1 Chronicles 21 Bible study: Back into its sheath

Chronicles opens the story with a name: "Satan stood up against Israel, and moved David to take a census of Israel" (21:1) (tap Satan, moved). It is the only verse in 1 Chronicles that names Satan. David tells Joab and the princes, "Go, count Israel from Beersheba even to Dan; and bring me word, that I may know how many there are" (21:2). Joab answers with a blessing and three questions: "May the LORD make his people a hundred times as many as they are. But, my lord the king, aren’t they all my lord’s servants? Why does my lord require this thing? Why will he be a cause of guilt to Israel?" (21:3). "Nevertheless the king’s word prevailed against Joab" (21:4). The sum: "All those of Israel were one million one hundred thousand men who drew a sword; and in Judah were four hundred seventy thousand men who drew a sword" (21:5) (tap sword). "But he didn’t count Levi and Benjamin among them, for the king’s word was abominable to Joab" (21:6) (tap abominable).

1 Chronicles 21:17→leads toLuke 13:4-5

After the count "the LORD sent a pestilence on Israel, and seventy thousand men of Israel fell" (21:14). When David saw the angel, he said, "It is even I who have sinned and done very wickedly; but these sheep, what have they done?" (21:17). The chapter doesn't answer his question. When some told Jesus about Galileans "whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices" (Luke 13:1), he spoke of other deaths too: "Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them—do you think that they were worse offenders than all the men who dwell in Jerusalem? I tell you, no, but, unless you repent, you will all perish in the same way" (Luke 13:4-5). Jesus doesn't cite 1 Chronicles 21, so setting the two side by side is a reading. Some set them together because both face many deaths and the question whether those who died were worse than others: David says the sin was his (21:17), Jesus says those who died were not worse offenders, and both turn to repentance, David in "I have sinned greatly" (21:8) and Jesus in "unless you repent" (Luke 13:5). Others read each in its own setting: 1 Chronicles says, "God was displeased with this thing; therefore he struck Israel" (21:7), and the pestilence came by the LORD's word through Gad (21:12-14), while Jesus speaks of a tower's fall and of Pilate's act (Luke 13:1-4) and turns the question to those listening (Luke 13:5).

שָׂטָןsatansay sa-TAN

Brown-Driver-Briggs: "adversary", and "Satan". Strong's: "an opponent; especially (with the article prefixed) Satan, the arch-enemy of good". "Satan stood up against Israel, and moved David to take a census of Israel" (21:1). It is the word's only use in 1 Chronicles. In the WEB's Old Testament the name Satan comes in this verse, in Job 1 and 2, and in Zechariah 3. In every one of those verses in Job and Zechariah the Hebrew has the in front of the word, hassatan: "Satan also came among them" (Job 1:6), and "Satan standing at his right hand to be his adversary" (Zechariah 3:1). Here it has no the: satan. These notes don't say what the difference means; the WEB gives it as the name Satan, and this chapter reads it as the WEB does. The word is used of others too: "the LORD’s angel placed himself in the way as an adversary against him" (Numbers 22:22), and "The LORD raised up an adversary to Solomon: Hadad the Edomite" (1 Kings 11:14).