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    1 Chronicles · 30 verses

    1 Chronicles 21

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    David asks for a number, Joab returns an incomplete one, and the answer arrives not as arithmetic but as a sword over Jerusalem.

    The number that would not stay a numbervv. 1–7

    Satan incites David to count Israel, and David sends Joab from Beersheba to Dan to discover the total. Joab objects that the troops are already the king’s servants and warns that the order will bring guilt on Israel, but the king prevails. The final figure is grand and oddly unfinished: Levi and Benjamin are left out because Joab finds the command detestable, while God finds it evil and strikes Israel.

    Three choices, one swordvv. 8–17

    David confesses that he has acted foolishly. Gad is sent with three punishments from which David must choose: famine, defeat, or three days of plague, with the remarkable instruction to decide how Gad should answer the One who sent him. David chooses to fall into the LORD’s hand rather than human hands. Seventy thousand die, and an angel comes against Jerusalem; then the LORD says, “Enough!” David sees the drawn sword and asks that the blow fall on him and his father’s house instead of the people.

    The threshing floor and the sword’s sheathvv. 18–30

    The angel tells Gad to send David to Ornan’s threshing floor to build an altar. Ornan is threshing wheat when he sees the angel; his four sons hide, while Ornan bows before David and offers the whole site, oxen, sledges, and wheat. David insists on paying the full price, builds the altar, and receives fire from heaven. The angel puts away the sword, but David still cannot go to the tabernacle at Gibeon to inquire of God, because that sword has plainly made an impression.

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    Berean Standard Bible, public domain. Names the Hebrew and Greek put in the verse link to the person, place or people they name; the address beside each verse is a link to that verse, which is what a reader copies and shares.

    1. 1 Chr 21:1Then Satan rose up against Israel and incited David to take a census of Israel.

    2. 1 Chr 21:2So David said to Joab and the commanders of the troops, “Go and count the Israelites from Beersheba to Dan and bring me a report, so that I may know their number.”

    3. 1 Chr 21:3But Joab replied, “May the LORD multiply His troops a hundred times over. My lord the king, are they not all servants of my lord? Why does my lord want to do this? Why should he bring guilt on Israel?”

    4. 1 Chr 21:4Nevertheless, the king’s word prevailed against Joab. So Joab departed and traveled throughout Israel, and then he returned to Jerusalem.

    5. 1 Chr 21:5And Joab reported to David the total number of the troops. In all Israel there were 1,100,000 men who drew the sword, including 470,000 in Judah.

    6. 1 Chr 21:6But Joab did not include Levi and Benjamin in the count, because the king’s command was detestable to him.

    7. 1 Chr 21:7This command was also evil in the sight of God; so He struck Israel.

    8. 1 Chr 21:8Then David said to God, “I have sinned greatly because I have done this thing. Now I beg You to take away the iniquity of Your servant, for I have acted very foolishly.”

    9. 1 Chr 21:9And the LORD instructed Gad, David’s seer,

    10. 1 Chr 21:10“Go and tell David that this is what the LORD says: ‘I am offering you three options. Choose one of them, and I will carry it out against you.’”

    11. 1 Chr 21:11So Gad went and said to David, “This is what the LORD says: ‘You must choose

    12. 1 Chr 21:12between three years of famine, three months of being swept away before your enemies and overtaken by their swords, or three days of the sword of the LORD—days of plague upon the land, with the angel of the LORD ravaging every part of Israel.’ Now then, decide how I should reply to Him who sent me.”

    13. 1 Chr 21:13David answered Gad, “I am deeply distressed. Please, let me fall into the hand of the LORD, for His mercies are very great; but do not let me fall into the hands of men.”

    14. 1 Chr 21:14So the LORD sent a plague upon Israel, and seventy thousand men of Israel fell dead.

    15. 1 Chr 21:15Then God sent an angel to destroy Jerusalem, but as the angel was doing so, the LORD saw it and relented from the calamity, and He said to the angel who was destroying the people, “Enough! Withdraw your hand now!” At that time the angel of the LORD was standing by the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.

    16. 1 Chr 21:16When David lifted up his eyes and saw the angel of the LORD standing between heaven and earth, with a drawn sword in his hand stretched out over Jerusalem, David and the elders, clothed in sackcloth, fell facedown.

    17. 1 Chr 21:17And David said to God, “Was it not I who gave the order to count the people? I am the one who has sinned and acted wickedly. But these sheep, what have they done? O LORD my God, please let Your hand fall upon me and my father’s house, but do not let this plague remain upon Your people.”

    18. 1 Chr 21:18Then the angel of the LORD ordered Gad to tell David to go up and build an altar to the LORD on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.

    19. 1 Chr 21:19So David went up at the word that Gad had spoken in the name of the LORD.

    20. 1 Chr 21:20Now Ornan was threshing wheat when he turned and saw the angel; and his four sons who were with him hid themselves.

    21. 1 Chr 21:21David came to Ornan, and when Ornan looked out and saw David, he left the threshing floor and bowed facedown before David.

    22. 1 Chr 21:22Then David said to Ornan, “Grant me the site of this threshing floor, that I may build an altar to the LORD. Sell it to me for the full price, so that the plague upon the people may be halted.”

    23. 1 Chr 21:23Ornan said to David, “Take it! May my lord the king do whatever seems good to him. Look, I will give the oxen for the burnt offerings, the threshing sledges for the wood, and the wheat for the grain offering—I will give it all.”

    24. 1 Chr 21:24“No,” replied King David, “I insist on paying the full price, for I will not take for the LORD what belongs to you, nor will I offer burnt offerings that cost me nothing.”

    25. 1 Chr 21:25So David paid Ornan six hundred shekels of gold for the site.

    26. 1 Chr 21:26And there he built an altar to the LORD and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings. He called upon the LORD, who answered him with fire from heaven on the altar of burnt offering.

    27. 1 Chr 21:27Then the LORD spoke to the angel, who put his sword back into its sheath.

    28. 1 Chr 21:28At that time, when David saw that the LORD had answered him at the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite, he offered sacrifices there.

    29. 1 Chr 21:29For the tabernacle of the LORD that Moses had made in the wilderness and the altar of burnt offering were presently at the high place in Gibeon,

    30. 1 Chr 21:30but David could not go before it to inquire of God, because he was afraid of the sword of the angel of the LORD.

    01 — Also here

    Who else the chapter reaches

    Names written in the English are linked in the text above. These are the ones that are not: an entity the Hebrew or Greek names under a spelling the translation does not use, or one reached only by an assertion about a verse of this chapter.

    Named in the Hebrew or Greek somewhere in this chapter, under a form the English renders differently — the registry's Ludim against the translation's Ludites — so there is no word in the sentence to hang the link on.

    Reached by an assertion Atlas extracted from a verse of this chapter rather than by a name written in it — a pronoun, a title, or a participant the sentence carries without naming. This layer is model-read and measured at 88.6–90.3% precision, and it is kept separate from the names above for that reason.

    02 — Read alongside

    Where this is echoed

    Readers' own connections, from OpenBible's crowd-voted cross-references — agreement about relevance, and not scholarly confidence. 270 passages were voted onto 29 verses of this chapter; the 16 shown lead on votes, and each is listed at the verse it was voted onto most strongly.

    • 12 Samuel 24:1–25Again the anger of the LORD burned against Israel, and He stirred up David against them, saying, “Go and take a census of Israel and Judah.”
    • 1Zechariah 3:1Then the angel showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the LORD, with Satan standing at his right hand to accuse him.
    • 52 Samuel 24:9And Joab reported to the king the total number of the troops. In Israel there were 800,000 men of valor who drew the sword, and in Judah there were 500,000.
    • 1Job 2:1On another day the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came with them to present himself before Him.
    • 11 Kings 22:20–22And the LORD said, ‘Who will entice Ahab to march up and fall at Ramoth-gilead?’ And one suggested this, and another that.
    • 1Revelation 12:10And I heard a loud voice in heaven saying: “Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of His Christ. For the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down—he who accuses them day and night before our God.
    • 1Job 2:4–6“Skin for skin!” Satan replied. “A man will give up all he owns in exchange for his life.
    • 13Psalms 130:7O Israel, put your hope in the LORD, for with the LORD is loving devotion, and with Him is redemption in abundance.
    • 15Genesis 6:6And the LORD regretted that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart.
    • 16Numbers 14:5Then Moses and Aaron fell facedown before the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel.
    • 182 Chronicles 3:1Then Solomon began to build the house of the LORD in Jerusalem on Mount Moriah, where the LORD had appeared to his father David. This was the place that David had prepared on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.
    • 26Leviticus 9:24Fire came out from the presence of the LORD and consumed the burnt offering and the fat portions on the altar. And when all the people saw it, they shouted for joy and fell facedown.
    • 291 Chronicles 16:39And David left Zadok the priest and his fellow priests before the tabernacle of the LORD at the high place in Gibeon
    • 1Hebrews 10:24And let us consider how to spur one another on to love and good deeds.
    • 1Matthew 4:3The tempter came to Him and said, “If You are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.”
    • 1Luke 11:53As Jesus went on from there, the scribes and Pharisees began to oppose Him bitterly and to ply Him with questions about many things,

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