These chapters cover the "census" incident. Basically, David wants to number all the fighting men of Israel. David tells this to Joab who questions the order and suggests that David rely on God. David overrules him and Joab has the census done.
Later, David regrets his decision and begs God for mercy. God sends Gad, David's seer, to explain that David has 3 options for punishment - several years of famine, 3 months of military invasion, or 3 days of disease. David picks the disease.
The angel of God ravishes the land for several days. It is about to enter Jerusalem when God says to withdraw it's hand. The angel is at the threshing floor of Aranuah.
David decides to build an altar at this location, so he buys the land from Aranuah.
There are several discrepancies between the account in 2 Samuel and 1 Chronicles. The biggest one is that in 2 Samuel, the whole thing is initiated by God. God is angry at Israel and plants the idea in David's brain. In 1 Chronicles, these actions are attributed to Satan. There might be a Job-esque kind of spiritual discussion going on where God wanted to punish Israel and then left the dirty work to Satan. I think something similar happened with Saul and the evil spirit that troubled him.
There are also discrepancies in the count itself. 1 Samuel reports 800,000 total men and 500,000 men of Judah while 1 Chronicles reports 1,100,000 total men and 470,000 men of Judah.
What's going on? It is possible this whole incident happened twice, hence two different numbers. But then the text reports that David bought the land from Aranuah, which only needed to happen once.
Other possibilities - (1) the numbers are estimates and intended to be so or (2) the numbers are intentionally wrong. This second option would fit the story itself because the 1 Chronicles account says that Joab did not count the men of Benjamin or Levy because he was repelled by David's request. So, the story itself incorporates a lie on behalf of Joab and it is interesting we have a discrepancy. I don't think we can say that the 2 Samuel numbers include Benjamin and that answers the discrepancy because the 2 Samuel numbers are lower than the 1 Chronicles numbers.
So, if we allow for Joab's lie, then another possibility exists - Joab reported both sets of numbers that come from 2 Samuel and 1 Chronicles. David gets a confusing and inaccurate set of numbers and this may have prompted what immediately follows in the text - David's repentance.
Also in 1 Chronicles, the angel tells David, through Gad, to put the altar where the threshing floor was.
It also leaves unanswered - why was this bad when the book of numbers covers 2 separate military censuses? I think the answer is because the censuses of Numbers were in preparation for a specific war. Here, David is counting the fighting men during peacetime and the implicit reason is for his own security. There is no planning going on - David is finding security in the strength of his army and not in God.
Moving on to 1 Chronicles 22, David says that this altar spot is where the house of he Lord will be. This suggests that the temple was built where this threshing floor/altar was. The rest of the chapter covers preparations by David for Solomon to build the temple. David had a reign with lots of warfare and was unfit to build the temple. Solomon will have a peaceful reign it would be more appropriate for him to build a temple. It also explains in footnotes or parentheticals that the word Solomon sounds like "peace" in Hebrew.
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