1 Satan stood up against Israel, and moved David to number Israel.
2 David said to Joab and to the princes of the people, Go, number Israel from Beersheba even to Dan; and bring me word, that I may know the sum of them.
3 Joab said, Yahweh make his people a hundred times as many as they are: but, my lord the king, aren't they all my lord's servants? why does my lord require this thing? why will he be a cause of guilt to Israel?
4 Nevertheless the king's word prevailed against Joab. Therefore Joab departed, and went throughout all Israel, and came to Jerusalem.
5 Joab gave up the sum of the numbering of the people to David. All those of Israel were one million one hundred thousand men who drew sword: and in Judah were four hundred seventy thousand men who drew sword.
6 But he didn't count Levi and Benjamin among them; for the king's word was abominable to Joab.
7 God was displeased with this thing; therefore he struck Israel.
8 David said to God, I have sinned greatly, in that I have done this thing: but now, put away, I beg you, the iniquity of your servant; for I have done very foolishly.
9 Yahweh spoke to Gad, David's seer, saying,
10 Go and speak to David, saying, Thus says Yahweh, I offer you three things: choose you one of them, that I may do it to you.
11 So Gad came to David, and said to him, Thus says Yahweh, Take which you will:
12 either three years of famine; or three months to be consumed before your foes, while the sword of your enemies overtakes you; or else three days the sword of Yahweh, even pestilence in the land, and the angel of Yahweh destroying throughout all the borders of Israel. Now therefore consider what answer I shall return to him who sent me.
13 David said to Gad, I am in a great strait: let me fall, I pray, into the hand of Yahweh; for very great are his mercies: and let me not fall into the hand of man.
14 So Yahweh sent a pestilence on Israel; and there fell of Israel seventy thousand men.
15 God sent an angel to Jerusalem to destroy it: and as he was about to destroy, Yahweh saw, and he repented him of the evil, and said to the destroying angel, It is enough; now stay your hand. The angel of Yahweh was standing by the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.
16 David lifted up his eyes, and saw the angel of Yahweh standing between earth and the sky, having a drawn sword in his hand stretched out over Jerusalem. Then David and the elders, clothed in sackcloth, fell on their faces.
17 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.
18 Then the angel of Yahweh commanded Gad to tell David, that David should go up, and raise an altar to Yahweh in the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.
19 David went up at the saying of Gad, which he spoke in the name of Yahweh.
20 Ornan turned back, and saw the angel; and his four sons who were with him hid themselves. Now Ornan was threshing wheat.
21 As David came to Ornan, Ornan looked and saw David, and went out of the threshing floor, and bowed himself to David with his face to the ground.
22 Then David said to Ornan, Give me the place of this threshing floor, that I may build thereon an altar to Yahweh: for the full price shall you give it me, that the plague may be stayed from the people.
23 Ornan said to David, Take it to you, and let my lord the king do that which is good in his eyes: behold, I give [you] the oxen for burnt offerings, and the threshing instruments for wood, and the wheat for the meal-offering; I give it all.
24 King David said to Ornan, No; but I will most assuredly buy it for the full price: for I will not take that which is your for Yahweh, nor offer a burnt-offering without cost.
25 So David gave to Ornan for the place six hundred shekels of gold by weight.
26 David built there an altar to Yahweh, and offered burnt offerings and peace-offerings, and called on Yahweh; and he answered him from the sky by fire on the altar of burnt offering.
27 Yahweh commanded the angel; and he put up his sword again into the sheath of it.
28 At that time, when David saw that Yahweh had answered him in the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite, then he sacrificed there.
29 For the tent of Yahweh, which Moses made in the wilderness, and the altar of burnt offering, were at that time in the high place at Gibeon.
30 But David couldn't go before it to inquire of God; for he was afraid because of the sword of the angel of Yahweh.
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Commentary on 1 Chronicles 21 John Gill's Exposition of the Bible
INTRODUCTION TO 1 CHRONICLES 21
Excepting the three last verses, is contained in 2 Samuel 24:1 with some few variations, which are there observed; see the notes there.
See Chapter Introduction
At that time when David saw that the Lord had answered him in the threshing floor Of Ornan the Jebusite,.... The same with Araunah, 2 Samuel 24:16, with some small variation of the letters, and are of the same signification; both signifying the "ornus", as HillerusF13Onomastic. Sacr. p. 529, 530. observes, the pine tree or ash; see Isaiah 44:14, in whose threshingfloor David now was, and where he had been praying and sacrificing; and God had accepted his prayer, as the Targum, and had answered him, by causing fire to come down on the sacrifice and consume it, and by ordering the angel to put up his sword in its sheath:
then he sacrificed there; again by the priests, and continued to do so, for he had sacrificed there before, 1 Chronicles 21:26 and finding his sacrifices in that place were acceptable, he repeated them, and did not go to Gibeon, as follows.
For the tabernacle of the Lord, which Moses made,.... Or ordered to be made by the command of God, and according to his direction:
and the altar of burnt offerings, were at that season in the high place at Gibeon; which was four or five miles from Jerusalem, and too far for David to go in that time of extremity; though he must have gone thither to sacrifice, had not the Lord bid him build an altar on the threshingfloor; for there was the altar of burnt offering, on which only, according to the law of Moses, sacrifices were to be offered: this high place is, in the Targum, called the sanctuary, it including, as Kimchi observes, the whole house, the tabernacle, and the altar in it; which had been here, and at Nob, fifty seven years, as the Jewish writers sayF14Maimon. & Bartenora in Misn. Zebachim, c. 14. sect. 7. .
But David could not go before it to inquire of God,.... Which yet was the proper place to seek the Lord in: the reason follows:
for he was afraid, because of the sword of the angel of the Lord; which had so terrified him, that he was so weak that he could not go; and he feared that, should he attempt to go, while he was going thither, at such a distance, the angel would make a terrible slaughter in Jerusalem, and therefore he durst not go and leave it; and besides, as the Lord had commanded him to build an altar there, he might fear it would displease him, should he depart from it; and the rather, as hereby he pointed out to him the place where the temple should be built, and sacrifices offered, as appears from what he says in the beginning of the next chapter.