1Again Yahweh’s anger burned against Israel, and he moved David against them, saying, “Go, count Israel and Judah.” 2The king said to Joab the captain of the army, who was with him, “Now go back and forth through all the tribes of Israel, from Dan even to Beersheba, and count the people, that I may know the sum of the people.”
3Joab said to the king, “Now may Yahweh your God add to the people, however many they may be, one hundred times; and may the eyes of my lord the king see it. But why does my lord the king delight in this thing?”
4Notwithstanding, the king’s word prevailed against Joab and against the captains of the army. Joab and the captains of the army went out from the presence of the king to count the people of Israel. 5They passed over the Jordan and encamped in Aroer, on the right side of the city that is in the middle of the valley of Gad, and to Jazer; 6then they came to Gilead and to the land of Tahtim Hodshi; and they came to Dan Jaan and around to Sidon, 7and came to the stronghold of Tyre, and to all the cities of the Hivites and of the Canaanites; and they went out to the south of Judah, at Beersheba. 8So when they had gone back and forth through all the land, they came to Jerusalem at the end of nine months and twenty days. 9Joab gave up the sum of the counting of the people to the king; and there were in Israel eight hundred thousand valiant men who drew the sword, and the men of Judah were five hundred thousand men.
10David’s heart struck him after he had counted the people. David said to Yahweh, “I have sinned greatly in that which I have done. But now, Yahweh, put away, I beg you, the iniquity of your servant; for I have done very foolishly.”
11When David rose up in the morning, Yahweh’s word came to the prophet Gad, David’s seer, saying, 12“Go and speak to David, ‘Yahweh says, “I offer you three things. Choose one of them, that I may do it to you.”’”
13So Gad came to David, and told him, saying, “Shall seven years of famine come to you in your land? Or will you flee three months before your foes while they pursue you? Or shall there be three days’ pestilence in your land? Now answer, and consider what answer I shall return to him who sent me.”
14David said to Gad, “I am in distress. Let us fall now into Yahweh’s hand, for his mercies are great. Let me not fall into man’s hand.”
15So Yahweh sent a pestilence on Israel from the morning even to the appointed time; and seventy thousand men died of the people from Dan even to Beersheba. 16When the angel stretched out his hand toward Jerusalem to destroy it, Yahweh relented of the disaster, and said to the angel who destroyed the people, “It is enough. Now withdraw your hand.” Yahweh’s angel was by the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.
17David spoke to Yahweh when he saw the angel who struck the people, and said, “Behold, I have sinned, and I have done perversely; but these sheep, what have they done? Please let your hand be against me, and against my father’s house.”
18Gad came that day to David and said to him, “Go up, build an altar to Yahweh on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.”
19David went up according to the saying of Gad, as Yahweh commanded. 20Araunah looked out, and saw the king and his servants coming on toward him. Then Araunah went out and bowed himself before the king with his face to the ground. 21Araunah said, “Why has my lord the king come to his servant?”
David said, “To buy your threshing floor, to build an altar to Yahweh, that the plague may be stopped from afflicting the people.”
22Araunah said to David, “Let my lord the king take and offer up what seems good to him. Behold, the cattle for the burnt offering, and the threshing sledges and the yokes of the oxen for the wood. 23All this, O king, does Araunah give to the king.” Araunah said to the king, “May Yahweh your God accept you.”
24The king said to Araunah, “No, but I will most certainly buy it from you for a price. I will not offer burnt offerings to Yahweh my God which cost me nothing.” So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver. 25David built an altar to Yahweh there, and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings. So Yahweh was entreated for the land, and the plague was removed from Israel.
This passage relates to the so-called problem of large Numbers in the Old Testament, and the Pentateuch in particular. While the focus in this passage is on spoils of war, elsewhere in the Pentateuch, it is related to how the Israelites consisted of some 600,000 fighting men, which would translate into some two million people who left Egypt in the Exodus and wandered into the wilderness and settled in the land of Canaan thereafter. Practically all those who study the geography and characteristics of the land consider this an impossibly high number based on our present state of knowledge. It is generally estimated that the population of the land of Canaan, for example, would have been of the order of 50,000 people at the time portrayed by the biblical narratives. Even the Bible itself in places gives hints that the numbers were not that big, see especially the portrayal of Caleb and his family in Joshua 14-15, which suggests only a limited number of individuals as part of Caleb’s family, an important unit in Judah, as occupying the area of ancient Hebron (cf. also Exodus 23:29-30). Additionally, archaeological surveys indicate that the southern area of Judah was very sparsely populated at the time, even when there could have been a fairly substantial nomadic presence in the area that would have left little trace in the archaeological record. So, what is happening here with the portrayal of such large numbers? There have been many attempts at a solution throughout the years, but nothing conclusive has come about. One possibility could be that the numbers are an intentional exaggeration, perhaps to show how Yahweh, the God of Israel, really had blessed and multiplied the people (see, e.g., Exod 1:20) and to emphasize the great victory of the Israelites in the passage in question here. Certainly, otherwise, it clearly appears that some of the battle accounts of the book of Joshua, for example, involve intentional exaggeration in narrative detail, in line with known such practices among the various ancient peoples of the area at the time. From a modern perspective, any such exaggeration may instinctively seem dubious, but it may well have been a natural way of telling things at the time and recognized as such by the original ancient readers. It should also be noted that the numbers are consistent with other Old Testament materials, such as Judges 19-21 and 2 Samuel 24, passages which, in fact, portray an early rather than a late time in Israel’s history.
See also chart at Numbers 31:36, and Got Questions, https://www.gotquestions.org/numbers-Bible-accurate.html for additional arguments on this.