Read the Modern Pastor’s Version

As Satan stood up against Israel and provoked King David to take a census of his people, David gave an order to Joab and the leaders of Israel. "Go," he said, "count the people from Beersheba to Dan, and bring me a report so I may know their number." But Joab was troubled by this request. "May the Lord make his people a hundred times as many as they are," he prayed, "but my lord the king, aren't they all your servants? Why does my lord require this thing and be a cause of guilt to Israel?" Despite Joab's reservations, the king's word prevailed, and he departed to carry out the census.

Joab gave David the total count of Israel's fighting men: one million and one hundred thousand, with Judah's contingent numbering four hundred seventy thousand. But Levi and Benjamin were excluded from the count because Joab considered the king's order to be detestable. God was displeased with this thing, and he struck Israel.

David realized his mistake and said to God, "I have greatly sinned by doing this; now, I beg you, remove the guilt of your servant, for I have acted very foolishly." The Lord spoke to Gad, David's seer, saying, "Go and tell David that I offer him three things: choose one of them, that I may do it unto him." David chose not to bring disaster upon his people but instead fell into the hand of the Lord. He trusted in God's mercy.

The Lord sent a plague upon Israel, and seventy thousand men fell. But then he sent an angel to Jerusalem to destroy it. However, as the angel was destroying, the Lord saw what was happening and relented from his judgment. "It is enough," he said to the angel. "Now stop." The angel of the Lord stood by the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.

David lifted up his eyes and saw the angel standing between earth and heaven with a drawn sword in his hand stretched out over Jerusalem. He and the elders of Israel, who were clothed in sackcloth, fell upon their faces. David prayed, "I am the one who commanded the people to be counted; I have sinned and done evil. But these sheep, what have they done? Please, Lord my God, let your hand rest on me and my father's household, not on your people."

The angel of the Lord commanded Gad to tell David to go up and set an altar to the Lord on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite. David followed these instructions and went to the location. Ornan turned back and saw the angel; his four sons were hiding with him while he was threshing wheat.

David said to Ornan, "Grant me the threshing floor so I can build an altar there to the Lord; you shall give it to me at its full value, that the plague may be stayed from the people." Ornan agreed to give David the property and even offered to provide the oxen for a burnt offering. But David insisted on paying the full price for the land.

David gave Ornan six hundred shekels of gold by weight for the place. He then built an altar to the Lord, offering burnt and peace offerings, and calling out to him. The Lord answered from heaven by fire upon the altar of burnt offering. The angel sheathed his sword back into its scabbard.

When David saw that the Lord had answered him on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite, he sacrificed there in gratitude. But at this time, the tabernacle of the Lord and the altar of burnt offering were located at Gibeon, where Moses had made them in the wilderness. David could not go before these sacred objects to inquire of God because he was afraid of the angel with his drawn sword.