2 Samuel 24:1-2

Amplified Bible

The Census Taken

24 Now again the anger of the Lord burned against Israel, and ^[a]He incited David against them to say, “Go, ^[b]count [the people of] Israel and Judah.” ²So the king said to Joab the commander of the army who was with him, “Go now through all the tribes of Israel, from Dan [in the north] to Beersheba [in the south], and conduct a census of the people, so that I may know the number of the people.”

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Footnotes

2 Samuel 24:1 See 1 Chr 21:1. As in the case of Paul’s thorn in the flesh (2 Cor 12:7; cf 1 Cor 5:5), God sometimes accomplishes His purposes by allowing Satan to inflict injury or cause trouble.
2 Samuel 24:1 Ordinarily taking a census would have been a routine procedure for a nation as a way of assessing taxes or conscripting and assigning men to an army. But in Israel none of this was necessary unless it was commanded by God, and David’s action was the product of ego and an uncharacteristic shift of trust and dependence from God to human resources (as Joab suspected, v 3). To his credit, David eventually realized this and came to God in repentance.