Then the angel of Yahweh commanded Gad to tell David, that David should go up, and raise an altar to Yahweh in the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.
The Hebrew word transliterated "Satan" (satan; 1 Chronicles 21:1) means adversary. Adversary would be a better translation here. This is the first time in Scripture the word appears without the definite article as a proper noun. It seems that the adversary God permitted to worry David into numbering the people was a foreign enemy (1 Chronicles 21:12; cf. 1 Samuel 29:4; 2 Samuel 19:23; 2 Samuel 24:1-25; 1 Kings 5:4; 1 Kings 11:14; 1 Kings 11:23; 1 Kings 11:25). [Note: See Sarah Japhet, I & II Chronicles, pp. 374-75; Robert B. Chisholm Jr., "Does God Deceive?" Bibliotheca Sacra 155:617 (January-March 1998):22-23; and Sydney H. T. Page, "Satan: God’s Servant," Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 50:3 (September 2007):449-65.] Of course Satan played a role in this temptation, but it was evidently fear of one of his neighbors that disturbed David’s mind. [Note: See John H. Sailhamer, "1 Chronicles 21:1-A Study in Inter-biblical Interpretation," Trinity Journal 10NS:1 (Spring 1989):42-43.] 