David said to God, Isn't it I who commanded the people to be numbered? It is even I who have sinned and done very wickedly; but these sheep, what have they done? Please let your hand, O Yahweh my God, be against me, and against my father's house; but not against your people, that they should be plagued.
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.] 