(24) Joab the son of Zeruiah began.--Or, had begun. This clearly refers to 1Chronicles 21:6. Joab omitted to number Levi and Benjamin.

Because there fell wrath for it.--The same phrase recurs in 2Chronicles 19:10; 2Chronicles 24:18. (Comp. for the fact, 1Chronicles 21:7, seq.) The sense of the Hebrew may be brought out better thus: "Joab son of Zeruiah had begun to number, without finishing; and there fell," &c.

Neither was the number put in the account of the chronicles of king David.--Literally, and the number came not up ('?l?h), was not entered. (Comp. 1Kings 9:21; 2Chronicles 20:34.) The number which Joab ascertained was not recorded, as might have been expected, in the official annals of the reign, here designated as "the account of the chronicles of king David" (mispar dibre ha-y?mim). It is implied that the chronicler had these annals before him in some form or other, probably as a section of the "History of the Kings of Judah and Israel," and that he found the lists of this chapter in that source. Those of 1 Chronicles 23-26 may have been derived from the same authority. In 2Kings 12:20; 2Kings 13:8; 2Kings 13:12, and all similar instances, the phrase for "book of the Chronicles" is not mispar, but s?pher dibre ha-y?mim. Some suppose that the text here should be altered accordingly; others would render mispar dibre ha-y?mim, "the statistical section of the annals." But mispar in Judges 7:15 means the telling or relation of a dream, and the transition from such a sense to that of written relation is easy. The phrase rendered "Chronicles" is the same as the Hebrew title of these books.

Verse 24. - It seems a little surprising to read of Joab, fixed on the page of history as the person who began to number, but... finished not, when we have been already particularly told that it was he to whom King David's command to number was "abominable" (1 Chronicles 21:6). However differently enough from the method of either nature or mankind, the antidote has here preceded the evil. For because there fell wrath for it, read the Hebrew, and there was for this wrath upon Israel. The last sentence of the verse purports to say that such numbering as had been done before the point at which Joab stopped was not honoured by a place, where other numbers were found, in the register of the chronicles of King David.

27:16-34 The officers of the court, or the rulers of the king's substance, had the oversight and charge of the king's tillage, his vineyards, his herds, his flocks, which formed the wealth of eastern kings. Much of the wisdom of princes is seen in the choice of their ministry, and common persons show it in the choice of their advisers. David, though he had all these about him, preferred the word of God before them all. Thy testimonies are my delight and my counsellors.Joab the son of Zeruiah began to number,.... By the order of David, but entirely against his own will, see 1 Chronicles 21:2,

but he finished not; the two tribes of Benjamin and Levi not being counted by him, 1 Chronicles 21:6.

because there fell wrath for it against Israel; the plague being broke forth before he had done numbering, which put a stop to it, 1 Chronicles 21:14.

neither was the number put in the account of the chronicles of David; that which was brought in by Joab, though imperfect, was not entered into the diary, journal, or annals which David ordered to be written of all memorable events and transactions in his reign; and which were afterwards carried on by the kings of Judah, often referred to in the preceding books; and this was done, not because of the imperfection of the account, but because David did not choose this sin of his should be transmitted to posterity, though it has been, notwithstanding this precaution of his.