Today’s Reading: 2 Samuel 24; 1 Chronicles 21; Psalm 30; 1 Thessalonians 2
Scripture: 2 Samuel 24:1, 9, 24 vs. 1 Chronicles 21:1, 5, 25
2 Samuel 24
1 Again the anger of the LORD burned against Israel, and he incited David against them, saying, "Go and take a census of Israel and Judah."...
9 Joab reported the number of the fighting men to the king: In Israel there were eight hundred thousand able-bodied men who could handle a sword, and in Judah five hundred thousand...
24 ...So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen and paid fifty shekels of silver for them.
1 Chronicles 21
1 Satan rose up against Israel and incited David to take a census of Israel...
5 Joab reported the number of the fighting men to David: In all Israel there were one million one hundred thousand men who could handle a sword, including four hundred and seventy thousand in Judah.
25 So David paid Araunah six hundred shekels of gold for the site.
Observation: This really bothers me. Why do the two accounts of the same events not agree? Below I will detail the three glaring discrepancies between the two versions in 2 Samuel 24 and 1 Chronicles 21:
#1 Samuel says that the Lord incited David to take a census while Chronicles says that it was Satan. That's a serious discrepancy that I don't understand.
#2 Samuel lists the results of the census as 800,000 in Israel and 500,00 in Judah but Chronicles reports 630,000 (1,100,000 minus 470,000) in Israel and 470,000 in Judah.
#3 The Samuel passage sets the price David paid to Araunah at 50 shekels of silver while Chronicles lists it at 600 shekels of gold! Now that's a significant difference.
Application: There are things like this in the Bible that I come across from time to time. Like this one, I don't understand many of them. It makes no sense to me that these two accounts should differ as they do. But there are some strategies I use to deal with it that I would like to suggest to you.
First, I acknowledge that my knowledge and understanding is imperfect and so I admit that the problem may be with me. Maybe I'm just not looking at it right.
Second, I note that the differences are pretty much always insignificant. The story is substantively the same in both accounts. So that reinforces the truth of the word.
And third, I remember how much of the word I do understand and how it blesses me, changes me, helps me, comforts me, instructs me, and so forth. So I confess that I believe the Bible to be God's Holy Word even though I don't always fully understand every little bit of it.
Oh (and lastly), I ask God to enlighten my mind and inspire my heart so I may better understand what I read. Let's do that now.
Prayer: Lord, enlighten our minds and inspire our hearts to better understand Your word. And help us to apply what we read to our lives every day. May we put it into practice and see it bear good fruit that will bless us and enable us to bless others.
This I pray in Jesus’ name, Amen.
1 comment:
It is odd. There is one verse in the Chronicles account that might explain the difference in the troop numbers (v.6). Also, sometimes passages take on a different meaning if we go back to study the words in the original languages. They don't always translate well to English. I have always found the 1st discrepancy to be most interesting. I take it to mean God allowed Satan to incite David in a similar way to how He allowed Satan to test Job.
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