15 And God sent an angel to Jerusalem for its destruction: and when he was about to do so, the Lord saw, and had regret for the evil, and said to the angel of destruction, It is enough; do no more. Now the angel of the Lord was by the grain-floor of Ornan the Jebusite.
So the Lord let himself be turned from his purpose of sending punishment on his people.
And the Lord had sorrow because he had made man on the earth, and grief was in his heart.
And he came the third time, and said to them, Go on sleeping now and take your rest: it is enough; the hour has come; see, the Son of man is given up into the hands of evil men.
O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, putting to death the prophets, and stoning those who are sent to her! Again and again would I have taken your children to myself as a bird takes her young ones under her wings, and you would not! See, your house is made waste.
And he made prayer to the Lord and said, O Lord, is this not what I said when I was still in my country? This is why I took care to go in flight to Tarshish: for I was certain that you were a loving God, full of pity, slow to be angry and great in mercy, and ready to be turned from your purpose of evil.
Micah the Morashtite, who was a prophet in the days of Hezekiah, king of Judah, said to all the people of Judah, This is what the Lord of armies has said: Zion will become like a ploughed field, and Jerusalem will become a mass of broken walls, and the mountain of the house like the high places of the woodland.
Why have you said in the name of the Lord, This house will be like Shiloh, and this land a waste with no one living in it? And all the people had come together to Jeremiah in the house of the Lord.
Whenever I say anything about uprooting a nation or a kingdom, and smashing it and sending destruction on it; If, in that very minute, that nation of which I was talking is turned away from its evil, my purpose of doing evil to them will be changed. And whenever I say anything about building up a nation or a kingdom, and planting it; If, in that very minute, it does evil in my eyes, going against my orders, then my good purpose, which I said I would do for them, will be changed.
Make prayer to the Lord; for there has been enough of these thunderings of God and this ice-storm; and I will let you go and will keep you no longer.
Come back, O Lord; how long? let your purpose for your servants be changed.
Then Solomon made a start at building the house of the Lord on Mount Moriah in Jerusalem, where the Lord had been seen by his father David, in the place which David had made ready in the grain-floor of Ornan the Jebusite.
While he himself went a day's journey into the waste land, and took a seat under a broom-plant, desiring for himself only death; for he said, It is enough: now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my fathers.
And when the hand of the angel was stretched out in the direction of Jerusalem, for its destruction, the Lord had regret for the evil, and said to the angel who was sending destruction on the people, It is enough; do no more. And the angel of the Lord was by the grain-floor of Araunah the Jebusite.
So they put away the strange gods from among them, and became the Lord's servants; and his soul was angry because of the sorrows of Israel.
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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.