2 Samuel 24:4

Joab said unto the king - This very bad man saw that the measure now recommended by the king was a wrong one, and might be ruinous to the people, and therefore he remonstrates against it in a very sensible speech; but the king was infatuated, and would hear no reason.

Notwithstanding the king's word prevailed against Joab, and against the captains of the host,.... Who it seems were of the same mind with Joab, and were against numbering the people, yet their arguments and remonstrances were of no avail with the king; he was determined it should be done, and laid his commands upon them to do it, which they were obliged to comply with:

and Joab and the captains of the host went out from the presence of the king, to number the people of Israel; seeing him resolute and determined, they submitted, took his orders, and set out to execute them.

Joab perceiving the king bent upon it, would not hazard the king’ s favour by further disputing or disobeying his command.

"Again the anger of Jehovah was kindled against Israel; and He moved David against them, saying, Go, number Israel and Judah." לחרות ... ויּסף points back to the manifestation of the wrath of God, which Israel had experienced in the three years' famine (2 Samuel 21). Just as that plague had burst upon the land on account of the guilt which rested upon the people, so the kindling of the wrath of God against Israel a second time also presupposes guilt on the part of the nation; and as this is not expressly pointed out, we may seek for it generally in the rebellions of Absalom and Sheba against the divinely established government of David. The subject to "moved" is Jehovah, and the words "against them" point back to Israel. Jehovah instigated David against Israel to the performance of an act which brought down a severe judgment upon the nation. With regard to the idea that God instigates to sin, see the remarks on Sa1 26:19. In the parallel text of the Chronicles, Satan is mentioned as the tempter to evil, through whom Jehovah had David to number the people.
Sa2 24:2
David entrusted the task to his commander-in-chief Joab. אתּו אשׁר, "who was with him:" the meaning is, "when he was with him" (David). We are not warranted in attempting any emendations of the text, either by the expression אתּו אשׁר, or by the reading in the Chronicles, העם ועל־שׂרי ("and to the rulers of the people"); for whilst the latter reading may easily be seen to be a simplification founded upon Sa2 24:4, it is impossible to show how אתּו אשׁר שׂר־החיל, which is supported by all the ancient versions (with the sole exception of the Arabic), could have originated in העם ואל־שׂרי. "Go now through all the tribes of Israel, from Dan to Beersheba (see at Jdg 20:1), and muster the people." פּקד, to muster or number, as in Num 1:44. The change from the singular שׁוּט to the plural פּקדוּ may be explained very simply, from the fact that, as a matter of course, Joab was not expected to take the census by himself, but with the help of several assistants.
Sa2 24:3
Joab discountenanced the thing: "Jehovah thy God add to the nation, as it is, a hundredfold as many, and may the eyes of my lord the king see it. But why doth my lord the king delight in this thing?" The ו before יוסף stands at the commencement, when what is said contains a sequel to something that has gone before (vid., Ges. 255, 1, a.). The thought to which Joab's words are appended as a sequel, is implied in what David said, "that I may know the number of the people;" and if expressed fully, his words would read somewhat as follows: "If thou hast delight in the greatness of the number of the people, may Jehovah," etc. Joab evidently saw through the king's intention, and perceived that the numbering of the people could not be of any essential advantage to David's government, and might produce dissatisfaction among the people, and therefore endeavoured to dissuade the king from his purpose. וכהם כּהם, "as they (the Israelites) just are," i.e., in this connection, "just as many as there are of them." From a grammatical point of view, כּהם is to be taken as the object to יוסף, as in the parallel passages, Deu 1:11; Sa2 12:8. Not only did he desire that God would multiply the nation a hundredfold, but that He would do it during the lifetime of David, so that his eyes might be delighted with the immense numbers.
Sa2 24:4-5
But as the king's word prevailed against Joab and against the captains of the army, they (Joab and the other captains) went out to number Israel. יחנוּ, they encamped, i.e., they fixed their headquarters in the open field, because great crowds assembled together. This is only mentioned here in connection with the place where the numbering commenced; but it is to be understood as applying to the other places as well (Thenius). In order to distinguish Aroer from the place of the same name in the Arnon, in the tribe of Reuben (Jos 12:2; Num 32:34, etc.), it is defined more precisely as "the town in the brook-valley of Gad," i.e., Aroer of Gad before Rabbah (Jos 13:25; Jdg 11:33), in the Wady Nahr Ammn, to the north-east of Ammn (see at Jos 13:25). ועל־יעזר (and to Jazer): this is a second place of encampment, and the preposition אל is to be explained on the supposition that יבאוּ (they came), which follows, was already in the writer's thoughts. Jazer is probably to be found in the ruins of es Szir, at the source of the Nahr Szir (see at Num 21:32).
Sa2 24:6
"And they came to Gilead," i.e., the mountainous district on the two sides of the Jabbok (see at Deu 3:10). The words which follow, viz., "into the land חדשׁי תּחתּים" are quite obscure, and were unintelligible even to the earlier translators. The Septuagint has γῆν Ἐθαὼν Ἀδασαί, or γῆν Θαβασών (also γῆν χεττιείμ) ἥ ἐστιν Ἀδασαί. Symmachus has τὴν κατωτέραν ὁδόν; Jonathan לחדשׁי דרומא לארעא ("into the southland Chodshi"); and the Vulgate in terram inferiorem. The singular form תּחתּים, and the fact that we never read of a land called Chodshi, render the conjecture a very probable one that the text is corrupt. But it is no longer possible to discover the correct reading. Ewald imagines that we should read Hermon instead of the unintelligible Chodshi; but this is not very probable. Bttcher supposes תחתים to be a mistake in writing for ים תּחת, "below the lake," namely the lake of Gennesareth, which might have been called Chodshi (the new-moon-like), since it had very much the appearance of a crescent when seen from the northern heights. This is ingenious, but incredible. The order of the places named points to the eastern side of the sea of Galilee; for they went thence to Dan-jaan, i.e., the Dan in northern Peraea, mentioned in Gen 14:14, to the south-west of Damascus, at that time probably the extreme north-eastern boundary of the kingdom of David, in the direction towards Syria (see at Gen 14:14): "and round to Sidon," the extreme north-western boundary of the kingdom.
Sa2 24:7
Thence southwards to the fortress of Zor, i.e., Tyre (see at Jos 19:29), and "into all the towns of the Hivites and Canaanites," i.e., the towns in the tribes of Naphtali, Zebulun, and Issachar, or the (subsequent) province of Galilee, in which the Canaanites had not been exterminated by the Israelites, but had only been made tributary.
Sa2 24:8-9
When they had traversed the whole land, they came back to Jerusalem, at the end of nine months and twenty days, and handed over to the king the number of the people mustered: viz., 800,000 men of Israel fit for military service, drawing the sword, and 500,000 men of Judah. According to the Chronicles (Ch1 21:5), there were 1,100,000 Israelites and 470,000 Judaeans. The numbers are not given by thousands, and therefore are only approximative statements in round numbers; and the difference in the two texts arose chiefly from the fact, that the statements were merely founded upon oral tradition, since, according to Ch1 27:4, the result of the census was not inserted in the annals of the kingdom. There is no ground, however, for regarding the numbers as exaggerated, if we only bear in mind that the entire population of a land amounts to about four times the number of those who are fit for military service, and therefore 1,300,000, or even a million and a half, would only represent a total population of five or six millions, - a number which could undoubtedly have been sustained in Palestine, according to thoroughly reliable testimony as to its unusual fertility (see the discussion of this subject at Num 1-4, Pentateuch, pp. 651-57). Still less can we adduce as a proof of exaggeration the fact, that according to Ch1 27:1-15, David had only an army of 288,000; for it is a well-known fact, that in all lands the army, or number of men in actual service, is, as a rule, much smaller than the total number of those who are capable of bearing arms. According to Ch1 21:6, the tribes of Levi and Benjamin were not numbered, because, as the chronicler adds, giving his own subjective view, "the word of the king was an abomination to Joab," or, as it is affirmed in Ch1 27:4, according to the objective facts, "because the numbering was not completed." It is evident from this, that in consequence of Joab's repugnance to the numbering of the people, he had not hurried with the fulfilment of the kings' command; so that when David saw his own error, he revoked the command before the census was complete, and so the tribe of Benjamin was not numbered at all, the tribe of Levi being of course eo ipso exempt from a census that was taken for the sake of ascertaining the number of men who were capable of bearing arms.