David’s Last Song (2 of 2)

In context

Two tellings of David’s census stand side by side and differ. 2 Samuel says, “Yahweh’s anger burned against Israel, and he moved David against them” (2 Samuel 24:1); 1 Chronicles says, “Satan stood up against Israel, and moved David to take a census of Israel” (1 Chronicles 21:1). The totals differ (800,000 and 500,000 men, or 1,100,000 and 470,000), and so do the famine David could choose (seven years or three) and what he paid (fifty shekels of silver, or six hundred of gold) (2 Samuel 24:9, 13, 24; 1 Chronicles 21:5, 12, 25).

Afterward David’s heart troubled him, and he said, “I have sinned greatly” (2 Samuel 24:10). It is a hard reading: a plague kills seventy thousand men (24:15). When the angel reached out toward Jerusalem, the Lord “relented of the disaster” and stopped him by the threshing floor of Araunah, whom Chronicles calls Ornan (24:16; 1 Chronicles 21:15). David bought it and built an altar, and Chronicles says the Lord answered with fire from the sky (1 Chronicles 21:26). Solomon would build the temple on that spot, on “Mount Moriah” (2 Chronicles 3:1).

The reading also gives Chronicles’ account of the giants of Gath, and David’s song again as Psalm 18, which begins, “I love you, Yahweh, my strength” (1 Chronicles 20:4–8; Psalm 18:1).