OK checked the cdrom. Here is the WTS answer to the question of the week:
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w52 6/1 pp. 351-352 Questions from Readers ***•
When David displeased God by numbering Israel, 2 Samuel 24:1 says God moved him to do it, whereas 1 Chronicles 21:1 says Satan caused him to do it. Also, in 2 Samuel 24:9 the sum given is 800,000 Israelites and 500,000 Judeans, whereas 1 Chronicles 21:5 numbers Israel’s fighting men at 1,100,000 and Judah’s at 470,000. How can these differences be harmonized?—H. B., Massachusetts.God is sometimes spoken of in Scripture as doing what he merely permits to be done by another. Thus in 2 Samuel 24:1 it states: "The anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel, and he moved David against them to say, Go, number Israel and Judah." But Jehovah was not the one that moved David to sin. It was Satan, as 1 Chronicles 21:1 states: "Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel." God was displeased with Israel and hence permitted Satan to bring this sin upon them, and for that reason 2 Samuel reads as though God did it himself. Rotherham’s translation shows it was by God’s sufferance rather than his doing: "The anger of Yahweh kindled against Israel, so that he suffered David to be moved against them saying, Go count Israel and Judah." The Septuagint in its English translation goes so far as to insert "Satan" in the place of the pronoun "he". The marginal reading in the King James Version gives "Satan" instead of "he".
Regularly enlisted in the royal service were 288,000 troops, divided into 12 groups of 24,000 each. They served under a rotation system whereby each group of 24,000 served one month during the year. There were an additional 12,000 attendant on the twelve princes of the tribes, making a total of 300,000. Apparently the 1,100,000 of 1 Chronicles includes this 300,000 already enlisted, whereas 2 Samuel does not. (Num. 1:16; Deut. 1:15; 1 Chron. 27:1-22) As for Judah, 2 Samuel apparently counted in 30,000 who were in an army of observation stationed on the Philistine frontiers, and which were not included in the 1 Chronicles figure. (2 Sam. 6:1) We note that in 2 Samuel the record does not say "all they of Israel were", as it does in the more complete summation in 1 Chronicles, but just "there were in Israel", not using the all-inclusive expression, since it did not include in its numbering the regularly enlisted forces. Again, in 1 Chronicles the account does not say "all they of Judah were", as it did in the case of Israel, but only "and Judah was", since it left out 30,000 and hence was not all-inclusive.
So when the entire picture is brought under examination, when we remember that the accounts were written by different men, who had different views in mind, we can harmonize the two accounts without difficulty.
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Also this little tidbit about why might it have been a sin to perform the census (sound familiar to anyone):
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w69 3/15 p. 191 Questions from Readers ***Realizing this, commentators have offered various possible reasons for Jehovah’s viewing David’s census taking as a sin. Some have thought that David erred in not collecting the head tax as God said should be done at such times. Others have felt that the king was showing weakness in trying to find out how large his military force was, instead of depending on God for victory no matter what its size. Yet others say that David might have given in to human pride, wanting to be able to boast over Israel’s importance and glory.
