2 Samuel · 25 verses
2 Samuel 24
Every verse links to the people and places named in it, and to the passages readers connect it with.
The chapter
What happens here
Atlas's own reading, written from this chapter and nothing else, and published only once a person has approved it. Each scene names the verses it covers; the names inside it link to the people and places they name.
Araunah offers the king a threshing floor, oxen, sledges, and yokes for nothing; David, with the plague still abroad, insists on paying fifty shekels of silver. A sacrifice that costs nothing will not do—not for this king, not on this day.
The census that would not leave David alonevv. 1–10
The LORD’s anger burns against Israel, and David is stirred to order a census of Israel and Judah. Joab, who has the excellent instinct to ask why, is overruled; he and the commanders travel from Dan to Beersheba, across the Jordan, through Aroer, Gad, Jazer, Gilead, Tahtim-hodshi, Dan-jaan, Sidon, Tyre, and the Negeb, before returning to Jerusalem after nine months and twenty days. The figures arrive neatly enough—800,000 in Israel and 500,000 in Judah—but David’s conscience does not admire the neatness. He confesses that he has acted very foolishly.
Three choices, and the sheepvv. 11–17
Gad brings David three punishments to choose from: famine, pursuit, or plague. David chooses to fall into the hand of the LORD rather than into human hands, and the plague runs from Dan to Beersheba, killing seventy thousand people. Then, as the destroying angel reaches toward Jerusalem, the LORD says, “Enough!” David sees the angel and asks the question that the census itself had somehow failed to ask: what have these sheep done?
The price of a plague-stopping altarvv. 18–25
Gad sends David to Araunah’s threshing floor to build an altar. Araunah bows, offers the king the whole arrangement—oxen, threshing sledges, ox yokes, and the floor itself—and even adds a blessing. David refuses the gift. He buys the threshing floor and oxen for fifty shekels of silver, builds the altar, and offers burnt offerings and peace offerings. Then the LORD answers the prayers for the land, and the plague stops.
The text
Read it
Berean Standard Bible, public domain. Names the Hebrew and Greek put in the verse link to the person, place or people they name; the address beside each verse is a link to that verse, which is what a reader copies and shares.
2 Sam 24:1Again the anger of the LORD burned against Israel, and He stirred up David against them, saying, “Go and take a census of Israel and Judah.”
2 Sam 24:2So the king said to Joab the commander of his army, who was with him, “Go now throughout the tribes of Israel from Dan to Beersheba and register the troops, so that I may know their number.”
2 Sam 24:3But Joab replied to the king, “May the LORD your God multiply the troops a hundred times over, and may the eyes of my lord the king see it. But why does my lord the king want to do such a thing?”
2 Sam 24:4Nevertheless, the king’s word prevailed against Joab and against the commanders of the army. So Joab and the commanders of the army departed from the presence of the king to register the troops of Israel.
2 Sam 24:5They crossed the Jordan and camped near Aroer, south of the town in the middle of the valley, and proceeded toward Gad and Jazer.
2 Sam 24:6Then they went to Gilead and the land of Tahtim-hodshi, and on to Dan-jaan and around to Sidon.
2 Sam 24:7They went toward the fortress of Tyre and all the cities of the Hivites and Canaanites. Finally, they went on to the Negev of Judah, to Beersheba.
2 Sam 24:8At the end of nine months and twenty days, having gone through the whole land, they returned to Jerusalem.
2 Sam 24:9And Joab reported to the king the total number of the troops. In Israel there were 800,000 men of valor who drew the sword, and in Judah there were 500,000.
2 Sam 24:10After David had numbered the troops, his conscience was stricken and he said to the LORD, “I have sinned greatly in what I have done. Now, O LORD, I beg You to take away the iniquity of Your servant, for I have acted very foolishly.”
2 Sam 24:11When David got up in the morning, the word of the LORD had come to Gad the prophet, David’s seer:
2 Sam 24:12“Go and tell David that this is what the LORD says: ‘I am offering you three options. Choose one of them, and I will carry it out against you.’”
2 Sam 24:13So Gad went and said to David, “Do you choose to endure three years of famine in your land, three months of fleeing the pursuit of your enemies, or three days of plague upon your land? Now then, think it over and decide how I should reply to Him who sent me.”
2 Sam 24:14David answered Gad, “I am deeply distressed. Please, let us fall into the hand of the LORD, for His mercies are great; but do not let me fall into the hands of men.”
2 Sam 24:15So the LORD sent a plague upon Israel from that morning until the appointed time, and seventy thousand of the people from Dan to Beersheba died.
2 Sam 24:16But when the angel stretched out his hand to destroy Jerusalem, the LORD relented from the calamity and said to the angel who was destroying the people, “Enough! Withdraw your hand now!” At that time the angel of the LORD was by the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.
2 Sam 24:17When David saw the angel striking down the people, he said to the LORD, “Surely I, the shepherd, have sinned and acted wickedly. But these sheep, what have they done? Please, let Your hand fall upon me and my father’s house.”
2 Sam 24:18And that day Gad came to David and said to him, “Go up and build an altar to the LORD on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.”
2 Sam 24:19So David went up at the word of Gad, just as the LORD had commanded.
2 Sam 24:20When Araunah looked out and saw the king and his servants coming toward him, he went out and bowed facedown before the king.
2 Sam 24:21“Why has my lord the king come to his servant?” Araunah said. “To buy your threshing floor,” David replied, “that I may build an altar to the LORD, so that the plague upon the people may be halted.”
2 Sam 24:22Araunah said to David, “May my lord the king take whatever seems good to him and offer it up. Here are the oxen for a burnt offering and the threshing sledges and ox yokes for the wood.
2 Sam 24:23O king, Araunah gives all these to the king.” He also said to the king, “May the LORD your God accept you.”
2 Sam 24:24“No,” replied the king, “I insist on paying a price, for I will not offer to the LORD my God burnt offerings that cost me nothing.” So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver.
2 Sam 24:25And there he built an altar to the LORD and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings. Then the LORD answered the prayers on behalf of the land, and the plague upon Israel was halted.
01 — Also here
Who else the chapter reaches
Names written in the English are linked in the text above. These are the ones that are not: an entity the Hebrew or Greek names under a spelling the translation does not use, or one reached only by an assertion about a verse of this chapter.
Named in the Hebrew or Greek somewhere in this chapter, under a form the English renders differently — the registry's Ludim against the translation's Ludites — so there is no word in the sentence to hang the link on.
Reached by an assertion Atlas extracted from a verse of this chapter rather than by a name written in it — a pronoun, a title, or a participant the sentence carries without naming. This layer is model-read and measured at 88.6–90.3% precision, and it is kept separate from the names above for that reason.
02 — Read alongside
Where this is echoed
Readers' own connections, from OpenBible's crowd-voted cross-references — agreement about relevance, and not scholarly confidence. 244 passages were voted onto 24 verses of this chapter; the 16 shown lead on votes, and each is listed at the verse it was voted onto most strongly.
- 11 Chronicles 21:1Then Satan rose up against Israel and incited David to take a census of Israel.
- 11 Chronicles 27:23–24David did not count the men aged twenty or under, because the LORD had said that He would make Israel as numerous as the stars of the sky.
- 241 Chronicles 21:24–25“No,” replied King David, “I insist on paying the full price, for I will not take for the LORD what belongs to you, nor will I offer burnt offerings that cost me nothing.”
- 102 Samuel 12:13Then David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the LORD.” “The LORD has taken away your sin,” Nathan replied. “You will not die.
- 14Psalms 119:156Great are Your mercies, O LORD; revive me according to Your ordinances.
- 14Psalms 51:1For the choirmaster. A Psalm of David. When Nathan the prophet came to him after his adultery with Bathsheba. Have mercy on me, O God, according to Your loving devotion; according to Your great compassion, blot out my transgressions.
- 1James 1:13–14When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He tempt anyone.
- 141 Chronicles 21:13David answered Gad, “I am deeply distressed. Please, let me fall into the hand of the LORD, for His mercies are very great; but do not let me fall into the hands of men.”
- 24Malachi 1:12–14“But you profane it when you say, ‘The table of the Lord is defiled, and as for its fruit, its food is contemptible.’
- 101 Samuel 13:13“You have acted foolishly,” Samuel declared. “You have not kept the command that the LORD your God gave you; if you had, the LORD would have established your kingdom over Israel for all time.
- 16Exodus 12:23When the LORD passes through to strike down the Egyptians, He will see the blood on the top and sides of the doorframe and will pass over that doorway; so He will not allow the destroyer to enter your houses and strike you down.
- 24Genesis 23:13and said to Ephron in their presence, “If you will please listen to me, I will pay you the price of the field. Accept it from me, so that I may bury my dead there.”
- 22 Samuel 3:10to transfer the kingdom from the house of Saul and to establish the throne of David over Israel and Judah, from Dan to Beersheba.”
- 5Joshua 13:9The area from Aroer on the rim of the Arnon Valley, along with the city in the middle of the valley, the whole plateau of Medeba as far as Dibon,
- 5Deuteronomy 2:36From Aroer on the rim of the Arnon Valley, along with the city in the valley, even as far as Gilead, not one city had walls too high for us. The LORD our God gave us all of them.
- 6Joshua 19:28It went on to Ebron, Rehob, Hammon, and Kanah, as far as Greater Sidon.
Onward