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Numbering of the people: Besides the numbering of the tribes mentioned in the history of the
wanderings in the wilderness, we have an account of a general census of
the whole nation from Dan to Beersheba, which David gave directions to
Joab to make
(1 Chronicles 21:1) Joab very reluctantly began to carry out the
king's command. This act of David in ordering a numbering of the people
arose from pride and a self-glorifying spirit. It indicated a reliance
on his part on an arm of flesh, an estimating of his power not by the
divine favour but by the material resources of his kingdom. He thought
of military achievement and of conquest, and forgot that he was God's
vicegerent. In all this he sinned against God. While Joab was engaged
in the census, David's heart smote him, and he became deeply conscious
of his fault; and in profound humiliation he confessed, "I have sinned
greatly in what I have done." The prophet Gad was sent to him to put
before him three dreadful alternatives
(2 Samuel 24:13) for "seven years"
in this verse, the LXX. and
(1 Chronicles 21:12) have "three years"), three of
Jehovah's four sore judgments
(Ezekiel 14:21) Two of these David had
already experienced. He had fled for some months before Absalom, and
had suffered three years' famine on account of the slaughter of the
Gibeonites. In his "strait" David said, "Let me fall into the hands of
the Lord." A pestilence broke out among the people, and in three days
swept away 70,000 At David's intercession the plague was stayed, and at
the threshing-floor of Araunah (q.v.), where the destroying angel was
arrested in his progress, David erected an altar, and there offered up
sacrifies to God
(2 Chronicles 3:1) The census, so far as completed, showed
that there were at least 1,300,000 fighting men in the kingdom,
indicating at that time a population of about six or seven millions in
all.
