Charles Ellicott Commentary 1 Chronicles 21:1

"And Satan stood up against Israel, and moved David to number Israel." — 1 Chronicles 21:1 (ASV)

And Satan stood up against Israel. —Perhaps, And an adversary (hostile influence) arose against Israel. So in 2 Samuel 19:23 the sons of Zeruiah are called “adversaries” (Hebrew, a Satan) to David. (Compare to 1 Kings 11:14; 1 Kings 11:25.) When the adversary, the enemy of mankind, is meant, the word takes the article, which it does not have here. (Compare to Job 1:2 and Zechariah 3:1-2.)

And provoked David. — Pricked him on, incited him. 2 Samuel 24:0 begins: And again the anger of Jehovah burned against Israel, and He (or it) incited David against them, saying, Go, number Israel and Judah. It thus appears that the adversary of our text, the influence hostile to Israel, was the wrath of God.

The wrath of God is the Scriptural name for that aspect of the Divine nature under which it pursues to destruction whatever is really opposed to its own perfection (Delitzsch); and it is only sin, that is, a breach of the Divine law, which can necessarily direct that aspect towards humans.

If Divine wrath urged David to number Israel, it can only have been in consequence of evil thoughts of pride and self-sufficiency, which had intruded into a heart that until then had been humbly reliant upon its Maker.

One evil thought led to another, quite naturally; that is, by the laws which God has imposed upon human nature. God did not interpose but allowed David’s corrupt motive to work out its own penal results. (Romans 1:24; Romans 1:26; Romans 1:28.)

The true reading in Samuel may well be, “And an adversary incited David,” etc., the word Satan having fallen out of the text. Yet the expression Jehovah provoked or incited against ... occurs (1 Samuel 26:19).

To number Israel —Samuel adds, and Judah.