THIS MIGHT SURPRISE YOU
The answer
2 Samuel 24:1 says the LORD's anger incited David. 1 Chronicles 21:1 — retelling the same episode — says satan incited him. The Hebrew there has no definite article, so translations differ between "Satan" as a name and "an adversary"; elsewhere, as in Job 1-2, the word carries the article and denotes a role in the heavenly court rather than a personal name. Same census, two instigators.
Why it’s interesting
Chronicles reworks the older material in Samuel, and this is a striking case of the change. It's one of the passages scholars point to when tracing how biblical writers revised earlier scripture — and a caution against reading the later Christian picture of Satan back into a Persian-period Hebrew text.
Scholarly consensus
You can know the Bible.
Not just the stories, but the history, authorship, and scholarship behind it.