I Chronicles 21:²² Then David said to Ornan, Grant (Lit. Give) me the place of this threshing floor, that I may build an altar on it to the Lord (Yᵊhōvâ). You shall grant it to me at the full price, that the plague may be withdrawn from the people.”

I Chronicles 21:²³ But Ornan said to David, “Take it to yourself, and let my lord the king do what is good in his eyes. Look, I also give you the oxen for burnt offerings, the threshing implements for wood, and the wheat for the grain offering; I give it all.”

I Chronicles 21:²⁴ Then King David said to Ornan, “No, but I will surely buy it for the full price, for I will not take what is yours for the Lord (Yᵊhōvâ), nor offer burnt offerings with that which costs me nothing.”

I Chronicles 21:²⁵ So David gave Ornan six hundred shekels of gold by weight for the place.

“That religion which costs a man nothing is usually worth nothing.” ~Spurgeon

No. 1808-30:601. A Sermon Delivered On Lord’s Day Morning, November 9, 1884, By C. H. Spurgeon, At The Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington.

• The threshing floor, the location for a place to put the Ark of the Covenant, was the place of Abraham’s aborted attempt to sacrifice Isaac …
  • Genesis 22:9-10 Then they came to the place of which God had told him. And Abraham built an altar there and placed the wood in order; and he bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar, upon the wood. ¹⁰ And Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to slay his son.
    
• and probably the location of the Garden of Eden.
  • The Garden of Eden was a place of death. When Adam and Eve sinned, they died; first the soul, then the body destined for the grave.
  • With one hand God held the clay with which He created Adam, and within one day His other hand held the clay from which Adam came, for with the Lord a thousand years is as a day.
  • There was a singular entrance into the Garden. There is a similar comparison with the Ark of the Covenant in the temple, and lastly, the tomb of Jesus. All of which had two angels. In Eden, two cherubim guarded the entrance. On the Ark of the Covenant there were two angels on the mercy seat where the blood was applied. In the tomb of Jesus there were two angels, one at the head of His bed, and one at the foot where He was laid.

I Chronicles 21:²⁶ And David built there an altar to the Lord (Yᵊhōvâ), and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings, and called on the Lord (Yᵊhōvâ); and He answered him from heaven by fire on the altar of burnt offering.

I Chronicles 21:²⁷ So the Lord (Yᵊhōvâ) commanded the angel, and he returned his sword to its sheath.

• From Death to Peace; the Sword to its Sheath.

How prophetic.

• When He (Jesus) returns to the earth at His second advent He comes with a sword from His mouth which is the Word of God. He uses it to destroy the enemy of the Jews, the Antichrist, who has ruled the world from Jerusalem and who declared that he is God in the Holy of Holies.

• After the Antichrist is destroyed, Jesus will return his sword to its sheath to reign in Jerusalem for 1,000 years of peace.

• King David’s sin was relying on his army instead of God. Like the Antichrist he was worshiping his army, a “god” of fortresses.

• Daniel 11:38 But in their place he shall honor a god of fortresses; and a god which his fathers did not know he shall honor with gold and silver, with precious stones and pleasant things.

I Chronicles 21:²⁸ At that time, when David saw that the Lord (Yᵊhōvâ) had answered him on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite, he sacrificed there.

• A threshing floor is a place to separate the wheat from the chaff. Which is what occurs during the seven years of tribulation under the rule of  the Antichrist, the man of perdition.  The wheat is a harvest of the faithful while the chaff is those who are against God.

• Matthew 3:12 His winnowing fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clean out His threshing floor, and gather His wheat into the barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”

• To thresh means to beat, to separate. One of the synonyms of Threshing is “Tribulation”. For God to lead King David into purchasing a threshing floor is prophetic of the future of the Jews wherein only a remnant will remain.

• Jeremiah 23:28 “The prophet who has a dream, let him tell a dream; And he who has My word, let him speak My word faithfully. What is the chaff to the wheat?” says the Lord.

• A threshing is like taking someone to the wood shed for a “thrashing”.

• A threshing is like a circumcision. It separates the worldly from the spiritual, the evil from the righteous, and the flesh from the spirit.

I Chronicles 21:²⁹ For the tabernacle of the Lord (Yᵊhōvâ) and the altar of the burnt offering, which Moses had made in the wilderness, were at that time at the high place in Gibeon.

• The tabernacle and the altar had been set up in the high place in Gibeon from the days of Moses.

• Route taken by Joshua in his march from Gilgal to Gibeon to defend his allies against the attack of the Amorite kings led by the king of Jerusalem, Adoni-Zedek in Joshua chapter 10. Joshua pursued the foe as far as Azekah.

The Bible Reports on Gibeon

• Cities at el-Jib, 8 miles north of Jerusalem in Jordan.

• B. Pritchard, .James”The Bible Reports on Gibeon” Expedition Magazine 3.4 (1961): n. pag. Expedition Magazine. Penn Museum, 1961 Web. 30 Jul 2020 <http://www.penn.museum/sites/expedition/?p=194&gt;

I Chronicles 21:³⁰ But David could not go before it to inquire of God (‘ĕlōhîm), for he was afraid of the sword of the angel of the Lord (Yᵊhōvâ).

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