(1) Kindled against Israel.--This was not in consequence of the numbering of the people, but in consequence of that which ultimately led to that act. We are not told why the anger of the Lord was kindled, but doubtless because He saw both in king and people that rising spirit of earthly pride and reliance on earthly strength which led to the sin.

He moved.--The pronoun here stands for "the Lord," yet in 1Chronicles 21:1, the temptation is attributed to Satan, and Satan is clearly meant of the devil, and not simply of "an adversary." This is a striking instance of attributing directly to God whatever comes about under His permission. And yet it is more than that. God has established immutable spiritual as well as material laws, or rather those laws themselves are but the expression of His unchanging will. Whatever comes about under the operation of those laws is said to be His doing. Now David's numbering the people was the natural consequence of the condition of worldliness and pride into which he had allowed himself to fall. God then moved him, because He had from the first so ordered the laws of the spirit that such a sinful act should be the natural outcome of such a sinful state. Of other interpretations: that which makes the verb impersonal--"one moved"--is hardly tenable grammatically; and that which makes the nominative a sort of compound word--"the wrath of the Lord" (as in some of the ancient versions)--leads to substantially the same explanation as that given above.

The word "number" in this verse is a different one from that used in the rest of the chapter, and means simply to count, while the other conveys the idea of a military muster.

24:1-9 For the people's sin David was left to act wrong, and in his chastisement they received punishment. This example throws light upon God's government of the world, and furnishes a useful lesson. The pride of David's heart, was his sin in numbering of the people. He thought thereby to appear the more formidable, trusting in an arm of flesh more than he should have done, and though he had written so much of trusting in God only. God judges not of sin as we do. What appears to us harmless, or, at least, but a small offence, may be a great sin in the eye of God, who discerns the thoughts and intents of the heart. Even ungodly men can discern evil tempers and wrong conduct in believers, of which they themselves often remain unconscious. But God seldom allows those whom he loves the pleasures they sinfully covet.And again the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel,.... It had been kindled, and appeared before in sending a three years' famine among them for Saul's ill usage of the Gibeonites, 2 Samuel 21:1; and now it broke forth again, either for some secret sins committed, as Kimchi suggests, or for the rebellion of Absalom, and the insurrection of Sheba, in which multitudes of them joined; so Abarbinel; no doubt there was cause for it, though it is not expressed:

and he moved David against them; not the Lord, but Satan, as may be supplied from 1 Chronicles 21:1; or "it moved him"; the anger of the Lord, as the last mentioned writer interprets it; or the heart of David, as Ben Gersom; that is, the evil imagination of his heart, as Kimchi; the Lord left him to the corruption of his nature, sometimes called Satan, 2 Corinthians 12:7; which wrought powerfully in him, and stirred him up to take a step contrary to the interest of Israel, and what was prejudicial to them, as the event showed: it moved him to say; to Joab and his captains:

go, number Israel and Judah: not all the individuals, but such as were fit for war, able to bear arms, see 2 Samuel 24:9.