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1 Chronicles 21:1-5 Young's Literal Translation (YLT)

1 And there standeth up an adversary against Israel, and persuadeth David to number Israel,

2 And David saith unto Joab, and unto the heads of the people, `Go, number Israel from Beer-Sheba even unto Dan, and bring unto me, and I know their number.'

3 And Joab saith, `Jehovah doth add to His people as they are a hundred times; are they not, my lord, O king, all of them to my lord for servants? why doth my lord seek this? why is he for a cause of guilt to Israel?'

4 And the word of the king `is' severe against Joab, and Joab goeth out, and goeth up and down in all Israel, and cometh in to Jerusalem.

5 And Joab giveth the account of the numbering of the people unto David, and all Israel is a thousand thousand and a hundred thousand, each drawing sword, and Judah `is' four hundred and seventy thousand, each drawing sword.

Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » John Gill's Exposition of the Bible » Commentary on 1 Chronicles 21

Commentary on 1 Chronicles 21 John Gill's Exposition of the Bible


Introduction

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.


Verses 1-27

See Chapter Introduction


Verse 28

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.


Verse 29

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. .


Verse 30

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.