24:1 The Lord’s anger again raged against Israel, and he incited David against them, saying, “Go count Israel and Judah.” 1
24:10 David felt guilty 2 after he had numbered the army. David said to the Lord, “I have sinned greatly by doing this! Now, O Lord, please remove the guilt of your servant, for I have acted very foolishly.”
24:11 When David got up the next morning, the Lord had already spoken 3 to Gad the prophet, David’s seer: 24:12 “Go, tell David, ‘This is what the Lord says: I am offering you three forms of judgment. Pick one of them and I will carry it out against you.’”
24:13 Gad went to David and told him, “Shall seven 4 years of famine come upon your land? Or shall you flee for three months from your enemy with him in hot pursuit? Or shall there be three days of plague in your land? Now decide 5 what I should tell the one who sent me.” 24:14 David said to Gad, “I am very upset! I prefer that we be attacked by the Lord, for his mercy is great; I do not want to be attacked by men!” 6
24:15 So the Lord sent a plague through Israel from the morning until the completion of the appointed time. Seventy thousand men died from Dan to Beer Sheba. 24:16 When the angel 7 extended his hand to destroy Jerusalem, the Lord relented from his judgment. 8 He told the angel who was killing the people, “That’s enough! Stop now!” 9 (Now the Lord’s angel was near the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.)
24:17 When he saw the angel who was destroying the people, David said to the Lord, “Look, it is I who have sinned and done this evil thing! As for these sheep – what have they done? Attack me and my family.” 10
24:1 The Lord’s anger again raged against Israel, and he incited David against them, saying, “Go count Israel and Judah.” 11
21:1 During David’s reign there was a famine for three consecutive years. So David inquired of the Lord. 12 The Lord said, “It is because of Saul and his bloodstained family, 13 because he murdered the Gibeonites.”
21:14 They buried the bones of Saul and his son Jonathan in the land of Benjamin at Zela in the grave of his father Kish. After they had done everything 23 that the king had commanded, God responded to their prayers 24 for the land.
21:15 Another battle was fought between the Philistines and Israel. So David went down with his soldiers 25 and fought the Philistines. David became exhausted. 21:16 Now Ishbi-Benob, one of the descendants of Rapha, 26 had a spear 27 that weighed three hundred bronze shekels, 28 and he was armed with a new weapon. 29 He had said that he would kill David. 21:17 But Abishai the son of Zeruiah came to David’s aid, striking the Philistine down and killing him. Then David’s men took an oath saying, “You will not go out to battle with us again! You must not extinguish the lamp of Israel!”
1 sn The parallel text in 1 Chr 21:1 says, “An adversary opposed Israel, inciting David to count how many warriors Israel had.” The Samuel version gives an underlying theological perspective, while the Chronicler simply describes what happened from a human perspective. The adversary in 1 Chr 21:1 is likely a human enemy, probably a nearby nation whose hostility against Israel pressured David into numbering the people so he could assess his military strength. See the note at 1 Chr 21:1.
2 tn Heb “and the heart of David struck him.”
3 tn Heb “and the word of the
4 tc The LXX has here “three” rather than “seven,” and is followed by NAB, NIV, NCV, NRSV, TEV, NLT. See 1 Chr 21:12.
5 tn Heb “now know and see.”
6 tn Heb “There is great distress to me. Let us fall into the hand of the
7 tn Heb “messenger.”
8 tn Heb “concerning the calamity.”
9 tn Heb “Now, drop your hand.”
10 tn Heb “let your hand be against me and against the house of my father.”
11 sn The parallel text in 1 Chr 21:1 says, “An adversary opposed Israel, inciting David to count how many warriors Israel had.” The Samuel version gives an underlying theological perspective, while the Chronicler simply describes what happened from a human perspective. The adversary in 1 Chr 21:1 is likely a human enemy, probably a nearby nation whose hostility against Israel pressured David into numbering the people so he could assess his military strength. See the note at 1 Chr 21:1.
12 tn Heb “sought the face of the
13 tn Heb “and the house of bloodshed.”
14 tn Heb “David.” For stylistic reasons the name has been replaced by the pronoun (“he”) in the translation.
15 tn Heb “the bones of Saul and the bones of Jonathan his son.” See also v. 13.
16 tn Heb “lords.”
17 tn Heb “stolen.”
18 tc Against the MT, this word is better read without the definite article. The MT reading is probably here the result of wrong word division, with the letter ה (he) belonging with the preceding word שָׁם (sham) as the he directive (i.e., שָׁמָּה, samah, “to there”).
19 tn Heb “had hung them.”
20 tn Heb “in the day.”
21 tn Heb “Philistines.”
22 tn Heb “he”; the referent (David) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
23 tc Many medieval Hebrew
24 tn Heb “was entreated.” The verb is an example of the so-called niphal tolerativum, with the sense that God allowed himself to be supplicated through prayer (cf. GKC 137 §51.c).
25 tn Heb “his servants.”
26 tn This name has the definite article and may be intended to refer to a group of people rather than a single individual with this name.
27 tn This is the only occurrence of this Hebrew word in the OT. Its precise meaning is therefore somewhat uncertain. As early as the LXX the word was understood to refer to a “spear,” and this seems to be the most likely possibility. Some scholars have proposed emending the text of 2 Sam 21:16 to כוֹבַעוֹ (khova’o; “his helmet”), but in spite of the fact that the word “helmet” appears in 1 Sam 17:5, there is not much evidence for reading that word here.
28 tn Either the word “shekels” should be supplied here, or the Hebrew word מִשְׁקַל (mishqal, “weight”) right before “bronze” is a corrupted form of the word for shekel. If the latter is the case the problem probably resulted from another occurrence of the word מִשְׁקַל just four words earlier in the verse.
29 tn The Hebrew text reads simply “a new [thing],” prompting one to ask “A new what?” Several possibilities have been proposed to resolve the problem: perhaps a word has dropped out of the Hebrew text here; or perhaps the word “new” is the result of misreading a different, less common, word; or perhaps a word (e.g., “sword,” so KJV, NAB, NASB, NIV, CEV, NLT) is simply to be inferred. The translation generally follows the latter possibility, while at the same time being deliberately nonspecific (“weapon”).