23 And Ornan saith unto David, `Take to thee -- and my lord the king doth that which is good in his eyes: see, I have given the oxen for burnt-offerings, and the threshing instruments for wood, and the wheat for a present; the whole I have given.'
`A sojourner and a settler I `am' with you; give to me a possession of a burying-place with you, and I bury my dead from before me.' And the sons of Heth answer Abraham, saying to him, `Hear us, my lord; a prince of God `art' thou in our midst; in the choice of our burying-places bury thy dead: none of us his burying-place doth withhold from thee, from burying thy dead.'
And the cart hath come in unto the field of Joshua the Beth-Shemeshite, and standeth there, and there `is' a great stone, and they cleave the wood of the cart, and the kine they have caused to ascend -- a burnt-offering to Jehovah.
And Araunah saith unto David, `Let my lord the king take and cause to ascend that which is good in his eyes; see, the oxen for a burnt-offering, and the threshing instruments, and the instruments of the oxen, for wood;' the whole hath Araunah given, `as' a king to a king; and Araunah saith unto the king, `Jehovah thy God doth accept thee.'
And he turneth back from after him, and taketh the yoke of oxen, and sacrificeth it, and with instruments of the oxen he hath boiled their flesh, and giveth to the people, and they eat, and he riseth, and goeth after Elijah, and serveth him.
For not with a sharp-pointed thing threshed are fitches, And the wheel of a cart on cummin turned round, For with a staff beaten out are fitches, And cummin with a rod. Bread-`corn' is beaten small, For not for ever doth he sorely thresh it, Nor crushed `it' hath a wheel of his cart, Nor do his hoofs beat it small.
And Hanameel, my uncle's son, cometh in unto me, according to the word of Jehovah, unto the court of the prison, and saith unto me, `Buy, I pray thee, my field that `is' in Anathoth, that `is' in the land of Benjamin, for thine `is' the right of possession, and thine of redemption -- buy for thee.' And I know that it `is' the word of Jehovah,
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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.