1 Chronicles 21

The ancient Hebrew word for this enemy is satan. The term can also mean “accuser.” This same Hebrew name shows up in Job 1­­—2 as someone in God’s heavenly council who acts like a prosecuting attorney. He accuses Job of trusting in God only because God gives Job an easy life of comfort. The Old Testament’s limited references to “satan” don’t seem to track with those in New Testament times. One big problem is that the parallel version of this story, in 2 Samuel 24:1, blames God for nudging David into ordering a census—which makes God satan, or the accuser. Some scholars suggest that the Chronicles history blamed an “enemy” satan out of respect for God. They didn’t want to paint God with dark colors.

Many people in Old Testament times seemed to think a census was somehow wrong, or at least bad luck. That’s probably why Joab pushed back on the king about it. Perhaps they saw it as the sin of pride, in this case, a king wanting to brag about the size of his army. This version of the story says Satan nudged or manipulated David into ordering the census. But another version says God did the nudging (2 Samuel 24:1-9). But, at least in 2 Samuel’s version, God is Satan, the instigator. When we say “Satan,” we’re speaking Hebrew. It’s a word that means “Accuser” or “Enemy.” God was accusing Israel of some undisclosed sin. God was the Accuser. Some scholars explain the discrepancy another way. They say God allowed Satan to manipulate David. So in a sense one writer can say God did the manipulation. Another can say Satan did it. And both could be right. Yeah, well that sounds like a bit of a stretch to others—as though some people would do anything to keep from admitting that a writer or a scribe along the way got something wrong in the Holy Bible.

Second Samuel 24:9 rounds that number up to half a million. Many scholars say the numbers are too high. If each warrior on average represented a family of one wife and two children, the population could have been five million or more. That’s half as many people as Israel has in the 21st century. Many scholars say the word “thousand” more likely meant a unit or a group or an extended family. In which case, 500,000 may have meant 500 military companies of men, with 100 per company. Then Judah would have had 50,000 warriors.

The threshing floor later became part of Israel’s holiest site, the location of the Jerusalem Temple. Jebusites were the original locals of Jerusalem. They lived on that ridgetop before David conquered it back when people called the walled city Jebus. David renamed it City of David. Who wouldn’t? His threshing floor later became the location of the altar at the first Jewish Temple in Jerusalem, which David’s son, Solomon, built. “Ornan” is another version of the name “Araunah.”

Sackcloth was a rough fabric like burlap feed sacks. It was made from goat hair and camel hair. Farmers and their customers used those sacks to store grain. People mourning in Bible times dressed in rough clothes and sprinkled their heads and bodies with dirt or cooled ashes from firewood. This disheveled look expressed the chaos and grief inside them. Today, we’ll dress in black, wear armbands, or get memorial tattoos. By the way, memorial tattoos aren’t kosher: “Don’t do anything to commemorate the dead if it involves cutting your body or permanently painting yourself with tattoos. I am the LORD” (Leviticus 19:28).

Farmers put grain stalks on flat rocks and used oxen to drag wooden sleds over the stalks. This jarred the grain loose.

There appears to be some exaggeration going on here, to the tune of about 100 times the amount of money reported in Samuel’s version of the same story (2 Samuel 24:24). Six hundred shekels of gold for the land is a fair amount higher than the 50 shekels of silver that Samuel’s version says David paid for the land. A shekel weighed about half an ounce, or 11 grams. Fifty silver shekels weighed about one pound and four ounces (570 grams), roughly the weight of 100 quarters or 76 Euros. Or for sports fans, that’s four baseballs or three-and-a-half hockey pucks. Jewish historians reported that 50 silver shekels were worth six gold ones—so, about eight silver shekels for one gold. Six hundred shekels were worth about 4,800 silver shekels. And the 600 weighed about 15 pounds or 6,600 grams. That’s about equal to 15-pound dumbbells. Okay, how about two gallons of water (about four liters) or a modestly fed adult cat? If the Chronicles account were a fish story, Samuel’s fish is a two-inch minnow compared to the Chronicles 13-foot Great White Shark (5 cm compared to 4 m). Why the difference in math is a mystery. But the Chronicles historian often seems to tilt in the favor of a more positive story with a better Israel. It’s impossible to know what the original version of the story was like. No original copies have survived. Initially, stories were passed down by word of mouth.

A burnt offering was the most common animal sacrifice in Israel. Worshipers burned the entire animal. See Leviticus 1.

A peace offering, described in Leviticus 3, is one of several prescribed offerings in Jewish tradition. When Israel’s people wanted to give thanks to God for something, such as good health or safety, they would sacrifice a sheep, goat, cow, or bull. They would burn part of the animal, including the kidneys and fat covering the intestines. They would eat the rest in celebration, often with family and friends. It takes a fair number of hungry people to eat a cow. But people were eager to eat meat because it was rare in Bible times for common folks to eat meat, many Bible scholars say.