Did the LORD or Satan move David to number Israel?
Both: Satan tempted David, and God, in judgment on Israel, permitted and overruled it.
The Passages
2 Samuel 24:1
1 Chronicles 21:1
The Difficulty
“And again the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel, and he moved David against them to say, Go, number Israel and Judah” (2 Samuel 24:1). “And Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel” (1 Chronicles 21:1). Which was it? And if the LORD moved David, how could God move a man to sin (James 1:13)?
The Answer
Both are true, as in the trials of Job: Satan was the instrument, and nothing was done but what God, for His own righteous ends, allowed him to do (Job 1:12; 2:6). The LORD’s anger was already kindled against Israel; He gave Satan leave, and Satan moved David. Scripture elsewhere speaks of God doing what He permits and overrules: the lying spirit in the mouth of Ahab’s prophets went out at His word (1 Kings 22:20–23), and Joseph’s brothers “thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good” (Genesis 50:20).
This isn’t God tempting David to sin in the sense James denies. God didn’t put evil in David’s heart; He let the pride already in it be drawn out, to chasten David and judge Israel, and David owned the sin as his own: “I have sinned greatly in that I have done” (2 Samuel 24:10).
Gill reads 2 Samuel 24:1 in the same way, supplying Satan from Chronicles, or taking it that the LORD left David to the corruption of his own heart.
Sources
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In not preventing, as he might have done, its occurrence, he is viewed as in some sense bringing about the event. Hence the act of Satan might be, in this indirect way, referred back to God, as the Governor of the universe.
Checked against: Internet Archive scan of the 1874 edition, 2026-10-19 -
And he moved David against them; not the Lord, but satan, as may be supplied from (1 Chronicles 21:1) … the Lord left him to the corruption of his nature.
Checked against: Internet Archive scan of the first edition, 2026-10-23
