He then, it appears, sinned by calling for a census and violated other biblical principles. But if the husband dies, she is released from the law of her husband. The parallel account in 1 Chronicles 21 says, “Satan rose up against Israel and incited David to take a census of Israel.” The record in Chronicles places this right after a great victory over the Philistines, so the sin was probably related to a problem with pride and self-reliance. Why did God punish the Israelite people when it was David who ordered the census?" By Rick Phillips. God doesn’t need numbers to win a battle. Ten of thousands died throughout Israel until the death angel was stopped just before entering Jerusalem. Who has been corrected by their own sins? If you read 2Samuel 24 (or 1Chronicles 21), you’d find that God punished David for doing a census. The reason for doing it, however, certainly can be and is something that might be worthy of being punished for! A census was preliminary to a draft of soldiers and a levying of taxes. What do locusts represent? This is not a bad thing. An In-Depth Analysis of God's Apparent Acts of Cruelty in the Bible _____ One of the most perplexing events in the Bible is found in II Samuel 24. The devil tempted, but the king went along with it and wanted to use the census as evidence to trust in his own power not God's. Anytime Satan is involved you can be sure he intends to get someone to sin! With his cunning ways, the devil set out to entice David to sin by numbering his army through a census, which is exactly what he did (2Samuel 24:1)! The king seemed to have been prompted by a feeling of pride and ambitious curiosity. Why did God punish the Israelite people when it was David who ordered the census?" 2 David gave orders to Joab and the other officers, “Go through Israel, from one end of the country to the other, and count the people. The author of 2 Samuel, who is usually truthful, might have felt he … 7 God was very displeased with the census, and he punished Israel for it. Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in its entirety It may be the men and women of Israel and Judah did not trust God either. July 28, 2002. He was seeking ultimate allegiance to himself, his kingdom, and his power. This was the message: 10 “Go and say to David, ‘This is what the Lord says: I will give you three choices. Posted by Christian Research Institute | Feb 28, 2011 | Ask Hank , Audio Download and Listen This seems to have been the nature of David’s sin so that God was angered and acted to nip it in the bud. It was his vanity and the desire to exalt himself in his own mind that got David in trouble. Taking a census was a common way to guage a nation's potential strength in battle (Numbers 1:1 - 4, 19). The third way of being punished was three days of pestilence (a deadly epidemic) upon the land. His wise counsel, however, went unheeded. A capricious and arbitrary God? The Gospel According to Isaiah. Upon completion of the census the Prophet Gad informed David of God’s anger and intention to punish David and all Israel for this sin. Any reason for God’s displeasure is mainly conjecture because the bible doesn’t explicitly say why God was upset with David taking the census. This is the same mount where Abraham was to sacrifice his son Isaac (Genesis 22:2). David said to the Lord, “I have sinned greatly by doing this! David eventually saw how evil this usurpation was in the eyes of the Lord. Moses was only permitted to take a census indirectly (Exodus 30:12-13) by having each Israelite offer a coin as a sin offering and then count the coins. If there was ever a good candidate for a biblical contradiction, surely this is it. Rick Phillips Did God tell David to take a census and then punish him for it? unaltered excerpts (not the content in its entirety) and provide a hyperlink to this page. Any exceptions THE HUMANIST's ACCUSATION: The Old Testament contains an interesting contradiction in the story of the census taken by King David and the resulting punishment of the Israelites. The reason for the census or the accounting must also be sufficient to justify the effort and cost that such a project might involve. Website: tenth.org, Series: Not all Jewish sources agree that God directly or indirectly led David to sin by the census, but rather attribute David's act to his own inclinations to do what is evil in God's eyes. Presbyterian Church. a plague sent … The book of Chronicles tells us that Satan the devil, who was against ancient Israel, moved or provoked King David to count his troops (1Chronicles 21:1). 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