So they hired them thirty-two thousand chariots, and the king of Maacah and his people, who came and encamped before Medeba. The children of Ammon gathered themselves together from their cities, and came to battle.
There is, however, one sin of David’s that the Chronicler does record, and that is his numbering of the people. Yet even this story is recorded not to point out a personal weakness, but to show how David bought the piece of ground on which the temple was to be built (21:1-22:1; see notes on 2 Samuel 24:1-25). The writer now moves on to show how David, having bought the site, began preparations for the temple’s construction.