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2 Samuel 24 of 24

2 Samuel 24

A king numbers his people for reasons the text leaves unclear; thousands die; and the site of the altar becomes the site of the future temple.

Summary

The anger of the Lord is kindled against Israel; he moves David against them to say: go, number Israel and Judah. David says to Joab: go through all the tribes of Israel from Dan even to Beersheba and number the people, that I may know the number of the people. Joab says to the king: the Lord your God add unto the people, how many soever they be, a hundredfold, and the eyes of my lord the king may see it; but why doth my lord the king delight in this thing? Notwithstanding the king's word prevails against Joab. Joab goes through all the land and returns to Jerusalem. He gives up the sum: in Israel eight hundred thousand valiant men that drew the sword; in Judah five hundred thousand men. David's heart smites him after he has numbered the people. He says to the Lord: I have sinned greatly in what I have done; now I beseech thee, O Lord, take away the iniquity of thy servant. God speaks to Gad, David's seer, to offer David a choice of three: seven years of famine, or three months to flee before his enemies, or three days of pestilence. David says: I am in a great strait; let us fall now into the hand of the Lord, for his mercies are great; and let me not fall into the hand of man.

The Lord sends a pestilence upon Israel from the morning until the appointed time; seventy thousand men die from Dan to Beersheba. When the angel stretches out his hand upon Jerusalem to destroy it, the Lord repents him of the evil and says to the angel: it is enough; stay now thine hand. The angel is by the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite. David sees the angel that smiteth the people and speaks to the Lord: I have sinned and I have done wickedly; but these sheep, what have they done? Let thine hand, I pray thee, be against me and against my father's house. Gad comes to David that day and says: go up, rear an altar unto the Lord in the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite. Araunah looks out and sees the king coming and goes out and bows before the king. He offers to give David the threshing floor, the oxen for burnt offerings, the threshing instruments and the yokes for wood. The king says: nay, but I will surely buy it of thee at a price; neither will I offer burnt offerings unto the Lord my God of that which doth cost me nothing. David buys the threshing floor and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver. He builds there an altar and offers burnt offerings and peace offerings. So the Lord is entreated for the land and the plague is stayed from Israel.

Appears
David Joab Nathan
Themes
Divine Punishment Atonement The Temple Site
All 24 chapters — click to jump
  1. 2 Samuel 1Chapter 1 is the hinge between 1 Samuel and 2 Samuel.
  2. 2 Samuel 2Chapter 2 opens the period of civil war that will occupy much of the first half of the book.
  3. 2 Samuel 3Chapter 3 is one of the most politically complex chapters in the book.
  4. 2 Samuel 4Chapter 4 closes the civil war with a brief, ugly episode.
  5. 2 Samuel 5Chapter 5 is the pivotal chapter of the book's first half.
  6. 2 Samuel 6Chapter 6 is one of the most dramatically charged chapters in 2 Samuel, covering two episodes that frame the ark's arrival in Jerusalem.
  7. 2 Samuel 7Chapter 7 is the theological centre of the entire David narrative and one of the most consequential passages in the Hebrew Bible for later Jewish and Christian thought.
  8. 2 Samuel 8Chapter 8 reads differently from everything around it.
  9. 2 Samuel 9Chapter 9 is the chapter the Court History uses to establish one key dimension of David's character before the crisis arrives.
  10. 2 Samuel 10Chapter 10 establishes the military context of the Bathsheba episode.
  11. 2 Samuel 11Chapter 11 is the turning point of 2 Samuel and one of the most consequential chapters in biblical narrative.
  12. 2 Samuel 12Chapter 12 contains the most famous confrontation in the book.
  13. 2 Samuel 13Chapter 13 is the first fulfilment of Nathan's sentence in chapter 12.
  14. 2 Samuel 14Chapter 14 covers the three years in which David longs for Absalom but will not recall him, and Joab's intervention to change that.
  15. 2 Samuel 15Chapter 15 is the emotional nadir of the first movement of the Absalom crisis.
  16. 2 Samuel 16Chapter 16 covers three encounters as David makes his way out of Jerusalem.
  17. 2 Samuel 17Chapter 17 is the intelligence chapter of the Absalom revolt and turns on a moment of competitive counsel.
  18. 2 Samuel 18Chapter 18 is the emotional climax of 2 Samuel.
  19. 2 Samuel 19Chapter 19 covers David's return to Jerusalem and the political settlements it requires.
  20. 2 Samuel 20Chapter 20 is the coda to the Absalom crisis.
  21. 2 Samuel 21Chapter 21 opens the appendix section of 2 Samuel — chapters 21-24 are not chronological narrative but supplementary materials: two episodes of famine and plague bracketing two poems and two hero lists.
  22. 2 Samuel 22Chapter 22 is an extended psalm, found also as Psalm 18 in the Psalter, which the editors of 2 Samuel have placed near the end of the book as David's retrospective meditation on his life.
  23. 2 Samuel 23Chapter 23 contains two distinct sections.
  24. 2 Samuel 24Chapter 24 is the second appendix episode bracketing the poems of chapters 22-23, and it closes the book on an unexpected note.
← Previous · Chapter 23
2 Samuel 23
The book itself
Summary & story
What 2 Samuel is, why it matters.
Analysis
Themes
Power, consequence, grief, the dynastic promise, and the realism of the prose.
Who's who
David's court
The household of a king who has everything and gives most of it away.

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