1 Chronicles 21:2, commentary and pictures

The verse records David commanding Joab and the rulers of the people to go number Israel from Beer-sheba even to Dan and bring the number to him that he might know it. The census arose from pride in Israel's growing strength and prosperity and would lead the people to rely on their numbers rather than on God. The command was sin rooted in selfishness, acting as if strength is to be found in numbers rather than in God. David was convicted of this sin before the numbering was complete, but his repentance came after judgment had already been set in motion.

Later in the same account a sacrifice offered at Ornan's threshing floor turned aside the destroying angel's sword, and that deliverance is a symbol of the Saviour's sacrifice and mediation for guilty people. In contrast to trusting numbers, the God whom Christ came to reveal is more mighty than the angels that kept not their first estate. That same selfishness reappears in every age when people seek to number Israel and count God's people in order to make eternal life a local and national monopoly and exclude the rest of God's family. Against that exclusiveness Christ broke down every wall of partition, and His gift of mercy and love is as unconfined as air and water, with no nationality, tribe, or clan with God, free to all the world who receive Him as a personal Saviour.

To number Israel is not to work after God's order; it means turning inward to count God's people while the message of warning has not yet reached large numbers in cities close at hand. Such numbering belongs with building a wall of separation between workers and the world by advancing personal ideas and notions, and with taking a course that brings on the time of trouble before the time. God's order instead is to do abundant earnest work in cities that have not been worked, using pen and voice to enlighten souls with simple, stirring presentations of faith and love.